TAFF
The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund is a fan fund that has brought fans from the UK or Europe to conventions in North America and vice versa since 1954.[1]
The first yearly fan fund, TAFF followed the second successful fund to bring a fan from overseas to Worldcon (then exclusively a North American affair) – the WAW With the Crew in '52 Campaign for Walt Willis to the Chicon II. That, in turn, was inspired by the Big Pond Fund, which brought Ted Carnell to Cinvention in 1949.
Afterwards, these examples were generalized to a permanent fund; the planning stages were briefly called British Fan Fund and later Two-Way Transatlantic Fan Fund when it became clear the directions should be alternated, but this never caught on. Once TAFF became a going concern, the other major fan funds – DUFF (Transpacific, since 1972) and GUFF (trans-Indian-ocean, as it were, from 1979) – followed its example and practices with similar success, connecting Austral(as)ia into the triangle. However, there were several flareups of TAFF Wars when All Fandom was Plunged into War, the last and most notorious in 1984–5. This led to the development of the "20 % rule" intended to ensure that no one side of the ocean should be able to force their own favo(u)rite on unwilling hosts.
Every other year, a European fan (usually, but increasingly often not, from the UK) is elected to attend a Worldcon in North America.[2] In the following year, a NA fan attends Eastercon, the UK national convention. There are a few exceptions to the regular alternation: When the Worldcon is held in Europe, one of the races is scheduled so the American winner goes to that Worldcon.[3]
To run, fans need to get three nominators from their side of the Atlantic and two from the other side. They also have to post a bond saying that, barring Acts of God, they will attend the designated convention if they are elected, and provide a 100-word platform. The TAFF ballots were distributed with fanzines and handed out at conventions or clubs; this has been largely replaced by the internet.
Funds are raised through a required minimum voting fee, donations, and benefit auctions or fanzine/book sales at cons and by mail.
Winners usually get convention memberships comped as special guests and stay at fans’ homes before and after the con, traveling to different fan centers and getting to know fans better in the host country. They are expected to write a trip report: it's not an iron-clad requirement but people grumble if they don’t. It has become a tradition that the reports are delayed many years, so some fan organisations have offered a substantial donation to TAFF for any report finished within five years.
The winners spend the next two years acting as TAFF administrators on their side of the Atlantic, fundraising, publicizing the fund, overseeing the subsequent TAFF elections and helping to arrange the winners’ trips.
- Unofficial but comprehensive TAFF website maintained by Dave Langford since 2005, reproducing ballots, newsletters and voting results for past races. The site also offers free fannish ebooks, some TAFF trip reports and TAFF Trip Report Anthology (Ansible Editions, 2017) – a compilation of trip reports left unfinished or too brief for separate publication, along with sample chapters from reports still in progress.
- Table of trip reports (up to 2018, later replaced by the comprehensive detailed listing)
- Clevention PR 4 Article on TAFF.
- TAFF publications online at fanac.org.
- The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (N3F Fandbook, 1963).
See also: TAFF Wars, Fan Funds.
- ↑ No fan from Canada has won TAFF, although a few tried. As for the opposite direction, Britons were sent to two out of four Canadian Worldcons (during TAFF’s existence, in 1984 and 2003), while the 1973 and 2009 trips were eastward.
- ↑ NASFiC is a possibility in years when the Worldcon is held outside NA (or Europe, which takes precedence as noted below). However, this never happened before 2023: there was no TAFF race in 1975 and all trips in 1985, 1999, 2007, 2010 and 2020 went East(er)ward.
- ↑ There was a discussion in 1986 whether Eastercon might be a better Platonic expression of the Britfandom spirit, where the TAFF guest was not lost in crowds of Americans who inevitably travel to Worldcons abroad; however candidates expressed preference for Conspiracy '87 over BECCON '87. As UK and European Worldcons became more frequent, and routes of transatlantic communication were opened by internet and low-cost flights, it has become a de facto rule to run TAFF eastward in such years.
- ↑ PDF/MP3 download for £5 going to TAFF.
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, a fund intended to take Britons to American Worldcons and, alternate years, vice versa. It all began with Shelby Vick's WAW With the Crew in '52 campaign, which undertook to bring Walt Willis over to America, to the ChiCon II, that year. (There had been a predecessor in the Big Pond Fund drives sparkplugged by Ackerman.) Early in 1953 Don Ford and the Cinci Fantasy Group started a fund to bring Anglofan Norm Ashfield to the Philcon II but he was unable to come and Don offered the funds to anyone else Anglofandom should select. At the 1953 Loncon at the Bonnington the idea of a continuing TAFF was brainstormed by Willis, Vin¢ Clarke, Slater, Chuch Harris, Terry Jeeves, Eric Bentcliffe, Norm Shorrock and John Brunner, after long hours of discussion and smokefilled-room sessions.
The original idea was that nominees should be "someone fairly well-known to both British and American fandom" and that voters "should have been active in fandom to the extent of having subscribed to or contributed to at least one fanzine or joined a fan club or organization". Don Ford on this side and Walt Willis on that side acted as administrators -- exchange difficulties making it necessary to have operators on each side of the ocean. Afterward, it was understood that the most recent winners from each side would operate the fund. So far it's sent over Ken (and Pam) Bulmer, Bob Madle, and Ron Bennett. (Vin¢ Clarke and Lee Hoffman won the egoboo of election but didn't make the trip as TAFFen.) In 1957 circumstances of the election kicked up a flap about definition of a fan which sundered the movement considerably; Madle, the winner that year, had earlier decreased fanac to write for the [ptui!] proz, and a number of people never heard of in fandom before seemed to have voted, despite the requirement noted above. Madle also got some undeserved blame for the antics of another candidate who toured the country offering to pay the token contribution (50¢, or 2/6) for anybody who'd vote for him. Objection to such things, with advice to tighten up the rules, was entered by Chuch Harris and others, but actual rules adopted later (by Madle and Bennett, in September 1958) had the effect of doing away with the voter-requirements and even, by omission, the candidacy requirements. The administrators, however, apparently meant this as a move to quell the argument, since they had previously used their discretion to reject the sort of questionable votes against which protest was made. |
| From Fancyclopedia 2 Supplement, ca. 1960 |
| Concerning the Ashfield fund: in 1953 Don Ford had a raffle going to raise money for Ashfield's trip to Philcon II. Since it was under way, he didn't want to call it off. Bea Mahaffey took raffle tickets to Willis and Carnell, when she went to the Coroncon in '53; these sold tickets, making it an international affair. Ford then offered the dough to anybody else coming over from England who might be suggested; TAFF was the answer. The raffle (for some covers donated by Carnell and Mahaffey) was conducted at the Philcon II; Ford forgets who the winners were. |
| Fanfund | 1952— |
| This is a fan fund page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was created, who it benefited, why it was created, its result, its impact on fandom, and by adding links. |
