Closed for Submissions

The Chronicle Live is now closed for submissions. There will, however, be a little bit of polishing going on in the corners to make this a nicer place for people to (re)visit the memories. :-)

For the photo fans, the photo links page is still going! Check it out and please drop them a line if you've got a collection that you'd like linked.






Photo: Ingo Korb

In which Igorina removes her hair...

Hello All,

You may remember me from the con as 'the Igorina with the really long plaits.'

If you don't remember me, "Hi! I'm Essy, the Igorina with the really long plaits."

But I'm going to have to come up with a new costume idea for 2010, since I'm about to shave my head to raise money for Alzheimer's Research Trust.

And you're going to sponsor me.

Yes, you are.

Okay, you're going to recover from all that cash you spent in the dealers' room, then you're going to sponsor me.

Remember the more money you raise, the less silly I will feel in a month's time when I've got no hair!

You can sponsor me online at http://www.justgiving.com/blondiegoesbald secure in the knowledge that your cash is going direct to the charity. (Don't forget to tick the Gift Aid box if you're a UK taxpayer!)

Thanks!

Essy

(Beware of) The Alchemists Corner

Unidentified Flying Objects
Many reports from the local area have been arriving of UFO sightings.
Some people have suggested that there was just an unusually high volume of witch activity overhead but other eye-witnesses were convinced that what they saw was even more unusual. Reports of children, Feegles, Wizards and even Alchemists on broomsticks have been received. The Alchemist Boughtdaughter was out with her iconograph, with imps at the ready, hoping to capture pictures of the next sightings. These pictures are truly amazing.....

Dragon-Powered Custard Server
The winner of the Swamp-Dragon-Powered-Invention Competition received her reward. The prize for this Alchemist-devised competition was presented to Adele, the inventor of the favourite entry, avoiding too much of a bang. Her contraption is a Swamp Dagon Powered Custard Server (please place your orders now!).

The prize consisted of variously coloured, squidgy, ingredients for alchemy, ingots of (fool's) gold, and a tome called Darwin’s Watch signed by the Alchemists’ Head, Jack Cohen; by UU Head, Ian Stewart, and by the other author.

There were no runners-up prizes but two other entrants are worth a mention. Firstly Len Oil with a Dragon-Powered Sprinkler System and then Liz with 5 separate ideas, mostly good, but she may have lost our vote by suggesting that we use Swamp Dragon residue to flavour crisps!

Alchemists Caught Hunting for Magic Wave-Heating Box
The Alchemists also caused dismay in Harga’s House of Ribs when they caused a multi-layered reaction in a drinking vessel.

Soon after this, Alchemists were caught hunting for a magic wave-heating box. The alchemists insisted that they only wanted the ‘microwave’ to provide tasty ‘popped corn’ snacks, or banged grains. This caused much hilarity (once the panic had died down).

Alchemy Breakthrough
A recent experiment by alchemists was deemed a success although two of the Guild were lost in the explosion. One of the deceased came to terms with her untimely demise by expressing herself in song with a surviving alchemist and seemed to fully accept that she died for a good cause.

RavenousJo, Co-Deputy of the Alchemists Guild

Chronicle Live Says Thanks

Thanks to all the con-goers who submitted articles via USB stick, e-mail and even paper! In particular, I'd like to thank the following people:

• Darrock
• Jesca Yates
• Sarah Ganderton
• Elias Helfer
  
• Nik from Iceland
• The Hunter
  
• Robert "Otto" Flach

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone, the 2010 ConCom wants to know. ;-)

A Con Report - at last - from a tired Guild Deputy

Well, I'm finally in a fit state to write something! It's only taken 3 days to recover from the bone-weary sense of fatigue. But I wouldn't have changed a SINGLE THING ... except maybe to have ensured that the Procrastinators were fully charged. I was painfully aware as the Con got into full swing that there were many, many clashes in my own personal schedule

However, I'm getting ahead of myself!

