Reading SF Group
Little is known (aren't you, Bill?) of the Reading SF Group, a group predictably devoted to Reading SF. Its activities are many. Keith Freeman reads SF in eastern Reading, I read it at the group's 22 Northumberland Avenue nerve-centre, and Martin and Liese Hoare read it in far-flung Pangbourne. Yet even this strenuous programme does not satisfy the members' blazing apathy, and the group has become heavily involved in public-service work – a continuing quality check on the local Courage Directors Bitter. Keith Freeman works hard at not attending such gatherings, but he is a key member of the vital "Can I have some more cheap paper to produce Twll-Ddu?" subcommittee. (The ingeniously streamlined committee structure allows this subcommittee to meet by telephone – this concept may interest the BSFA, which is having more and more difficulty in squeezing its committee meetings into the Olympia centre.)
RSFG's weekly beer tastings have often had an attendance in excess of three. Featured speeches in 1978 included Martin Hoare on "How to Run the Computer Industry and Three Conventions Without Losing Weight", Liese Hoare on "How to Run Martin", Dave Langford on "The Care and Feeding of Rejection Slips" and Hazel Langford on the wagon. We have also had stimulating open discussions on such contemporary problems as beer-purchase precedence, alcoholic poisoning and Peter Weston.
RSFG is perhaps unique in having no chairman or president, no constitution, no membership fee and a regular 100% turnout at major conventions. Plans for the 1976 group fanzine are steadily being abandoned. We hope to make the organization still less formal as the membership continues to drop.