09/07/2024
MSFM Friends and Fans--What can I say but thank you for another amazing year!
Now that we've wrapped up our 2024 con, I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who made this whole thing happen. Of course, thanks to the Westin, our track home, whose team continually works hard to keep us comfortable and make things right for all members (especially Mieke Ross in Event Planning!). Thanks also to all of the Dragon Con team members who work so hard behind the scenes to keep this whole machine turning each year: Rachel Reeves, Dave Cody, Regina Kirby, Tony Gowell, Chip Allen, Jason Allgood, Brandy Roatsey, and tons of others, including all the Tech Ops folks in the ballrooms and setting up our track room in the Westin (Evan keeps things running!); fellow directors/seconds, like Carol Malcolm, Stephen Granade, Joe Crowe, Gary Mitchel, Kellen-Kelley Harkins, Cisca Small, Phil Collins, Sue Phillips, and everyone else--we all pull together and help each other out in big and small ways to make this work.
Above all, I want to personally thank our MSFM volunteer team so much: Callie Kelley, Joey Bruner, Cheri Bruner, Eddie Sachak, Robert Landau, Michael Kilmer, Lacee Aderhold, and my second/co-director, James Henson (and a special thank-you to Charlene Rollins, who would have been there if at all possible--we love you!). You were there for all the online meetings, in-person load-in, set-up, load-out, and all the panels and events in between. I could not have done it without you. (LITERALLY.) An extra special thanks also to Kristen Sawyer (and Cat!), Amanda Tillman, Joseph Batiste, and Alli Martin, who all jumped in with helping hands at all the times we needed them most to supplement our team's efforts, as there are so many tasks to do and only so many hours and people and energy to do them--and an additional shout-out to Joey's crew, who helped us all with getting everything off the U-Haul and into the track room for load-in, everyone who helped pack up the room and transport things upstairs, and Mike and James for rocking the final loading of the Tuesday U-Haul.
I am also so very appreciative for the wonderful media guests from our shows who appeared this year as well: Gil Gerard, Nathan Fillion (who came this year--so thrilled!), Alan Tudyk, and Walter Koenig! Let's also give it up for our amazing Dragon Con moderators who ran the media panels to support our beloved media guests: Stephanie Crugnola, Ryan Segur, Garrett Wang, and Phil Collins!
As ever, our excellent in-room panelists really made our track panels thought-provoking and hilarious this year! We were so happy to have these returning panelists: Van Allen Plexico, Stephen Granade, Kevin Stallard, Jonathan P. Brazee, Keith DeCandido, Michael Falkner, Erin Macdonald, Kevin Cafferty, Nich Lyle, Kacey Lyn Ezell, James Palmer, Allison Carrier, Marx Pyle, Robert Hampson, Kevin Grazier, Jessica Cail, Kris Kersey, Doug Burbey, Amanda Tillman, Alli Martin, Zensunni St. James, Casey Moores, Eternal Zan Bowden, Heather N. Croas, Badger (Joey Bruner), James Henson, Eddie Sachak, Callie Kelley, and Michael Kilmer (volunteer team moderators and panelists rock!)--and thanks to Joe Campbell for sending us a wonderful panel sub! (Finally, thanks also to Leigh Bennett-Conner and Jon Boutelle of The Unique Geek and 50 Days of Dragon Con for talking with us and sharing our track before the show!)
We also couldn't have done this without DJ Phasim and Darkshift holding things down at the Can’t Stop the Signal Dance, along with Joey's expert Badger-ing at the Dance--and all Badger’s help with emceeing at the Don S. Davis Memorial Charity Auction to benefit the 2024 Charity, the Arthritis Foundation! And speaking of the DSDMCA, Everette Beach did such a fabulous job as auctioneer for us, as he does every year—always a pleasure to work with him to get the most possible for charity! Thanks also for your help, Jodi Pace and the Charity Events team! Gene and Debbie Slay were here supporting us again this year as well. We are truly fortunate as a track to have so many strong allies and supporters of our shows and of our mission to put on a great, fun con--who do so many things to ensure the success of MSFM each year (and I am eternally sorry if I left anyone out, and you may therefore whack me with a purple/green beatstick from our Purple/Green Drazi War).
This year, we added more games to our Onesie Party, and we also put out more track swag than ever! You may have seen our MSFM wristbands for this year, or maybe you picked up one of our many badge ribbons to promote our track and our fandoms--or maybe you got DUCKED by MSFM! Maybe you won a shirt and/or a coin in our Charity Team Trivia! Hopefully, you had a chance to enjoy these, and if not, come by and see us next year--and please feel free to post your swag you collected! (Maybe you even still have your purple or green stick from our wargame--that counts!)
Regarding MSFM track merchandise (our Track-specific shirt and coin offerings, which support the track and are separate from the Charity efforts), all pre-orders marked as pickup have been sorted! We will be opening the online store up again briefly in the coming weeks, so if you missed getting something and asked us about it at con, you'll have a second chance at some of our items from this year and past years in time for the holidays. (I can add a post later with the store info.)
A note on our 2024 charity efforts: Several people and groups donated some excellent, quality items to the DSDMCA in the previous year after con and this year, and as ever, we'll be working on bringing in even more money for Dragon Con's 2025 Charity next year! For this year, Our Can't Stop the Signal Firefly Dance table raised a total of $2,473.26 for the 2024 charity, the Arthritis Foundation; our Friday-Monday in-room bucket donations were $178.82; our Charity Games and Crafts and Team Trivia night table brought in another $411; our Sunday table at the DSDMCA added $724; finally, the Don S. Davis Memorial Charity Auction brought in (despite another year of under-2019 attendance numbers) a total of $8,420.00 after consultation with Charity Events. When we add up all of our numbers we tracked throughout the con, this gives a grand total of $12,207.08 that our track--that ALL OF YOU--brought in to fund advocacy and programs for arthritis sufferers everywhere, including children enduring juvenile arthritis--and that amount is being MATCHED by Dragon Con (thus multiplying to $24,414.16, in effect)! This officially raises the bar again for the most money generated for charity by MSFM since we made the transition from SGMT in 2016, and it is all due to the generosity and heart of all of you. This year, the con will be sending AT LEAST $210,000 to our charity, and possibly more, as numbers from all our combined efforts across the con were still being tallied! (Also, for anyone who still wants to help now that con is over, you can look to join the Dragon Con Superheroes, who frequently work in the regular year to assist a variety of worthy causes in the area.)
As a final note: There have been significant challenges this year, personally for myself and many of the track volunteers who work so hard to make this con what it is every year. And just like any year of con, so much planning, time, money, blood, sweat, tears, coordination, and sheer effort go into the process of bringing you the best con we can possibly manage. So many things have to be juggled during con—panels (and guests!) are added or removed, schedules adjusted on the fly, volunteers notified and dispatched to do their amazing jobs of keeping the transitions seamless, and decisions made for how best to present it all at a moment’s notice. We all needed this con this year; we all needed you to make it wonderful, and we are so frakking happy with the con that we put on this year. We had such a great time with you all; we hope you had an amazing experience with us too. Thank you again, truly, for all that you do to make Dragon Con, and our own quirky yet mighty little Military SciFi Media track, the best part of our year--and let's do it all again next year!
SO SAY WE ALL!!!
