Congratulations to Naomi Fisher & Patrick Molloy,
the new DUFF representatives!

Final results for the election were a total of 156 ballots cast, subtracting 20 ballots with no preference for 136 ballots cast with a preference.

TOTAL	                         1	2	3
=====

Naomi Fisher & Patrick Molloy 	92	
Steven Silver	                37	83
No Preference	                20	20
Hold Over Funds	                 7	24
Write-in	                 0	 0	3

Write-ins were Beastie and Teddy Harvia; some voters selected 
"Write-in" but gave no name.


North America
=============

Naomi Fisher & Patrick Molloy	89	
Steven Silver	                28	81
No Preference	                17	20
Hold Over Funds	                 6	25
Write-in	                 0	 0	1


Australia
=========
 
Naomi Fisher & Patrick Molloy	3	8
Steven Silver	                9	2
No Preference	                3	0
Hold Over Funds	                1	1	
Write-in	                0	0	


THE FINANCIAL SIDE OF THINGS
============================

DUFF North America		        DUFF Australia

Previous balance	$  14,481.44	Previous balance	A$ 5539.45
Voter  donations	    1,307.98	Voter donations	            195.50
Windycon auction	      170.00	Other donations	             84.00
Trip reports	              172.50    Trip reports	            105.05
Fanac trip report bonus	      100.00		                   =======
Other donations	              535.00    SUBTOTAL		A$ 5924.00	
Interest thru Dec. 31, 2000   113.64	Cathy's trip	        -  2200.00
 	                   =========	Trip report printing	-    25.00
SUBTOTAL	         $ 16,880.56				   =======
Postage, mailing, 			TOTAL			A$ 3699.00
  printing costs	-     100.00	
Auction expenses	-     125.00
	                   =========
TOTAL	                 $ 16,655.56

So Long, and Thanks for All the Echidnas!

Janice here, writing in my last DUFF newsletter as administrator. I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who made my DUFF experience so memorable. Besides all the people I thanked in my trip report (still available for sale :-> ), I also want to thank former fan fund administrators, both TAFF and DUFF, for their willingness to answer plaintive email messages about the unspoken byways of fan fund administration. I want to especially thank Pat and Roger Sims for help and advice beyond the call of duty.

I like to think that I can retire with honor - counting repaying DUFF for my airfare expense, the fund is now richer by nearly $8,000 more than the balance I received, thanks to auctions and the generosity of fans. I actually finished my trip report, which just by itself raised over $1,000. And I hope that my trip fulfilled the main goal of DUFF: strengthening the ties between North American and Australian fandom.

Traveling for a fan fund and then serving as administrator is truly a life-highlight experience. I will never forget my trip, or the people I met through representing DUFF both in Australia and in the U.S. I hope DUFF continues to be healthy and to extend its vision of fannish friendship. Best of luck to the new North American administrators!

Croggled in the USA

An excerpt of Cathy Cupitt's DUFF trip report

I arrived in San Jose on the fifth week of my travels, to visit one of my bestest chums from those long ago university undergraduate days, Quinn,also known as Quinn the Eskimo and The Mighty Quinn. Quinn met me at the airport at an ungodly hour of the morning and whisked me home in his new VW Beetle. Now the last time that I had seen Quinn, he had been a confirmed cyclist, and had avoided getting a driver's license for all of his twenty-six or so years. In fact, he was a notorious anti-driving nut. So I had to wonder what kind of strange brain-washing abilities Americans had at their disposal to have wrought such a change! And so I sat, goggle-eyed for most of the drive, not taking in much of what Quinn was saying. I do vaguely remember that he mentioned taking me to his favourite place, the boardwalk of Santa Cruz, and that I wasn't allowed to go there with anyone else. I nodded my head at him, and went right back to goggling.

A few days later Quinn made good on his promise and drove me (the goggling had mostly worn off by then) over the hills to Santa Cruz. On the way we stopped to look at the view of The Bay and were accosted by a group of bikers who had also stopped to look at the view. One particularly compact bloke, clad in denim, a patched leather vest and the kind of scaggly face growth that says, "Yeah I'm up for a punch-up mate, where's the beer?", came over to us. Quinn and I shared one of those looks. You know, the kind that says, "I locked my car door," and "so did I," and "well you've got the keys, so move your arse," and so forth.

"Hey," said scraggly-biker, "would youse guys take a picture of us?" And he thrust out a camera and grinned at us through the face hair. Quinn and I shared another long look, but this one was of stunned amazement. After what felt like an eternity of crogglement, but was only a moment of real time, I said, "You're a New Zealander!" Scraggly-biker stared right back at us. "You're Aussies!" he said, equally croggled. I said, "Yep. We'll take your photo mate, if you'll take ours." And so we swapped cameras, while all the other bikers laughed like drains, because he was the only New Zealander in the group.

There is something about coming across another antipodean when travelling around the northern hemisphere that is terribly comforting. Without those occasional moments, it is all too easy to feel that you made the southern hemisphere up, because there is a deep and fundamental disbelief in its existence amongst northerners. They kind of know that its there, the same way they know that there is a star called Betlegeuse. It's out there somewhere, but not very important. When we Aussies dubbed our homeland Oz, we got it so much more right than we knew!

Quinn and I drove on, much bouyed by this encounter. When we finally arrived at the boardwalk we were both in a good mood, and mosied about enjoying the sights, smells and screams of terror coming from the more energetic rides. In fact, I was in such a good mood, that I started to waffle on to Quinn about how lucky I was. "I'm so lucky," I said. "It seems as though I can't put a foot wrong lately." Quinn looked sceptical.

"What do you mean?" he asked. That was all the prompting I needed to launch into my I'm-so-lucky speech. "Well, take this trip for example," I said. "Not only did I get to go to the world science fiction convention,"and I proudly pointed to my Chicon T-shirt, which I was fortuitously wearing, "but I get to travel around and meet fans, see the sights, talk SF, and catch up with friends. And I got to do this because people voted for me! I think that's lucky." Quinn nodded, but was obviously still sceptical. "OK," I said, "then there's my PhD. I'm getting paid to read and write science fiction for three years. That definately counts as lucky!" Quinn smiled his I'm-not-convinced-but-it's-a-good-theory smile.

He said, "But you worked for that luck to happen. You couldn't have been voted for DUFF or started your PhD if you hadn't worked to make it happen." I shrugged my shoulders. "You don't have to believe me," I said, too happy to try to convince him. "It just is!"

We walked a bit further, until we came to the end of the boardwalk. As we were looking around to see if there was a way to get to the interesting looking bridge that ran adjacent to the boardwalk's fence, I spotted a man walking along eating a chocolate-coated frozen banana on a stick. I nudged Quinn. "Hey," I said, "that looks like a choc-coated frozen banana. Did you see a stall selling them?" We looked around for a minute, but couldn't see the stall. "Bum," I said, "I haven't had a choc-coated frozen banana in years. I could just go one." Quinn said, "So ask him where he got his."

So I did, much to Quinn's embarrassment.

"Hi," I said to the guy. "Is that a choc-coated frozen banana? Where did you get it, because I'd love one." He gave me a very odd look for a moment, then turned to his wife and said, "Hey, Marie, come here." He walked over to meet her, spoke to her for a second, then he turned to me and said, "Here, have this one. We have a spare." And he handed me a choc-coated frozen banana, still in its wrapper. After picking my jaw up off the boardwalk, and saying my thank-yous, I rejoined Quinn, who had stood by in the background and watched the entire incident.

"How do you have a spare chocolate-coated frozen banana!?" he asked, completely gob-smacked.

I sucked on my banana contentedly, and said, "Just lucky I guess".

Thanks to everyone who voted in the DUFF 2001 Race!

