Today was the Westercon 77 Business Meeting. Because Lisa didn't come to Westercon (she's preparing for her trip to Europe that starts on Wednesday of this week), she loaned me her camera gear and I was deputized to record the meeting. Kevin is the overall manager of Westercon Business (both Martin Pyne, chair of the Business Meeting, and I as head of Site Selection report to him), and he also maintains a YouTube playlist of Westercon Business Meetings. Here's the video from this year's meeting.



I presented the results of Site Selection to the meeting at the start. The results of Site Selection were declared official when the meeting thanked me for my work and ordered me to destroy the ballots, which I will do when I get home where our shredder is.

A technical amendment that restores the official name of Westercon (accidentally deleted by a different change a few years ago) was ratified without objection.

Then came the Big Event: the motion that I authored with Linda Deneroff to Retire Westercon. I spoke first, and you can watch the video to hear my case. There was some debate, and while I feel sure that nobody really wants Westercon to end, the meeting appears to have been persuaded by my argument that it's time for it to retire, and for the retirement to be done in a dignified and orderly manner.

The motion to Repeal the Westercon Bylaws received first passage by a vote of "many to four." As with all bylaw amendments, it has to be ratified by the following year's Westercon to take effect. Should the motion be ratified, there would still be two Westercons left. Westercon 79 in 2027 will be in Santa Clara at BayCon. The possible Last Westercon would be Westercon 80 in 2028. That convention site will be selected next year at BayCon 2026.

I hope that we can persuade LASFS, which founded the convention in 1948, to host Westercon 80 and give Westercon a dignified and appropriate retirement.