I arrived at the Hilton about teatime on Thursday (and definitely agree with other people's thoughts on the hotel! Gosh, it was BIG!) I made it through Registration in one piece and, attempting to get the trolley to obey, staggered off to find my room (4227). Not a bad size, with an en-suite bathroom and a sofa - mind you, I didn't get to see much of the room except in the early hours of the morning, when I went to bed!

I headed downstairs and decided to get a drink at the "The Bunch of Grapes". I was pounced on by Beth (a con newbie all the way from Delhi, although born in Houston). She'd seen my Con T-shirt and had taken the plunge, as she didn't know anyone. That soon stopped, as she threw herself into the Convention spirit with gusto. She'd joined the Seamstresses Guild and I have the photos to prove that she filled a corset VERY well. :-))

I soon caught up with my other Guild Deputy, Loriba, and the 3 of us enjoyed some rather pleasant nachos. It set the tone for the rest of the Con - good food, good friends and a LOT of fun. Loriba and I realised that we had a LOT to do and started planning and plotting.

The next few days are a bit more of a blur - I can remember getting up anywhere between 0700 and 0830 most mornings (Friday morning I actually made it to the Hotel's pool, which was very nice). But for the most part it was Loriba and I meeting for breakfast and trying to plan what we were going to do for the day, creating posters, putting them up, talking with the Monks of Cool (who were AWESOME - thanks to Abbot Orjan, Leo, Gideon and Drachii), liaising with the other Deputies to try and ensure we were all co-operating (Many thanks to the ones who I pestered and cajoled - Periwinkle, Marlies, Winterbay, Snow, Eelco, Eric, Kary-Ann and Viv, Judith and Marco - you were wonderful to work with), and getting to Guild events to ensure that our members had some moral support. (Huge thanks to Davina, Xris, Torak, Flexor, Sabremeister, Kirsten, Richard, Thomas, Yoo, Dave, and especially Kai who all performed so brilliantly. I know there were many others - the couple in Maskerade who did the Agnes/Ghost duet and all the people who turned up to support the Conjurors' Guild, but I can't remember any more names).

We produced some interesting games, as a Guild, which a lot of lovely people turned up to and seemed to enjoy:

"Where's the Mime, MiLord?" - a Discworld variant on "What's the Time Mister Wolf". We were completely floored when Stephen Briggs actually agreed to play Lord Vetinari for us and the Dark Clerks (thanks to Drumknott and Yoo) provided a Portable Scorpion Kit (every tyrant should have one!) Everyone (including Stephen) appeared to enjoy themselves, we even had volunteers to be Guards to drag the helpless or maybe hapless victims to the PSP - very silly and a LOT of fun! (Sorry to Pat's talk next door - we did try to whisper "Pit, pit, pit" at the appropriate times!)

A Live Thud Match! - Loriba was a complete STAR here! She (and her lovely Mum) created the board out of lining paper and some little flags of Red (D for Dwarf) and Blue (T for Troll). She even had a pin board mapped out for the players to use and plan their moves. We were worried that we wouldn't get the people for this (after all - 32 dwarves, 8 trolls and 2 players!) but we needn't have worried! Bernard Pearson (our lovely Guild Leader) said that he'd make a special badge for everyone who played (or was a piece) and the Con turned up trumps!! We even had an audience and an Assassin for a ref (how appropriate). Many thanks to ALL who turned up and agreed to stand around on a board in the evening - you were all WONDERFUL, but special thanks to Pieter and Ynte our players (congratulations again to Pieter for winning) and to Kural Kushi - our ref at short notice!

The Condensed Discworld Competition - which ran for the whole Con. The task was to reduce the plot of a DW novel to a single sentence (Brevity is Best) and pop it in the box at Ops. A HUGE thank you to the 4 lovely people who agreed to be our judges Monday morning - Judith "Lady Vanessa" Proctor, Lisa "CCA" Williams, Pat "the Compere" Harkin and Bernard "the Cunning Artificer" Pearson. They had a LOT of entries to go through but they finally whittled their way down to 4 that were the cream and Bernard picked the Overall Winner

Maskerade "Ahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!" by Carolyn (M.O.P.P)
Xris got an Honourable Mention as he'd created a limerick of ALL the novels!!

