The Society that Time Forgot (was Shopping)

-----Original Message-----
To : IFIS CHAT <chat@>
Date : 24 November 2001 23:13:57
Subject : Shopping
And here is a rejoinder by another ex-student offering an alternative
point of view.
I think perhaps there you need to stop.

When you say "officially sanctioned" - what form did that official
sanction actually take? More specifically, was there money involved?
Goods and services having intrinsic value?

As far as I am aware, IFIS suggested that some people might
act as guides in London last Saturday, and people might be guided
to some SF related shops. The business of getting to London, and
of transport while there, was left to the pockets (or student loans)
of the participants.

If this is true, what you are objecting to is that some IFIS member
chose to use his/her travelcard to also do some non-SF related
shopping. But the use of that travelcard is not controlled by IFIS - it
is a matter between the purchasor and whatever has replaced
London Transport and British Railways. It's certainly none of
my business - and none of yours.


In the many years we have watched IFIS change from being a society
of strange and unfashionable geeks to a society of, well, much more
attractive and fashionable geeks. Some of whom are (say it softly)
female. Fashionable and attractive geeks shop for clothes - especially
the female ones.

Get used to it. Who knows, you might even come to enjoy it. ;-)


Whatever you do, though, don't thunder about it from your armchair
in the corner with some kind of "it wasn't like this in my day". Times
change. Sometimes change is good - pretty girls at IFIS is a good
example. But good or bad, us ex-students have to accept some
change.

This is a college society, not somewhere for ex-students to grow old
gracefully. Some of us like to grow old disgracefully ... but that is a
different matter.




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The only "official sanction" was that there happened to be 2 members
of the Committe on the Camden Contingent, 1) to make sure that Freshers
didn't get lost and 2) so that we could all meet up at 4pm at Forbidden
Planet and then go to Pages Bar.
That's about the size of it.
and me. I got the Sexiest Boots in the World in a shop next to
Comics Showcase (then again, am I fashionable and attractive??)

Adam

and quite how it
the society's
Society) it should
Definitely. And as far as I'm aware, the freshers were given the *choice*
of clothes shopping or sci-fi shopping, so it's not as if the committee
didn't provide for all tastes. Had they insisted that those who came on
the trip should go to Camden for clothes instead of shopping for sci-fi
stuff then there might be a point to make.

Also, the boundaries blur - supposing the lot who went to camden found
outfits for characters they use in live roleplaying. We know gaming shops
come within the broad definition of sci-fi, so why shouldn't costume
hunting? Or are we all supposed to shop with specific intents now?

The borders of science-fiction and fantasy are much more relaxed these
days, as there are an awful lot of mainstream blockbusters coming out which
fall within those boundaries. This means the society doesn't just have
members who sit around and discuss the aerodynamics of tie fighters (and I
seem to remember this was the sort of conversation I sat around and boggled
at during my first year).

There is an opportunity at the moment to introduce people who join for the
films and the guided shopping to more classic sci-fi and fantasy - that's
why IFIS is so lucky having a hardcore of older members who have good
knowledge of the subject. It can be shared and hopefully that will
encourage the current student membership to stick around. That is not
going to be achieved if you spend all your time complaining that they like
clothes shopping.

Simon is right. If you want the trend of pretty young ladies joining ifis
to continue, then you have to try and include them, not shut them out. And
that may mean including non-sci-fi elements to keep them coming back. (As
an example, one of the most popular features on the RockSoc website is its
pub guide - nothing to do with Rock music, but it keeps people interested).

Love,
Lizz



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... and another ex-student offering yet another point of view...
True, but it's also a college SCI-FI/FANTASY/etc society, not a college
"clothes shopping society" or a college "popular blockbuster films" society
or anything else, regardless of whether the members happen to also like
them.

I wasn't there, as I was busy upgrading IFIS's web/mail server, but I
suspect Phil's over-reacting a bit, but I also suspect Simon's over-reacting
a bit in the opposite direction.

If the Camden trip REPLACED the SF shopping trip, and had no SF-related
purpose, then it was probably setting a bad example, yes. Simon's right,
there's nothing stopping any bunch of students using their travelcards how
they wanted, but on the other hand, if they're IFIS committee members, they
could probably have chosen a better date rather than clashing with the
pre-arranged IFIS shopping trip.

If the Camden trip was SUPPLEMENTAL TO the SF shopping trip, then there's
probably less of a problem anyway. Where's the big deal? I bought loads of
Weird Al and Mike Oldfield CDs as a supplement to a previous IFIS shopping
trip, they're not very SF-related, but I was SF shopping before and after,
and didn't interfere with the smooth running of the general SF shopping
trip.

... and if the Camden trip actually visited SF-related shops, again, what's
the big deal? Certainly a good idea to add/remove shops as they become more
or less relevant to the society...

... but remember, we're not supposed to become a clothes-shopping society
just because a lot of members like clothes-shopping. IFIS members are
allowed to be members of, and/or to form a clothes-society to represent
THOSE interests if they wanted. If they were nice, they'd arrange their
shopping trips more sensibly to avoid splitting the joint membership too
much though. In the same way, if we knew what we were doing, we'd probably
try to avoid clashing too much with RockSoc events, for example :-)

As I said, I wasn't on either of those parts of the trip, so can't very well
argue either way, but just thought I'd point out that you might both be
right and you might both be wrong ;-)

---

Nick Waterman, Blackberry Unix Systems Administrator, Research In Motion

I will repeat again. The trip was SUPPLEMENTAL for people who
wanted to go shopping but DIDN'T want to do SciFi shopping. There was no
question of it replacing the main route or dragging people away from doing
SciFi shopping. Some people just didn't want to go shopping for SciFi
stuff. Get over it (and no, this is not directed at anyone)
The Camden Trip met up with us at Forbidden Planet where they did
scifi shopping.


Adam

why choose a different date? they wanted to do some ifis shopping and some
clothes shopping and then go to pages no probs there, and as for comittee
members going to camden there job is to make sure the society runs
smoothly not run round after people nursemaiding them. comittee members
did take people to comic shops etc some wanted to go to camden, no
problem, lots of whining!! why??

BTW has anyone looked how many pages this arguments gone on for

G

On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Nick Waterman wrote: