TAFF

from Fancyclopedia 2

The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, a fund intended to take Britons to American Worldcons and, alternate years, vice versa. It all began with Shelby Vick's WAW With the Crew in '52 campaign, which undertook to bring Walt Willis over to America, to the ChiCon II, that year. (There had been a predecessor in the Big Pond Fund drives sparkplugged by Ackerman.) Early in 1953 Don Ford and the Cinci Fantasy Group started a fund to bring Anglofan Norm Ashfield to the Philcon II but he was unable to come and Don offered the funds to anyone else Anglofandom should select. At the 1953 LonCon at the Bonnington the idea of a continuing TAFF was brainstormed by Willis, Viną Clarke, Slater, Chuch Harris, Terry Jeeves, Eric Bentcliffe, Norm Shorrock and John Brunner, after long hours of discussion and smokefilled-room sessions.

The original idea was that nominees should be "someone fairly well-known to both British and American fandom" and that voters "should have been active in fandom to the extent of having subscribed to or contributed to at least one fanzine or joined a fan-club or organization". Don Ford on this side and Walt Willis on that side acted as administrators -- exchange difficulties making it necessary to have operators on each side of the ocean. Afterward, it was understood that the most recent winners from each side would operate the fund.

So far it's sent over Ken (and Pam) Bulmer, Bob Madle, and Ron Bennett. (Viną Clarke and Lee Hoffman won the egoboo of election but didn't make the trip as TAFFen.) In 1957 circumstances of the election kicked up a flap about definition of a fan which sundered the movement considerably; Madle, the winner that year, had earlier decreased fanac to write for the [ptui!] proz, and a number of people never heard of in fandom before seemed to have voted, despite the requirement noted above. Madle also got some undeserved blame for the antics of another candidate who toured the country offering to pay the token contribution (50, or 2/6) for anybody who'd vote for him. Objection to such things, with advice to tighten up the rules, was entered by Chuch Harris and others, but actual rules adopted later (by Madle and Bennett, in September 1958) had the effect of doing away with the voter-requirements and even, by omission, the candidacy requirements. The administrators, however, apparently meant this as a move to quell the argument, since they had previously used their discretion to reject the sort of questionable votes against which protest was made.