A bit of updating...
Jan. 24th, 2019 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI was doing so well at regular updating in December, then Christmas hit and the updating stopped happening. BUT! I have noticed with only a month's break, rather than my usual six months, so that's almost like updating regularly, right?
When I last posted, I had the cold from hell. So did Mum. We hung onto those colds until well into January, unfortunately, and Mum's turned into a chest infection. She's recovering well now that she's been stuck on antibiotics. Poor Mum. We did feel a lot better and thought the colds were actually ending on Christmas Eve, but then they roared back on December 27th. At least we were feeling semi-human for the big bits of Christmas and a lot of the family stuff. Phew.
More Christmas details
Despite the colds, it was a wonderful Christmas and I was so happy to be back for it. Sis and BIL stayed with me (first houseguests!) and BIL's uncle stayed with the parents. I borrowed Mum's car so transport was easy and we spent all day Christmas Day and Boxing Day with the parents. It was absolutely lovely. I cooked breakfast on Christmas Day (French toast and bacon, Mum's new warming drawer made it so easy to keep things warm while I cooked more) and lunch was a communal effort. We had a walk on the local farm late morning, to build up an appetite for lunch, and it was such a fun, gentle day. Lunch was delicious - om nom duck - and then we had a lovely afternoon/evening just relaxing together, chatting and opening presents and enjoying company.
Boxing Day was also quite low-key. Another group breakfast, another lovely lunch, and then the visitors went back to London in the evening. We then had a couple of quiet days, just me and the parents, and I stayed with them because it made Dad happy (and it was nice to not trek out into the cold each night). I visited the flat and the cats each morning, so they weren't abandoned! Over that weekend, we had a day visiting my mum's brother and then we hosted my dad's brother and wife the next day, so there was a lot of family visiting. Sis and BIL stayed with the parents on the Saturday night so I spent that night in my flat, and then I was back staying with the parents until New Year's Day.
This was one of the reasons I moved: getting to spend time with family.
One of the other reasons was getting to spend time with friends, and I just had a weekend doing that by going to Redemption convention.
A sort of con report
For a variety of reasons, it was a much smaller con than usual - only a little over 100 memberships sold, and perhaps 70 people actually came. That did cause problems, particularly with panellists not being there for their program items, but despite that we all had fun. The Discovery panel with no panellists actually turned into a really interesting hour of discussing Discovery, its connection and place in canon, and time travel in the Star Trek verse.
One of the problems was the date change from late Feb to mid-January. A lot of people just couldn't do it: no teachers or parents could make it, and it was too close to Christmas for many. There were also internal issues that caused confusion, so I imagine there were people who didn't even know it was happening. After all, the website was still set up for Redemption '17, and that confused me even though I was already committed to co-running registration.
The decision was made to run the next Redemption over the August bank holiday next year and we registered a surprising number of people despite the tiny number of attendees! So it's looking good already. The date will hopefully be better, enabling the teachers and parents with kids to come (Red has always had a children's program to enable families to come) and allowing the rest of us to come while taking less time off work :-D To prevent some of the internal issues that happened, the committee has instituted deputies/back-ups for every committee function.
And to promote it better, a social media manager has been added to the team. I'm her deputy :-D After all, communication was a significant issue this year, so having someone who is actually handling that and making sure information is copied across all the media people use should help. And having a proper social media presence will help with promotion, particularly when one of the aims is to get younger fans coming to the con again. The website is also being completely rewritten, which will be a pain while it's happening, but will get us a future-proof and more usable website that will be a better source of information.
The "future of the convention" panel can't have been easy for the committee, because there were a lot of criticisms made, but everyone was trying to be constructive and helpful rather than slamming them. I went to Redemption assuming it was the last time it would run, and I came out of that panel feeling hopeful and excited for its future and the convention we'll be putting on next year.
It was good to get a break over Christmas, but I'm also still loving my job so I'm not sad about being back. There's a lot of interesting projects coming up and it feels good to have my efforts regularly recognised. It's such a contrast to my last job!
This year is already shaping up to be another busy one. I've got various trips planned, including two more conventions (Eastercon and Worldcon), and I'm planning to look for a home to buy later in the year. Probably another two bed flat, but ground floor so that it's wheelchair accessible. It looks like I can afford one in the village I grew up in, so keep your fingers crossed. I'll probably start applying for mortgages and looking for something to buy in May or June, although a lot depends on how much chaos is going on due to Brexit. Argh.
We had snow on Tuesday. My train almost didn't make it due to ice on the tracks, but it got to the station eventually. I only fell over once on my walk home and I really regretted not wearing my snow boots! It took Dad 3.5 hours to get home and Mum was sending me increasingly worried texts until he got there. Some of it melted off yesterday and then froze hard, so walking to choir last night was...interesting. There was an ice-skating moment. Thankfully I was almost there when it happened and I didn't actually fall. A couple of friends gave me a lift home. I was really glad I was working from home yesterday and today. The temps should get rid of the ice and snow today. Phew!
