Press Release #37

CONJOSÉ MAILS MEMBERSHIP REIMBURSEMENTS

CONJOSE, THE 60TH WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION
PO Box 61363, Sunnyvale CA 94088-1363 USA

info@conjose.org

http://www.conjose.org/

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, July 1, 2003

CONJOSÉ MAILS MEMBERSHIP REIMBURSEMENTS

ConJosé, the 2002 World Science Fiction Convention, issued reimbursements to qualified volunteers, staff, committee, and program participants beginning in late May 2003. The convention issued reimbursements in batches, and mailed the last major batch of reimbursements on Thursday, June 19, 2003 from San Jose, California.
Anyone who believes s/he is due a refund who has not received a refund or other contact from ConJosé by July 15, 2003 should write to the convention Treasurer, Cindy Scott, at the convention address (PO Box 61363, Sunnyvale CA 94088-1363 USA) or e-mail her at controller@ConJose.org.

After paying all of its other bills, ConJosé had a sufficient surplus to be able to pay traditional reimbursements. Through June 30, 2003, ConJosé had issued 690 payments to volunteers, staff, committee, and program participants. Total reimbursement payments through that date were US$96,473.

The convention began to distribute reimbursements at a ConJosé Thank-You Party held at BayCon 2003 in San Jose. After that, as batches of checks were completed, the convention sent members in the USA checks in US dollars by first class mail. Members outside the USA were reimbursed in their local currency through one of the convention's agents whenever it was practical, unless arranged otherwise with ConJosé's Treasurer.

Because reimbursement checks were processed in batches, ConJosé elected to distribute each batch as it was finished rather than hold up payment for some members while waiting for future batches to be finished. As a result, not everyone entitled to reimbursement received his/her payment at the same time.

ConJosé is still researching a few reimbursement payments to confirm the payment amounts or to resolve other issues. Because of this, the final amount of reimbursements paid will be slightly higher than the total reported above. The final payments will be to the convention co-Chairs, Tom Whitmore and Kevin Standlee, who pledged that they would not be reimbursed until the other qualified members had been paid.

In a letter distributed with reimbursements, Whitmore and Standlee wrote, "Thank you for contributing your time, your effort, and your creativity to ConJosé. We're hoping the tangible thanks of a refund will remind you that we really appreciated what you did. Each one of you contributed, and it would have been a different con without you."
ConJosé reimbursed membership fees, including, if applicable, any Advance Supporting Membership (voting) fees collected in the 2002 Worldcon site selection election, and any pre-supporting membership fees paid to the Bay Area in 2002 Worldcon Bid Committee.

Like almost all other Worldcons, all members of ConJosé, including the committee, staff, and program participants, were required to buy memberships. Worldcon committees are legally and financially independent from each other, and have no inherent right to share each other's surpluses other than through the Pass-Along Funds mechanism, nor are they responsible for each other's liabilities. Because of this, most Worldcons require all members except the Guests of Honor to buy memberships. Traditionally, North American Worldcons with sufficient surplus to do so refund memberships to program participants and volunteers.

As required by the World Science Fiction Society, ConJosé will present a financial report to the WSFS Business Meeting at Torcon 3 detailing the convention's financial status.

ConJosé also plans to host Thank-You Parties at Westercon 56 in Seattle and at Torcon 3 in Toronto.

Having completed traditional membership reimbursements, ConJosé is currently planning a mailing of convention membership materials to its supporting members and attending members who were unable to attend the convention. ConJosé expects to complete this mailing in July or August 2003. The convention originally projected this mailing for June 2003, and apologizes for any inconvenience this delay caused.

Contact:
Kevin Standlee info@conjose.org

The 2002 Worldcon, known as ConJosé, took place at the McEnery Convention Center, San José, California from 29 August through 2 September 2002. More information about ConJosé is available from its web site (http://www.conjose.org/) or by writing to info@conjose.org.

To be removed from the ConJosé press release mailing list please write to publicity@conjose.org.

"ConJosé" is a service mark of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc., a California non-profit corporation recognized as tax exempt under IRC 501(c)(3).

"WSFS", "Worldcon", "World Science Fiction Convention" and "Hugo Award" are registered service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.

"ConJosé" is a service mark of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (SFSFC), a California non-profit corporation recognized as tax-exempt under IRC 501(c)(3). The ConJosé logo was created by and is © 2001 David Cherry, and is a service mark of SFSFC. This web site is © 2002 SFSFC except where otherwise noted. "Worldcon," "World Science Fiction Convention," "WSFS," "World Science Fiction Society," "NASFiC," and "Hugo Award" are registered service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.    ConJosé Privacy Policy