September 22, 2010
COGS n' GEARS
A Newsletter by Steampunk Illumination Society
THIS ISSUE'S CONTENTS: The Editor's Pen Minutes From August & September The Difference Engine #2 (Article) Future Meetings & Events Birthdays & Welcomes Poetry, Our Friends & Funny Stuff Memorable Moments & Steampunk Reinventions Society Committee & Society Information
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THE EDITOR'S PEN Welcome to our second edition of the Cogs n' Gears newsletter for Steampunk Illumination Society. For this edition, we have a wonderful article written by two fellow members, announcements, reviews of our last couple of meetings, and plenty more. Our last meeting on September 11th was quite the turn out! I lost count well after 50 people, and know there were people still looking around for a place to sit once we'd gotten good and into our meeting. We apologize for the tiny space, but certainly didn't anticipate so many wonderful faces being present. No complaints here though! I loved meeting everyone that I could make my way around too. Captain and I were absolutely ecstatic about the attendance levels. Now, if this keeps up, we're certainly going to need a bigger meeting spot for our future meetings! Thank you to all who attended, visited, and signed up with us. We hope to see you again at more meetings. We have great things in store for SIS yet. Thank you to Professor & Mrs. Camera Obscura for their wonderful article on “The Difference Engine #2”. I know I enjoyed reading it, and found it very intriguing to read. Also, thanks goes out to Toby again for his donation of endless poetry. He's also taken quite a bit of time out to try to help us get a bit organized on what music can be really deemed “steampunk”. I've had a small peek at the list, and can honestly say, “WOW!” I have a lot of listening to do! I imagine we'll have that list up and out for review pretty soon. And yet again, thank you to Mr. Lawhon (Toby) for taking the time to speak with Amii Foxfire about working on SIS's logo for us. I will be getting in touch with her soon to send off our rough drafts so she can work her magic. I really cannot wait to see what she does with it all! Anyone else excited too? So, yesterday (September 21st 2010) our website got a makeover. Well, I just got really sick of looking at that gray lump of mess called a website. So, I sat at the computer, and I mulled over thousands of layout ideas in my head, then looked around for other layouts to help me with my “mind's eye” of what I saw for us. Then I remembered I had some nice elements in my graphics program that I'd been collecting and saving up for something that, one day, might just click
Volume 1 – No. 02
together into a neat little project. Finally!! I found something to do with all the shhhtuff... erm... yeah... sitting in my folders forever. So, I sat for several hours, playing around with some effects, making walls, papers, etc... until finally I got the result of our new website. The watch will eventually be replace by the new logo, when we get it sent to us. I am truly excited about that last touch coming to fruition. But in the mean time, at least the website LOOKS like we're actually doing something around this place. Haha... Hope everyone else is slightly impressed. No, it's no work of art, but it's better than the gray and white layout we had before. As Captain says, “No more start up feel to it.” Got something you want to add to the newsletter? Whacha' waiting for? Send it on over to me! If you ever have ideas, suggestions, or comments to provide to me, please feel free to contact me at steampunkis.editor@gmail.com. If you spot a printing error, please send any corrections that need to be made to the above email as well. Next Submission Deadline: 10/18/10 StaticNomad
MINUTES from August 26th & September 11th: Minutes for August 26, 2010 - Crystal's in Irving, Texas. Meeting called to order at 8:24pm by Captain Quinlin Hopkins. 34 at last count in attendance, plus visitors. Welcome visitors. Topics Discussed: Austin convention for this upcoming weekend. Captain mentioned the raffle we've started up for the meeting, all money donated will go into a fund for settling paperwork for establishing non-profit organization. He also mentioned the forum and website, which is under construction, but has plenty of information on all topics we've been discussing. Also discussed the logo artwork for our society. Toby mentioned that FoxFires, Amy, may be willing to work on our logo for our society, possibly free of charge. Original design idea by Larry, so thanks to Larry for his time in this. We also discussed the newsletter for our society. We put out our first issue this month. We will have better newsletters in the future, but for now - we have something! Other topics discussed - The convention we're working on in the future: The subject was brought up by Toby Lawhon for filling in new members and visitors. We have filed paper work for getting grants for next year's goal of a convention. It's not likely we will receive those funds, but we at least have an idea of what to do in the future from this experience. A visitor mentioned Hyatt Reunion Tower - there is a anime convention taking place in two weeks at that location. Fencon on September 18th 2010, there is a formal tea being held. Discussed project to make a reactor steampunk style like Farnsworth. (Minutes continued on page 2) Page 1