Wrapping 2012 and the Future

Shorah Everybah’ro

This will most likely be the last time I post here as Chair of the FMG or the Mysterium Committee. As of September 1st 2012, I am stepping down as Chair and leaving the Mysterium planning group. Don’t worry, this is entirely for personal reasons; Mysterium is still safe (for now… but I’m getting ahead of myself). Eleri and Odo were at this before I got here, and they’ll continue to make great Mysteria after I leave.

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for helping to make Mysterium 2012 successful. There were certainly some bumps (your shirts are coming, I promise!), but overall it went well. We had some fun activities, some very cool presentations, and I understand people enjoyed traipsing around Seattle on Sunday. A big thanks goes out to Eleri and Odo for their hard work, and especially for keeping things going and positive when I was… shall we say ‘indisposed’ on Sunday. Also, thanks to Rium, Zib, and Blade for their presentations, Capella for helping get stuff organized, all the artists who donated prizes, Jigsaw for WWAD, and to everyone else who helped in some way. And of course, thanks to everyone who came, even if just for a little while. Mysterium is nothing without people there to enjoy it, which leads me to my main topic.

A little while back, I posted about the future of Mysterium. That post got a lot of feedback, some good and some less than helpful. The current plan, for those who don’t know, is this: The FMG will open for Mysterium 2013 bids sometime soon. If no reasonable bids are received by a certain date, Mysterium will be held in Austin, TX. It will then enter a 3 year cycle bouncing between Boston, Seattle, and Austin, barring special events or bids. This is not the ideal solution, but it is a workable one. More importantly, it is the one the committee can commit to doing for the time being.

If you don’t like this plan, and want to see Mysterium go back to visiting new cities, the solution is simple: offer to help. Mysterium is a convention for the fans, and so it relies on the fans to keep it going. Want Mysterium in your city? Then build a team, write a proposal, and bid! Yes, there’s a lot of hard work, but it can also be a lot of fun! And you will have the support of the FMG behind you, helping with guidance and resources.

What if you don’t want to bid for your city, but want to help out? Well, there are ways to do that too. You could find someone else who is bidding and offer to be on their team in some way. You could offer prizes, like artwork, to whoever is organizing the con. You could help spread awareness of Mysterium and the fandom to people who like Myst but don’t know about us. Or, even more importantly, you could join the FMG.

The FMG can use more people to help with things like PR and various types of planning in general. In addition, my leaving creates another hole, causing the the Board of Directors to be a member short. If you want to help build the framework for bidding teams, or handle some of the paperwork to make the FMG a non-profit organization, then now is the time to stand up and volunteer!

I really can’t stress enough how important it is to have people in the community step up to help keep Mysterium alive and fresh. Running a con is not the impossible task it seems to be from the outside… heek, Zib, Tanshin, M13 and I did it in 2011 with no experience and just a few months, so you can certainly do it with a full year and the support of the FMG! Think about the roles you might want to play in Mysterium’s future, and let us know here.

Once again, thanks to everyone who helped make Mysterium 2011 and 2012 go so well. It has been an interesting experience, and I look forward to what the future holds for the fandom. So, for the last time:

To the honor of our Tubers,
-Taniith