The Trolls' Dress-Tease - this was very silly but seemed to go OK. Xris and Butcher very kindly agreed to be our Trolls and even allowed RJW76 to paint them grey! We then had two Seamstresses (actually the two Deputies, Essy and Periwinkle) race to dress them. Essy & Xris appeared to be going for total body coverage and speed, whereas Periwinkle and Butcher were going for the artistic look. We allowed the audience to judge and they chose Essy and Xris! Worthy winners!

Just A Minute - There were two sessions - I only managed to make one - Torak as host and Davina, Judith, Alison (Mrs Davina) and Periwinkle started - but I've written about this already. I wish I'd seen the Post Watershed one - it was apparently excellent, with an extra rule of "unnecessary cleanliness" joining the more traditional "hesitation, repetition and deviation."

I know there were more things. I actually saw the How to Buckle a Swash this time, took part in Walk the Walk with Kai (who was BRILLIANT), attended A Time and Place for Music (ahh! the Unholy Round with Mole - magic) and also Toast & Jam where a lot of wonderful musicians covered up my singing :-) (thanks Eric, Edmund and the rest of you all for making me sound reasonable), there were some awesome voices there.

Got to see Maskerade again (well done, all the participants - you were ALL great); attend the Gala Dinner (and wear a posh frock); ride a winning dragon (even if the other riders were inhumed around me. ;-) Watched the Reduced Discworld Production (masterfully done guys! Loved the 50 ft woman), and adored the HolyWood ending (Congratulations to you both!!).

Missed the Charity Auction this year (sigh), both the gophering and the watching, although it was lovely to hear that the Beastiary made £40 (woo hoo) -- there's an animal of mine in there (nice warm fuzzy feeling).

I got to see LOADS of people and talk with at least half, run around like the proverbial fly, eat, drink, HAVE FUN and occasionally (very occasionally) sleep! Biggest thanks must go to the Guild of Conjurors, Thespians and Associated Trades members, but the BIGGEST must go to Loriba who was absolutely wonderful and put up with me the whole weekend!

*rubs hands together*
So - how long til 2010?

*grin*

Ssirienna
(Guild Deputy - Guild of Conjurors, Thespians and Associated Trades)

Con Report The Third, and The Hunter

The last report of a Convention is always the hardest, because by nature it talks of the end, a finality, a closing.

But Discworld Conventions are not like that. They don't end, they merely sleep for a while, until the next time. And while they rest other Discworld things happen.
People who met at the Convention get to know each other more. Events get organised. Con members find the IRC chat channel, and join in and become involved in more Discworld-related things. Discworld children grow to become Discworld adults. Life becomes one long, slowed down Convention, taking place the whole world over.
So, mourn not the Convention. Rumours of its death were greatly exaggerated!

I worried about how to write this. I delayed, because I couldn't think how I could express my feelings. I could have extemporised on the superbness of the Hotel (It was very good, but with a little tweak or two it could be better).
I could have praised the ConCom (But why bother? They were brilliant. They are *always* brilliant. And so many people have told them in ways I never could.)
I could waffle on about how happy I was to meet new friends, to remeet old friends, to discover new Very Close Friends...but no...actually the best way I can finish the Con report is to quote two people who said it so much better than I ever could.

Sessifet: *My inner five-year-old is yelling "I don't wanna wanna GO HOME! I wanna wanna stay with the shiny people!"*

And Bruce, our esteemed ConCom chairman, who put into moving words my thoughts of oh so many years and so many conventions.

