WisCon and POC - Spread the Word!

Here are the details we’ve worked out for the unofficial POC-only events @ WisCon:

Friday:

Meet & Greet

After the opening ceremonies (approx 8:30PM) there will be an informal gathering of POC so that we can meet each other, plan how we’re going to deal with certain aspects of the POC space during the con, and squee over the # of us all in one place. At around 8:50 we’re going to depart for somewhere other than the lobby–perhaps someone’s room, a corner of the bar, a restaurant, wherever we decide. So be sure to be in the lobby before then!

Saturday:

11:45 - 1:00 PM - Intra-POC Relationships & Coalition Building Kaffeeklatsch
one of the overflow rooms on the 6th floor.

Participants of this kaffeeklatsch will be limited. (I’ll let you guess what the limitations are.) In order to avoid certain unpleasantness, there will be folks at the con with sign-up lists for this event. You’ll be able to recognize them by the buttons they wear, which will say “People Against We-Sha-Sha“. If you want to be one of the people with a sign-up list, please let me know.

(The lunch time begins at 11:15, which gives people time to hop over to the cafe to get some food if there’s nothing in the con suite they can eat. But I believe this year they are making sure there are vegetarian and vegan options.)

Monday:

8:00 - 9:45AM - POC Breakfast & Con Roundup
Concourse Hotel Restaurant

Some have suggested we have a last get-together on the last day to go over our con experiences and sketch out a plan for how we’re going to deal with some of the POC-only spaces next year. I blocked out the entire early morning programming block so that people could drop in as they wake up, pop out to attend a panel, etc.

Also, now that the programming schedule is up, is anyone willing to take shifts (during one programming block, say) so we can have a POC-only lounge space?

Now that we have a day/time, is anyone able to print out a bunch of copies of the info flier so we can hand them out?

And last, I would like to have a reading with all POC participants (though the audience can be mixed, maybe?), maybe on Saturday. Is anyone interested in reading?

Spread the word, everyone! I want as many people to know about this before the con as possible, as it will facilitate getting people in the right place at the right time.

Tags: activism, people of color, POC, wiscon
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WisCon and POC Space

I just got my final programming schedule and all of my panels are on Sunday! And now that the process is complete, it’s time to discuss the POC-only panel “Intra-POC Relationships & Coalition Building” that was first suggested in this thread. As discussed there and elsewhere, there are issues surrounding creating a POC-only space officially at WisCon. However, if we decide to hold this panel/conversation unofficially (which is what we’re doing–genius!) then that does not impact on the WisCon organization and bring up icky legal issues.

There was also an interest in having a POC-only space for folks to retire to throughout the con. Again, such a space can’t be an official WisCon thing, but, again, we’ve found a way to work it out.

The only thing left to do now is organize and set dates and times. For the panel discussion, I thought it would be a good idea to do it during the lunch break on Saturday and have people eat while it’s going on. A lunch meeting! The room will be on the 6th floor, right down the hall from the con suite, so people can pop down there, grab something to eat, and join in. However, this might not work for everyone, so I created this poll:

Next issue, the POC-only space. Again, this will happen in one of the rooms on the 6th floor during the day (i.e. before the dinner break). But in order for it to work we’ll need to have one person in the room during the times it’s available to be a doorkeeper, as it were. We don’t need to have the room available all day, certainly, because all of us want to enjoy the con. So it will, essentially, be open when there is someone there to take a shift. You probably won’t know for certain when you’d want to do a shift until the programming schedule is posted and you see which panels you want to attend, but if you’re at all interested in taking a shift, please say so in comments (and leave an email address where I can contact you!).

Other tasks that need doing:

• Designing a flier to tell people about the panel and the POC-only space
• Blogging about it so that people know what’s up before getting there
• Deciding who the “panelists” (or, as I like to think of them, moderators of the group conversation) will be
• Scoping out if people want to have other POC related conversations/panels in the space as well — maybe people from deadbro?
• Scoping out if we want to do a POC author reading

I’m excited!

ETA: Some folks indicated Friday afternoon so in order to prepare themselves for the con ahead.  I think this is a good idea, but we should also remember some folks won’t hear about this until the con, and we don’t want to leave them out.  But if we get together for dinner Friday or have a general meet & greet, that would work, too, and have the major discussion on Saturday once we’ve had a chance to spread the word about it.

Tags: people of color, wiscon
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