These are the most common issues and complaints I have seen in regards to Keycon both from personal experience and from speaking to Keycon attendees over numerous years.

Allow me to preface this with a caveat. While I have ideas, I do not have the solutions.

- Keycon is stale. It's an old horse waiting in the pasture to die

Keycon is the same every year and that can be a good thing, it can also be a bad thing. The same volunteers are doing the same work every year. They're going to burn out, they're going to get frustrated, they're going to quit and there's no plan to replace them.

The senate is also stale. They've been around so long they voted themselves in for lifetime as long as they pay their dues ($10 a year if you please). They have no new ideas. They don't even offer up their own services. Did you know that WINSFA has an education fund? Yup, they've got money to give away to educate members. But let me ask if you even knew about this before you began reading this.

The entire senate needs to go. A complete wipe. Start anew and ask for one or two senators to attend a few meetings as advisors to start off the new senators. Lets get Keycon to grow with new ideas! In fact according to the Canada Not For Profit Corporations Act, directors may only hold their position for a maximum of four years. John and Linda have been on the board as directors for twenty nine years. Not only is this bad form, it's also breaking the law and could cause Keycon to be deregistered as a not for profit corporation.

Volunteers are treated like trash.

Volunteers are the driving force behind Keycon. Without them, there is no Keycon. Show them some respect, show them some recognition. And for goodness sake keep John Mansfield away from them. Yes, I was there when John spoke down to a volunteer during the Art Auction in front of fifty plus con-goers. Can you make someone feel worse than that? Yes you can. How you might ask? This person was voluntold, recruited just because they were standing around and the art auction needed some help. I was also there when this was brought up at the bitch panel and the issue was immediately brushed off and new questions brought up. Essentially silenced because no one wants to talk about respect, or the lack of respect by a Senate member.

Advertisers, Senators & conflicts of interest

Merriam-Webster defines a conflict of interest (CO) as "a conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust".

John Mansfield and Linda Ross-Mansfield own Pendragon Games and Books. They are also sponsors of Keycon as they advertise in the Keycon program book. They are also both Senators of the Winnipeg Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (WINSFA). WINSFA is the board behind Keycon and they essentially control who can run the actual Keycon convention (the chairs).

Does it not strike you as odd that a sponsor has control over who can or cannot chair the convention? Whether or not this power has been abused does not matter. It is possible their business interests can interfere with their duties as a WINSFA senator.

Does is not also strike you as odd that all of Keycon's belongings are stored in the basement of Pendragon? A storage locker is $40-60 per month, and cheaper if you pay up front for a long term. This would prevent issues in the event of a loss (read: fire, vandalism), or the closure of the store by authorities (hey... it happens) or, god forbid, an accident where John and Linda are unable to provide access. What else could happen? What if John or Linda (or both) decided they have had enough of Keycon and simply refused them access?

One or two people should not have this type of power over the convention.

Finally, it is a clear conflict of interest that Pendragon Books and Games advertises in the Keycon program. This is the definition of a COI by a board member profiting by their membership on the senate.

A conflict of interest bylaw should be drafted by the senate to clearly state what is and what is not a conflict of interest and basic guidelines to follow.

Sponsorship, or lack thereof

Where's the sponsors? I'm not talking about who pays for the privilege of advertising in the program book. I'm talking about the big name company that gets a big banner at the convention and comes out and shakes a few hands. The kind of sponsor that is willing to cough up a few thousand dollars for the privilege of having their name plastered all over everything. Yes we have a gaming room, but it would be better financially for Keycon if we had a "Widgets and Company Gaming Room". The sponsor could also have a panel or two so they can discuss their wares and whatever else they wanted.

The auction, aka the unending drama of selling stuff

I know many people have suggested it, including myself. Stop the Mickey Mouse auction and get on with it. Stop parading the stuff around. Everything has a lot number already, learn to use it. Saturday night at the end of viewing, go through the inventory, make an inventory list of what will be auctioned on Sunday and print 200 copies. Keycon already does the first two steps, just follow through with step number three. The people can come Sunday for a one hour viewing to see what is for sale and when the auction starts it doesn't stop. I'm sure this could cut an hour off the auction itself.

Information warfare

The Keycon web site, each and every year, is controlled by the people who are running Keycon that year (the Chairs). That's all fine and good, but most of them have no clue as to what they are doing, what is possible for a web site and sometimes how to even make one.

Take for example Keycon 2012's web site. Right now it's April 2 2012. The Keycon web site page for events (http://keycon.org/events.php) states "Halloween Social information coming soon, but rest assured: it will be awesome.". What? Halloween was six months ago and you still haven't updated that page?

The forum doesn't work. The sponsors page is blank. And there's text at the top of the page that says "YOUR AD HERE" with no link. There is unrelated advertising on the registration page and there's news on the Keycon home page that is 265 days old! Some chairs treat Keycon as a joke. And news that 265 days old is a joke.