NORTH AMERICA	

Eve Ackerman	      	Pam Fremon		Gary Mattingly		Geri Sullivan
Arthur Aldridge	     	E.B. Frohvet		Catherine Mintz		Joseph B. Szczepaniak III
Claire Anderson	      	David Gallaher		Patrick Molloy		Tim Szczesuil
Dave Anderson	      	Deb Geisler		Murray Moore	        Diana Thayer
Bonnie Atwood		Linda S. Gerstein	Cheryl Morgan	        Suzanne Tompkins
Ted Atwood		Jeanne Gomoll	        Janice Murray		Leslie Turek
Allen J. Baum		Marc Gordon	        Hal O'Brien		R. Laurraine Tutihasi
Martha Beck		Barbara Haddad	        Ulrika O'Brien		Tom Veal
Judy Bemis 	 	Gay Haldeman	        Mark L. Olson		Michael Waite
Stephen Boucher	        Teddy Harvia	        Priscilla Olson		Julie Wall
Bill Bowers	        Arthur Henderson	Tony E. Parker		Mike Weasner
Barrett L. Brick        Rebecca R. Henderson	Bruce Pelz		James T. Wesley
Ned Brooks	        Andrew Hickmott	        Lloyd Penney		Donya White
Ann A. Broomhead	Chip Hitchcock		Sam Pierce		Tom Whitmore
Michael A. Burstein	Jim Hudson		Gary Plumlee		Kip Williams
Mary Piero Carey	Frank Johnson		Andrew I. Porter	Gene Wolfe
David Clark		Neil & Cris Kaden	Carol Resnick		Peter Wong
Eli Cohen		Mary Kay Kare		Mike Resnick		Martin Morse Wooster
Don Cook		Rick Katze		Alan Rosenthal		Ben Yalow
Charlene Taylor D'Alessio  Jerry Kaufman	Dave Rowe		Joel Zakem
Joni Brill Dashoff	Margaret Keifer		Ruth Sachter	
Kathryn Daugherty	Michael Kingsley	Ron Salomon	
Gay Ellen Dennett	Samuel E. Konkin III	Sharon Sbarsky		AUSTRALIA
Jane Dennis		Dina S. Krause		Ben Schilling	
Scott Dennis		Dave Langford		David W. Schroth	Zara Baxter
Carolyn Doyle		Roy Lavender		Joyce Scrivner		Roy Ferguson
Cathy Doyle		Hope Leibowitz		Elisa Sheets		John Foyster
Christine Dziadosz	Evelyn Leeper		Elaine Silver		Emma Hawkes
Donald E. Eastlake III	Anthony Lewis		Steven Silver		Irwin Hirsh
Jill Eastlake		Suford Lewis		Pat Sims		Erika Lacey
David & Andrea Evans	Robert Lichtman		Roger Sims		Eric Lindsay
John Fast		Dennis Lien		Dick Smith		Mark Loney
Doug Faunt		Guy H. Lillian III	Joy V. Smith		Lyn McConchie
Tom Feller		Eric Lindsay		Leah Zeldes Smith	Perry Middlemiss
Jonathan K. Fisher	Mark Linneman		Randy Smith		Rose Mitchell
Naomi Fisher		Perrianne Lurie		Richard C. Spelman	John Newman
Don Fitch		Nicki Lynch		Kevin Standlee		Marc Ortlieb
George Flynn		Richard Lynch		Sue Starke		Yvonne Rousseau
Steve Francis		Jim Mann		Ian Stockdale		Alan Stewart
Sue Francis		Kevin J. Maroney	Erwin S. Strauss	Jean Weber


We'd like to thank the fans on both sides of the Pacific who have given generously of their time, worldly goods, money, and hospitality to the Down Under Fan Fund.
Ballot-counting software used by the math-impaired NA administrator
was provided, and is copyrighted, by Jeffrey L. Copeland. Many thanks!

This newsletter brought to you by:

Australasia
Cathy Cupitt
P.O. Box 915
Nedlands 6909, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Internet:ccupitt@geocities.com

North America
Janice Gelb
1070 Mercedes Avenue #2
Los Altos, CA 94022 USA
Internet: j_gelb@yahoo.com


Top of Page