March 12, 2017 Even our friendly dragon mascot wore green for St Patrick’s Day!

In spite of the return of winter’s cold and the hour change, quite a few showed up for the Sunday Cinema Matinée. The theme was Flying Saucers, and Keith had several excellent movies and one bomb from which to choose.  http://www.monsffa.ca/?p=4565

After watching the trailers, the fans voted for This Island Earth, which was excellent for its time. The female role was largely decorative, the only person of colour was a maid, the science was lacking, but the plot made up for its shortcomings in those areas.

The bomb? Well, that was of course Plan 9 from Outer Space. We have tentatively scheduled a viewing of this so-dreadful-it’s wonderful film for our October meeting.

Sylvain St-Pierre kicked off our main programme with a presentation he entitled “Can Government Get Any Weirder?” Inspired by the election of Donald Trump in the Untied States, this presentation discussed everything from anarchy to totalitarianism in our real world past and present, and in the world of science fiction and fantasy. Examples included books and BDs, in French as well as English, print and  webcomics.  The audience really got into it, cheerfully offering opinions and citing examples of government and bureaucracy gone “weird” or unwieldy.

At the break, MonSFFen enjoyed a variety of snacks, notably cupcakes and green pretzels baked by Lindsay Brown.  We browsed the book exchange, grabbed some freebies which included a bag of astronomy magazines, and admired Dom Durocher’s models.

 

Among other items, the raffle had a great print of a flying saucer, for which we thank Dom who donated it. There were also programme books from various World Cons to accompany the second part of the meeting which was about conventions, and a stack of Star Log magazines.

 

 

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There was a special draw for 3 pairs of movie passes to an advanced screening of Life, and two passes to Parks Canada. The latter were donated by Mark Burakoff and Lindsay Brown.

After the break, Sylvain and Cathy led a discussion on the conventions within driving distance of Montreal. Cathy had organized her points according to the various KINDS of con, while Sylvain focussed on SPECIFIC cons, which led to some confusion, but hopefully the fans became more interested in knowing about the conventions in our area, which are listed on our website here.

Maybe it was the full moon, or maybe it was because we only had half an hour left, or maybe it was because Cathy forgot the first rule of teaching grade school (always have a plan B in case the kids get rambunctious) , but the programming workshop went awry very quickly. There were more topics suggested than we have time slots for! Some very interesting topics were left orphaned as no one felt confident enough to take on the role of moderator. There is also a perception that topics need Power Point(or equivalent) presentations, which is not at all the case.  We need to put more effort into explaining how panel discussions work! (I blame Sylvain for raising the bar so high, grin)

After the meeting, 8 of us went off to the Irish Embassy Pub on Bishop Street for an excellent meal, and lively discussions on everything and anything.

Missed the meeting? Members will find more pictures by Cathy and Sylvain as well as a short snip of video here. http://www.monsffa.ca/?page_id=4646