I just checked, and the last time any news was posted to the @Keycon29 twitter feed was August 20 2011. It's great that this years chairs are trying to keep the public so well informed.

And who is profiting from that advertising on the registration page? Has whom ever declared this income to the Senate?

Get these amateurs out of here, they're doing more harm to Keycon than good. Spend the money on some licenses for some software that can be used every year. Hire a web designer that will work with Keycon yearly and you'll stop having the issues you currently have. Right now people have to register for the Keycon web site each and every year. Not a big deal really, but what is a big deal is the loss of information from year to year. People who are new to Keycon might just want to see those old posts to see what they're missing. And good god don't even think about moving the forums to some lame Yahoo Groups type of web site like you have for the mailing list, try being professional instead of screaming that you're an amateur. In fact you could even make a hidden part of the forums for the senate and chairs that the normal visitors wouldn't even see. That would get them away from Yahoo Groups thankfully.

With a properly designed web site, some proper software and some licenses the Chairs could have access to mailing lists so they can contact people. Think how many people could be accessible after a few years of having the same list updated instead of making a new list each and every year. Grow the business, stop destroying and rebuilding it every year.

Domains, not just for Clerics

Who owns the Keycon.org domain? No one knows. Well someone knows, it's just not anyone that I've talked to. They tried to transfer it to a different provider once, but no one knew the login for the domain name. The host that Keycon has doesn't offer MySQL. MySQL is a database which if I had to guess, 95% of the web hosts out there use. The other five percent are Windows hosts that choose to use MS SQL Server instead of MySQL.

MySQL is needed for most web software (scripts) like forums, mailing lists and blogs to run. This probably explains why there is no forum on the web site this year. Could they use an external database? Well of course they can, but since they haven't yet I assume they either lack interest or the knowledge.

Lack of professionalism

The above just screams that the people who run Keycon are amateurs and the con-goers can tell. Keycon needs to be run as a business because that's what it is. Keycon exists to make money so it can come back the next year. But too many people treat it like a joke, almost as if it's just a side project that deserves less attention than the latest rehashing of a bad 70's TV show made into yet another Hollywood movie and vomited out in 3D.

Panels and audio/video

There's a lot of panels every year. And they offer a lot of information. Why not record these panels? Why not make those video's available for sale after the con? More money is good.

Keycon is not a gaming convention

If you've ever gone to Keycon, then you've heard that phrase a million times. So why is there a games room that is packed year after year? Why is no one taking advantage of this? Reps do demo's, heck they could even do a demo in a panel for a large scale so they do not interrupt the games room. Why not invite someone to do demo's? Then let them sell their product afterwards. It's yet another idea to get Keycon to grow.

Extravaganza's and their lack of extra

Have you ever been to a Keycon social before? I have, it sucked. I've been to a few. They sucked too. The main issue I saw with the socials were that tickets were sold to the mainstream con-goers. A social is an event designed to make money to be used elsewhere. Selling eighty tickets isn't making money, it's having a private party with your friends. Advertise the social, sell tickets to everyone. Don't advertise it as a Keycon social, advertise so it will attract a large audience. Someone needs to get off their butts and get prizes to raffle away to help attract people to the event. Those prizes could be stored in the same storage locker as the rest of the Keycon property.

People are underutilized

How much money can be raised by one person? I don't know, but know what's better than one person? A fundraising committee. Partially appointed by the (new) Senate and the current Chairs. This group of people would be tasked with ways to earn money for the con starting the day after con. Socials, movie nights, dinners, raffles, donations, sponsors and more. It's all possible, but as I said earlier if you leave it up to the Chairs then these things will go nowhere. This is my biggest idea and one that I am actually proposing a solution for.

A committee consisting of no less than five and no more than eight people who would meet monthly. Initially one half of the committee would be appointed and the second half would be voted in by the committee. They would have a term of no more than three years and after three years they must leave the committee for at least one year before they can rejoin. This would inject new people into the committee and keep ideas fresh. Rules for this type of a committee should be obvious, but it should be stated that current Senate members and current Chairs may not sit on the committee for a period of at least one year.

The committee should consist of people who have experience in fundraising, communications, writing and business. The hope would be that the committee would work together to produce ideas to generate income during the off season.

The committee would need a small budget for things like letterhead, envelopes and postage. Yes the real world of business works on paper, not on your computer. When you're asking for donations of hundreds of dollars of product or for a company to give you a few thousand dollars they don't want to see an e-mail written by someone that looks like they're twelve years old and learning how to text. "Do U wnt to sponser Key Con for 2k?" is not appropriate.

Conclusion

I started writing this in the middle of March. It's now the beginning of April and the Keycon web site has still not changed. Keycon is 47 days away, people want information and they need it now, not when the chairs feel like it.