Committee

Phil has spent over a decade working at conventions including Worldcons in London, Helsinki, Dublin, and Glasgow  co-chaired Ytterbium, the 2019 Eastercon, and chaired Reclamation, the 2022 Eastercon. When not reading SF, he can be found discussing cats, contemporary insurgency theory or loud angry 90s American guitar music. He has agreed to be bound by the committee’s decision not to play much of the latter at the convention.

Phil develops CAD software for a living, working on a programme which is used in the design of anything from kettles to the Mars rovers. He’s an avid gamer, briefly trained as an armourer and owns a lot of books on swords. His favourite author is Avram Davidson and he has been a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Phil has been going to conventions since he discovered fandom in 1982, courtesy of CUSFS. He has run one Eastercon Green Room and worked in most of the others over the last thirty years. He has served on the committee of four Eastercons, the first Octocon, four Unicons, and five BRS games cons, most often as treasurer. Three of the Unicons were also games cons and the combination should probably only be counted at 1.25 conventions per event. He’ll be applying these mathematical skills in his role of treasurer.

Caroline Mersey cosplays as a grown-up. When not attending or running book events, or talking about books, she binges on the latest box set while making beautiful things.  She was part of the Committee for Reclamation, the 2022 EasterCon, and is part of the organising team for Super Relaxed Fantasy Club and www.fantasybookclub.org .  She is owned by a ridiculous kitten,

Virginia has been a science fiction and fantasy fan since childhood but only discovered conventions in 2012. Since then she has contributed to programme at Eastercons, Worldcons, Nine Worlds, and Octocon. In her day job she has organised conferences about history and politics. She likes cats and libraries, calligraphy and cake. 

James has worked in a technical capacity for conferences, theatre and broadcast throughout most of the last twenty-five years. Much of his input is generally unremarkable although he was the lighting designer for a couple of seasons of The Now Show (Radio 4) whilst the radio theatre was being refurbished. His first convention was Interaction, the 2005 Glasgow Worldcon. Since then he has attended most Eastercons, with a couple more Worldcons thrown in for good measure, and often ends up helping in some technical capacity. An avid reader and lapsed gamer, he met his wife whilst re-arranging the F/SF section of the school library when a conversation started about what to read next which is still ongoing today. Outside Tech James has a number of interests including teaching a small group of eager learners how to ring church bells.

James has been involved in fandom and conventions since the early 1990s. He has helped organise many conventions in Ireland and abroad, including Octocon, Eurocon, several Eastercons, and Worldcons. He has been involved in fanzines, fan clubs and fan funds, and is a massive space nerd with a particular fascination about zero gravity toilets. A huge fan of LEGO, James will attempt to include it in convention programmes at every opportunity. He received the Doc Weir Award for contribution to UK fandom at the 2022 Eastercon, Reclamation.