Greetings from Tampere

The annual co-operation planning & smoffing event of the Finnish fandom was held on Saturday in Tampere. Despite the lack of sauna this year, the event was fun as always. This year there was extra smoffing: more people stayed for the evening, and today morning those of us that got out of bed in time met for a brunch and some additional smoffing—will have to make a habit of that in the future—before heading back home.

There was a lot of talk about the Finncon association, and some decisions were made to make the association more efficient in the future. I think (and others I talked to seemed to agree) that we’ll probably also have to change the association’s general meeting in the coming years: in the current format I think it took up too much time (that could have been used by watching more Horst videos—no, scratch that plan on second thought).

Some upcoming events announced at the meeting:

• Terrakoti (Turku clubhouse) spring party, March 14 (will not necessarily be a pyjama party)
• Usva winter camp (discussions about writing & sf, movies, etc.), Ristiina, March 20–22
• Tampere kuplii comics convention in Tampere, March 27–29
• Jyväskylä book fair, March 27–29
• ESC (Espoo sf society) 5-year anniversary pub meeting, March 30
• BaCon 2, a minicon organized by FUI (the Åbo Akademi society of peculiar interests), sometime in April; illegal fireworks will not be organized in conjunction with BaCon
• Vappu party in Turku, April 30
• Conklaavi role playing convention in Turku, May 9–10
• Åcon 3, Mariehamn, May 21–24 (GoH: Steph Swainston)
• HySFK table-top hockey championship games, some time in the spring in Helsinki
• ESC summer picnic probably on June 6; possible themes include searching for world’s smallest giant monkeys or underwater nazi zombies
• Helsinki Suomenlinna picnic some time in June; exact date not decided
• Usva summer camp (a writers’ workshop, plus more general sf programming on the weekend), Ristiina, July 23–26
• Fantasy Feast (pseudo-medieval weekend), Taivassalo, July 24–26
• the roadside picnic in Tampere, August 8
• TamFan, Smial Morel’s fantasy minicon, September 26
• Turku book fair, October 2–4
• Helsinki book fair, October 22–25
• the 20th anniversary of the Jyväskylä sf society 42, December

Miscellaneous announcements:

• Portti-kirjat will publish a R.E. Howard short story anthology this year
• the Finnish Film Foundation seems to be enthusiastic about the prospect of a Finnish movie with nazis on the Moon
• a Finnish ninja musical is being planned
• The Nova short story competition is arranged for the 10th time this year
• The Noviisi short story competition for young writers arranged for the second time, this time nationwide
• Risingshadow.net advertized now more science fiction discussion than ever; the site wants to cooperate with everyone; the site has been visited 8 000 000 times since the relaunch a couple of years ago; there are about 400 active members (median age 20)
• The Helsinki university sf club has moved to a new clubhouse, shared with (among others) the Helsinki university assasins’ society—so if you get an invitation to the housewarming party, I guess you’d better attend
• The Finnish Tolkien Society’s zine Legolas is back on schedule; four issues will be published this year. New editor: Mixu Lauronen
• The Finnish NOFF delegate for this year has been selected, but wasn’t announced yet, because the previous delegate Marianna was on a work trip; over 250 € was raised at the NOFF auction
• The Finnish anime societies have also started regular cooperation meetings—this year they also held the meeting in Tampere, and actually on the same day as our meeting
• Swecon comes to Stockholm again this year (Imagicon 2, October 16–18)—people were encouraged to attend because Swecons are fun. More info from agent Ben Roimola
• Irma Hirsjärvi will defend her thesis on the Finnish fandom at the University of Jyväskylä in a couple of weeks (March 14). Congratulations, Ipa!