Big Pond Fund

A precursor to TAFF, a fund initiated to bring a British fan, in this case Ted Carnell, across the big pond (Atlantic Ocean) to attend a Worldcon. Forry Ackerman first promoted the idea with the 1947 Philcon Worldcon as the target convention. (James Hevelin was the fund's California Representative and William S. Sykora was the New York Representative.) But insufficient funds were raised and the project was postponed; Carnell wrote a thank you note to contributors, in which he stated prophetically: "There is no reason why a delegate should not visit each other's country on alternate years..."

Carnell did eventually get funded over to attend the 1949 Cinvention Worldcon, but it was still largely "angeled" by Ackerman. It took the success of the WAW With the Crew in '52 campaign, launched by Shelby Vick, which solely via fan support brought Willis to attended the 1952 Chicon II Worldcon to launch TAFF and subsequently all other fan funds.

See also Big Pond.

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Fanfund

1947

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