!IMPORTANT! - Notice of Cancellation
I’d like to open this with an apology. Madicon 33, scheduled for just later this week, is being canceled. I, and SFFG as a whole, wanted to finish through on this push to have the event happen. Effective as of this afternoon, after many hours of calls and deliberation, it has been decided that this year’s event cannot be allowed to continue in the state it would run in. In large part due to a series of communication errors on the part of SFFG our keynote speaker has been forced to withdraw. The series of errors leading to that difficult decision has been one in a line of many that are simply unacceptable, and for those I am deeply sorry.
While normally this would be just a bruise on the event, further deliberation and conversation with James Madison provided another deeply problematic element. To be frank, our treasurer is, without prior communication on the subject, now unable to attend Madicon. It was decided that gathering funds and donations from ticketing sales and other, even further, from activities such as Geek Auction without an active treasurer would be legally untenable.
Though SFFG has been a club with a fraught history, we of the current officer board wish to never again see these kinds of errors repeated. To that end, we have decided to create a planning committee for future years of Madicons to come. The purpose of the committee will be to ensure that future Madicons will never again have this level of disorganization and mess. It will be made up of members of the officer board, alumni, a conchair, JMU staff, and connections to vendors and keynote speakers with information aplenty.. We will be making documentation and timelines to make sure that everybody gets the information needed for this event without delay. To ensure that questions get answered in a timely manner, and new concerns have a substantial base of knowledge from which they will be answered. Please, if you are interested, reach out. We’d love to have you.
I would like to, again, apologize profusely for the time and effort that was put into planning your attendance on such short notice, just for the event to be canceled. I promise, though many say so with empty intention, to make great effort for this to not happen again during my stay as President of SFFG.