*When people hear I'm involved in Discworld, they say to me "For Gods sake, get a life!" Oh, if only they knew what a life I had, and it is all here, in this room!*
His voice broke, just a little, when he said that. And so did mine. For it is true. Whether or not The Man With The Hat intended to do so, he has drawn together a huge disparate group of people, from different countries, faiths, colours, social groups, and turned them all into a group of friends, a family. And that, to me, is the Discworld Fandom. My family. My friends. And long may it be so.

So, until the sleeping goliath that is The Discworld Convention wakes from its slumber next time, Thank you Terry. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The Hunter

Seamstresses' Prizes

The Guild of Seamstresses awarded two prizes at the end of the con.

Richard of the Conjurers Guild won the 'Best Customer' prize. (A shopping bag with the words 'I've been stitched up by the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Seamstresses' on it.)

Judith of the Teachers Guild won the prize at the Double Entendre Olympics. (A tapestry of the Seamstress Guild's logo with the word WINNER above it in red.)

Thanks to everybody who took part!

Photo links

A quick and dirty list of links to sets of photographs - this will be cleaned up and categorised over the next couple of weeks as more links come in (you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the group/pages and get notifications if you wish).

You can additionally send links in to pictures@dwcon.org for adding here now until we have a
more structured page:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/dwcon_org_2008/web/photo-links

Karen/hypatia

Prizes!

A quick list of the main prize winners as announced at the Closing Ceremony - more prizes and links to follow!

Prizes, Prizes, Prizes!



Karen/hypatia, still half asleep...

Reasons to be Cool

As part of this year's Guild effort, all members of the Convention were supplied with a number of Tokens of Appreciation (or TOAs) that they could fill out and present to a deserving fellow attendee.

Many big and high-profile cool things happening at the Convention but we wanted to find a way to allow recognition and "rewarding" of the smaller, more personal cool things that are also a big part of what makes Discworld Conventions so much fun - the TOAs were a way of achieving this.

So, if another convention member did something cool that made your day just that little bit more happy, even (especially!) if it was only something simple like making you smile at the right moment or being a creative participant in some event, you could fill in a TOA and let them know one-to-one.

If the receiver was actively participating in the Guilds they could then hand in the TOAs they had collected to the Monks of Cool and earn their Guild a (small) number of points in the Guild competition.

An unexpected advantage of this setup was that with a couple of hundred of TOAs thus ending up in the Monks' Inbox, we were able to get a pretty good idea of the sort of things that people had found worthy of Appreciation.

Here is a small selection of representative TOA quotes:

• "For... dancing the Flamenco"
• "For... an enlightening bathunt"
• "For... doing the Beastiary"
• "For... being blue"
• "For... education on the subject of mathematics"
• "For... babysitting my stuff while I went to get a power cable"
• "For... Orangogram"
• "For... violence and pushing"
• "For... good singing of songs"
• "For... making me laugh so much; loved my 1st con"
• "For... nice dress"
• "For... 'name the dragon'"
• "For... room 3b"
• "For... feeding the queue"
• "For... gallantry in extreme circumstances"
• "For... cursing the ATM"
• "For... wonderful Toast and Jam"
• "For... one of the most vampish costumes I've ever seen"
• "For... bringing me to the DW con again cos it's so much fun"
• "For... walking around with a sack with a foot sticking out"
• "For... serenading me"
• "For... refereeing the live Thud match"
• "For... great singing and oooking"
• "For... anti-Nac Mac Feegle charm"
• "For... blanket for pet snake"
• "For... making an alchemist explode"
• "For... wish stones and helicopter"
• "For... persuasive recruiting"
• "For... tupenny upright"
• "For... sociability & general kindness"
• "For... death by chocolate"
• "For... assassination contract - fulfilled"
• "For... knowing his hymenoptera"
• "For... buying me a drink"
• "For... bananas!"
• "For... double entendre olympics"
• "For... a very exciting massage"
• "For... spontaneous tap dancing"
• "For... trying to fix my camera"
• "For... the funky broom piccie"
• "For... handing out chocolate goodies. yum."