The Board and membership of the Society for the Furtherance & Study of Fantasy & Science Fiction — a.k.a, SF3, which is the nonprofit parent organization of the WisCon convention — will meet on Sunday, Oct. 9, at 1pm (Central Time). Members who plan to attend in person or by telephone can receive the pertinent information by emailing info@sf3.org. If you are a current SF3 member, or you were a member at the time of the 2015 meeting, you will receive these specifics via email.
Membership
In order to vote at the annual meeting, you must be a current member. “Current member” simply means you’ve paid for your membership according to the deadlines below.
Renewing by mail
Deadline: Â Thursday, Oct. 6.
Renewing online
Deadline: Â Saturday, Oct. 8, 11:59pm (Central Time).
Renewing in person
Deadline: Â Thursday, Oct. 6. (Notification email must be received by 11:59pm Central Time — see next paragraph.)
In order to renew in person at the start of the meeting: You MUST notify the board by emailing the SF3 Treasurer (treasurer@sf3.org) by the deadline above. This ensures that there will be a packet of materials (sent as PDF via email) for you to review in time for the meeting and that your name will be on the roster to vote. Please bring cash or check to the meeting on Sunday.
Current membership rates, a membership form (PDF), and PayPal for online payments are available on the Join page at the SF3 website.
Agenda
All current members will receive PDF documents via email with the meeting agenda and any grant proposals submitted for consideration.  Keep an eye on your spam folder as attachments can sometimes fool even the savviest spam filter.
Paper materials will be available by request only: Email the Treasurer (treasurer@sf3.org) by 11:59pm (Central Time) Thursday, Oct. 6, in order to request a paper copy.
Two officer terms are ending this year — President and Treasurer. If you are considering putting your name forward for one of these positions, please review the list of officer duties on the SF3 website.
Grant Proposals
As part of its educational mission to further the study of fantasy and science fiction, SF3 annually awards grant money to organizations and individuals whose work aligns with SF3’s nonprofit goals. SF3 is pleased to once again solicit grant proposals from interested parties. Details on how to submit your grant proposal, as well as examples of past grant recipients, are available on the Grant page at the SF3 website.
Deadline: Grant proposals must be submitted by Tuesday, Oct. 4, 11:59pm (Central Time).
Successful grant proposals have ranged in amounts from just a few hundred dollars to $1,000. This year, SF3’s total budget for awarding grants is $2,000. This is a bit lower than the average of recent years, so if you are applying for grant money we highly recommend explaining how receiving less money than you ask for would affect your entity’s ability to provide the services for which you are requesting funding. It is not unusual for SF3 to offer a grant award that meets most but not all of the funds requested.
The reason for our limited grant budget this year is simple belt-tightening. For the past few years (and across several iterations of the SF3 board), SF3 has had to spend some of its reserve money every fiscal cycle. The reasons we’ve dipped into our reserves have ranged from WisCon departments occasionally having to spend over their budget (for example, this year’s catastrophic equipment failure in the Con Suite) to SF3 determining to stretch the grant budget to try to accommodate as many proposals as possible. This is the nature of working with a budget that’s set a full month before we receive grant proposals and nine months before WisCon happens.
SF3 and WisCon remain on very firm financial footing, and going forward we’ll be assured of remaining financially sound by following the Financial Reserve Policy implemented by the SF3 Board a little over a year ago. But for 2016, because we are a little below the reserve called for in the policy, we’re limiting our total grant disbursements a bit as part of our efforts to start building up our reserves again. The reserves have done exactly what they’re supposed to do — that is, provide a buffer for unexpected or extra-budgetary expenses — but now we need to rebuild the reserves so that they’re there if SF3 or WisCon need them again in the future.
Questions
If you have questions about the upcoming meeting, please contact the SF3 Corresponding Secretary via email: correspondsecretary@sf3.org
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