Loooong meeting, since we started at 11:00 AM to avoid the parade and possible manif problems. I didn’t notice when we wound up, but I think it was at least 5:00PM!!

Due to work being done in St-François, the hotel graciously offered us the use of Grand Salon, connected to Saguenay and Richelieu for our snacks displays, books, etc. The Salon is a wonderful space in which to show movies!

The meeting was well attended, with three members sporting crazy hats, and a few others wearing St Patrick’s Day Parade paraphernalia. The crazy hat winner was Marquise, who was wearing a cow!

Sylvain’s presentation “Trailer Trash”  was met with much laughter. Keith followed this up at noon with the first of the SF Cinema Matinee mornings. The members present for this event carefully read the hand outs, watched the trailers, and voted for the movie they wished to see: It Came From Outer Space.  A movie ahead of its time it turned out, as the aliens, though grotesque in appearance, harboured no ill intent toward Earth’s inhabitants.

René Walling was up next with a great presentation on anime for the SF/F Fan. He showed trailers from television series and movies for anime in various genre categories that would appeal to SF & Fantasy fans.  We were also provided with printed handouts listing his recommendations.  (This list is on line, just click this sentence.)

Raffle tickets & snacks were sold during the break, netting the club 41$.  This income is  important to us, so thank you all who contributed to the cause.

After the break, we debated the future of the printed WARP. Options from one extreme to the other:  no printed WARP to printed WARPs for all members,  Members agreed we needed printed WARPs available for those who wanted them, but cost is a major issue. For WARP 90, Cathy printed copies on her own printer, in colour, for an estimated cost of 5$ an issue.  Keith will print WARP 91 in b&w, with some colour, so we will have a chance to see how that possibility works out.   A few members suggested they would be willing to pay a little more for a colour issue. It was pointed out that since the club was founded, membership fees have been raised only once, from 20$ to 25$, yet our costs have risen a lot more, especially for the meeting space.  Another option could be offering the colour copies to platinum members.

The debate lasted much longer than expected, proof of our members’ attachment to WARP. Final decision will be taken after the WARP 91 experiment.  In the meantime, we value your input into this important discussion, so please do contact us with your thoughts and ideas:  <executive@monsffa.ca> 

Cathy showed a screen capture of our website, pointing out the members only page, and the subscribe button. We also saw how Terry Pratchett’s name is being shown in our website’s “clacks overhead”.

Changes in our meeting schedule for April and May, programming for next few months, and the problem of the July BBQ without a BBQ completed the roundup of club news.

Got Books?  Danny had several very interesting books, René presented a more recent unusual title, Cathy spoke about Terry Pratchett, with emphasis on her favourite Discworld novel: Going Postal, and François brought “Frankenstein” , a classic we all know about, but few of us have read. René suggested we do this more often, maybe with short readings, but fitting Got Books into a regular meeting along with the SF Cinema Matinée, may prove too much in too little time. Cathy has long wanted a reading group, but this also requires more time than we have.

Supper was at the Indian Restaurant since La Cage was stuffed full of soccer fans. The food was good, the atmosphere conducive to conversation, so our day came to a very pleasant ending with coffee and dessert.