Duckon

[ericcoleman]

Many of you have seen Jan's post this morning. Slayer asked me to post this for him.

From Jan:

To Slayer, and DucKon fandom as a whole,

It is my deepest regret that I lost control of my temper and publicly humiliated Megan and her tech crew on Friday night of DucKon this past June by calling the tech crew incompetent.

My anger continued on to Saturday, and I am sorry to say that I did not communicate well with the concert performers about how much time they had on stage. This led to more stress for the tech crew.

Instead of helping to overcome the challenges that DucKon Filk experienced, I behaved unprofessionally and had an unprofessional attitude before and during DucKon 19.

I apologize for my actions.

Please accept my apology.

Jan DiMasi

From Slayer's:

To DucKon Fandom,

At DucKon 19 I did several things that were inappropriate and deserve an apology. In attempting to fix a problem I allowed myself to yell at Jan DiMasi in a public area. In making the decision to have her step down, I allowed unsubstantiated rumors and assumptions to further my overreaction to Jan's behavior. Due to interaction with a fellow volunteer, I told Jan that her services were no longer required.

Now having had a couple of months to look at it, I feel that I owe the entire Filk community an apology for my actions. I hope my apology can start to heal the damage done; I am truly sorry for what has happened.

Finally, I owe an apology to Jan directly. In our meeting after the convention I was unclear as to what I expected of her to satisfy my wants to fix the situation. I later "fired her" rudely and with little explanation as to why. I was having some personal issues, and instead of delaying action until I could give the issue my full attention, I charged ahead and made things worse.

So to sum up, I blundered and unintentionally hurt many people. To all who feel wronged I say:

"I am truly sorry for my actions. Please find it in your hearts to forgive me."

David "Slayer" Kummerow

The end result:

Jan and Slayer have accepted each others’ apologies, which both felt should be as public as the original conflict. Moving forward, Jan has accepted the position of Filk Mentor and Second, to train and support Colleen “Xap” Esler, who has accepted the position of Filk Head for DucKon 20.

Eric's editorial comment:

I think we can all move on now. Everyone has been allowed to save a certain amount of face, and Duckon filk will continue. I intend to be there. Hopefully you will too.

Comments

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Ah, fandom. How I do (sometimes, rarely, well, ok, not that much) miss thy drama.

Jan and Slayer

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I do not know Slayer and was not at tht DucKon, but as half of the "filk fund guest of honor" team (along with my wife, bassist/vocalist Louie Bucklin) I had been hoping so, so strongly for a couple of e-mails or LJ posts like this one. There had been some people (including a couple I haven't met) who I thought were going to boycott DucKon on account of the whole kerfuffle. I hope they (like everybody else concerned) are willing at this point to let the whole thing blow over. And, though I know Xap from LJ, I am not all sure I have met her -- so there is one more person there whom I will be glad to meet regardless of what else happens. Jan and Slayer, thank you so much for working this out!

Nate

[tollermom]

Nicely done, on both their parts. Thanks for facilitating this for Slayer, since he's not on LJ, Eric.

I do hope everyone can put this in the past now and move towards a good show of support for Xap and for the Filk guests and performers at next year's Duckon.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Wow, drama that I wasn't a part of (and I *hate* drama!) Glad to see that everybody involved is being a reasonable adult, 'fessing up and moving on. That's good to see happen.

thank you so much

[janmagic.livejournal.com]

eric,
i want to thank you for all of your posting about the mess.
Because the mess became public, i was able to realize that Slayer ( the incoming DucKon Con Chair) was more willing to reach a resolution than i had previously thought.

I was afraid that if things got left as they were, DucKon's reputation would be further damaged.
it was because of his post on the DucKon website that i started to request mediation, with a concom/board member had offered . From that point it took 6 weeks for us to get together and reach an agreement.

Now there is hope we can continuing to fix last years operating problems and keep being the wonderful convention we always have been.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly hoping to be there. It's been a bad year for me & cons.

Re: thank you so much

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Bless your hearts, Jan and Eric. Jan, I had been hoping so much that you and Slayer could just sit down and talk, even if it took weeks or months to get there (though I hadn't thought of the word "mediation" -- but note that I was not even remotely part of all this). I'm so glad things worked out, and it is a credit to both you and Slayer that it was possible that things could be worked out. I look forward to seeing everybody next June.

Nate B.