I'll still take this tiny bit of snow and temporary chaos over Canadian winters every time.
When I last posted, I had the cold from hell. So did Mum. We hung onto those colds until well into January, unfortunately, and Mum's turned into a chest infection. She's recovering well now that she's been stuck on antibiotics. Poor Mum. We did feel a lot better and thought the colds were actually ending on Christmas Eve, but then they roared back on December 27th. At least we were feeling semi-human for the big bits of Christmas and a lot of the family stuff. Phew.
More Christmas details
Despite the colds, it was a wonderful Christmas and I was so happy to be back for it. Sis and BIL stayed with me (first houseguests!) and BIL's uncle stayed with the parents. I borrowed Mum's car so transport was easy and we spent all day Christmas Day and Boxing Day with the parents. It was absolutely lovely. I cooked breakfast on Christmas Day (French toast and bacon, Mum's new warming drawer made it so easy to keep things warm while I cooked more) and lunch was a communal effort. We had a walk on the local farm late morning, to build up an appetite for lunch, and it was such a fun, gentle day. Lunch was delicious - om nom duck - and then we had a lovely afternoon/evening just relaxing together, chatting and opening presents and enjoying company.
Boxing Day was also quite low-key. Another group breakfast, another lovely lunch, and then the visitors went back to London in the evening. We then had a couple of quiet days, just me and the parents, and I stayed with them because it made Dad happy (and it was nice to not trek out into the cold each night). I visited the flat and the cats each morning, so they weren't abandoned! Over that weekend, we had a day visiting my mum's brother and then we hosted my dad's brother and wife the next day, so there was a lot of family visiting. Sis and BIL stayed with the parents on the Saturday night so I spent that night in my flat, and then I was back staying with the parents until New Year's Day.
This was one of the reasons I moved: getting to spend time with family.
One of the other reasons was getting to spend time with friends, and I just had a weekend doing that by going to Redemption convention.
A sort of con report
For a variety of reasons, it was a much smaller con than usual - only a little over 100 memberships sold, and perhaps 70 people actually came. That did cause problems, particularly with panellists not being there for their program items, but despite that we all had fun. The Discovery panel with no panellists actually turned into a really interesting hour of discussing Discovery, its connection and place in canon, and time travel in the Star Trek verse.
One of the problems was the date change from late Feb to mid-January. A lot of people just couldn't do it: no teachers or parents could make it, and it was too close to Christmas for many. There were also internal issues that caused confusion, so I imagine there were people who didn't even know it was happening. After all, the website was still set up for Redemption '17, and that confused me even though I was already committed to co-running registration.
The decision was made to run the next Redemption over the August bank holiday next year and we registered a surprising number of people despite the tiny number of attendees! So it's looking good already. The date will hopefully be better, enabling the teachers and parents with kids to come (Red has always had a children's program to enable families to come) and allowing the rest of us to come while taking less time off work :-D To prevent some of the internal issues that happened, the committee has instituted deputies/back-ups for every committee function.
And to promote it better, a social media manager has been added to the team. I'm her deputy :-D After all, communication was a significant issue this year, so having someone who is actually handling that and making sure information is copied across all the media people use should help. And having a proper social media presence will help with promotion, particularly when one of the aims is to get younger fans coming to the con again. The website is also being completely rewritten, which will be a pain while it's happening, but will get us a future-proof and more usable website that will be a better source of information.
The "future of the convention" panel can't have been easy for the committee, because there were a lot of criticisms made, but everyone was trying to be constructive and helpful rather than slamming them. I went to Redemption assuming it was the last time it would run, and I came out of that panel feeling hopeful and excited for its future and the convention we'll be putting on next year.
It was good to get a break over Christmas, but I'm also still loving my job so I'm not sad about being back. There's a lot of interesting projects coming up and it feels good to have my efforts regularly recognised. It's such a contrast to my last job!
This year is already shaping up to be another busy one. I've got various trips planned, including two more conventions (Eastercon and Worldcon), and I'm planning to look for a home to buy later in the year. Probably another two bed flat, but ground floor so that it's wheelchair accessible. It looks like I can afford one in the village I grew up in, so keep your fingers crossed. I'll probably start applying for mortgages and looking for something to buy in May or June, although a lot depends on how much chaos is going on due to Brexit. Argh.
We had snow on Tuesday. My train almost didn't make it due to ice on the tracks, but it got to the station eventually. I only fell over once on my walk home and I really regretted not wearing my snow boots! It took Dad 3.5 hours to get home and Mum was sending me increasingly worried texts until he got there. Some of it melted off yesterday and then froze hard, so walking to choir last night was...interesting. There was an ice-skating moment. Thankfully I was almost there when it happened and I didn't actually fall. A couple of friends gave me a lift home. I was really glad I was working from home yesterday and today. The temps should get rid of the ice and snow today. Phew!
I'll still take this tiny bit of snow and temporary chaos over Canadian winters every time.
