K/S CONnections

Are you looking for the K/S CONnections contest zine?

Star Trek Convention
Name:	K/S CONnections
Dates:	2003-2005?
Frequency:
Location:	Chester, UK
Type:	fan con
Focus:	slash
Organization:
Founder:	Liz Woledge
Founding Date:	2003
URL:	2003 Convention website
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K/S CONnections was a small fan-run slash convention focusing on Star Trek fandom. Membership was limited to 55. At least 3 conventions were held.

From the 2003 convention flyer: "We will revel in Kirk and Spock and K/S. A chance to meet with like minded friends old and new. You can join in panel discussions, be tempted to try new skills at workshops and watch old favourites (or find new ones) in the video room. There will be an auction, dealers tables and an orphan zine table. If you want to relax you can retreat to the zine library or the meeting room for a read or a chat. There will also be a con-contest zine so after you've registered get writing!"

From the organizer: "I decided to do it because I wanted to go to a K/S con in the UK—totally selfish. If I wanted to go, then I had to run it myself, as no one else was doing so at the time. I also ran it because I wanted to know how much interest in K/S there was in the UK. I discussed it a lot with my two best UK K/S buddies and they were supportive. Even though we could count the K/S fans in the UK that we knew of on the fingers of one hand, we decided to see who would come out the woodwork. Besides which, I had seen the film of Wayne’s World and what is it he says? “If you build it, they will come”—well they did! I didn’t know I could do it—but I figured if other people could, so could I. I knew about the nitty gritty from helping with Red Rose Conventions, and I had a good model for my ideal K/S con from visiting Jenna’s KiScon in the US.

Con Reports: 2003

Deep in the heart of the English countryside in the ancient town of Chester, twenty-five K/S fans met for a magical weekend organised almost single-handedly by Liz Woledge. I arrived on the Friday evening, having driven directly from a funeral in Norfolk, to find everyone gathered in the conservatory chatting over tea. At one side, was a marvelous display of K/S artwork. It was lovely to feel so welcome and I was delighted to see Christine, Joan and Liz again. What a tonic after a funeral! For me, the highlight of Friday evening was watching the video “Mindmeld” for the first time. This gave an extraordinary insight into the personalities of Leonard and Bill, not simply from what they said but what you could read between the lines. It particularly interested me to notice how Bill deflected attention from his own vulnerabilities by asking Leonard questions. His listening skills were pretty good too, I thought. I know Leonard is not Spock, but having watched the video I did feel as though I understood Spock a little better. Back to the con! We were accommodated in a college conference centre, a large Edwardian building which had a kind of collegiate feel to it. A housekeeper and her staff looked after us for the weekend. The buffet- style food was superb and the staff were friendly and fascinated by the subject of our convention! Liz had organised panels on all sorts of provocative subjects. A little scary to me as I haven’t any recent experience of conventions (I was 16 when I went to my last ST con, many years ago...) One of the things I enjoyed most was talking to Rosemary. We’d corresponded before and she published my first story in the 1990s but we’d never met. A very interesting lady. I had the new experience of spending too much money on zines in the dealers room and came away with some real gems—some of which I intend to review. (Thanks, Liz, for helping me choose.) Best things about the con? Lovely, warm, intelligent, eccentric women (the best kind—hope I’m not offending anyone!) great food, beautiful city, sweet handmade gift boxes from Liz, and lots of K/S (thanks, Joan, for your heroic 79 K/S moments.) Strangely, my favourite parts of the weekend were the little “missions”—dashing about Chester finding a bouquet for Liz and locating one guest who had gone missing from the Sunday dinner. We had left without her by mistake and were worried about her, but it was okay, she had just fallen asleep. Thank you, Liz (and Joan and Christine who helped) for an unforgettable weekend.

This Con report will be very short as I am sure you will receive lots of others, and is largely to say a big thank you to Liz for organising what was a hugely enjoyable weekend. Many of the attendees had nightmarish journeys getting to Chester—my own traveling time expanded from 2.5 hours to nearly 6 because of engineering works and general inefficiency on the part of the train companies—but the agony was well worth it. The venue was excellent with great food (and lots of it!) and it was particularly nice to be able to sit together in a formal dining room at beautifully laid tables and chat in elegance and comfort. Not that the atmosphere was ever formal—chocolate cream-filled willies and other similar delights made sure of that—but the setting was great. The celebration dinner on Saturday night was made especially memorable by Liz's thoughtful gifts: lovely little silvered gift boxes with K or S magnets inside. The staff deserve a very special mention; not a hair was turned or an eyelash blinked except in appreciative enjoyment throughout the entire weekend and we almost had some new K/S recruits by the end. It was a very relaxed time throughout, with plenty of opportunity to laze about in the library and try and read everything on offer. It felt rather like being given unlimited access to a sweetshop for only 2 days so you had to eat as much as you could as fast as you could before it all vanished again. By the end, having read at breakneck speed, I was stuffed full of K/S which had all pleasantly jumbled together in my head. Fortunately, having bought two dozen or so zines from the orphan zine table I have managed to continue this state of mind for the last 2 weeks; it hasn't done much for my thought processes but hey, I'm happy! Subjects discussed in the panels I attended ranged from whether the captain of a current day naval vessel would jump his first officer while on duty (no, but do we care?) to whether K/S 'reality' means based in the series/films only (and if so, what about AU?) and why do we always expect mutual orgasms (on paper if not in life)? Many interesting, frequently funny and occasionally intense discussions interspersed with much irreverent posing of Kirk figurines, interfering with tribbles and revealing of lascivious thoughts—what more could anyone ask? For someone who has no K/S-ers to talk to at home except on email, this was an energising experience, so thanks yet again to Liz. Hopefully we have persuaded/nagged/bullied her into running it all over again next year. If not, I'm afraid it will have to be the British version of the blue velvet poodles—pink satin bulldogs, perhaps?

2004

The 2004 convention was held August 20th to Sunday 22nd, 2004 in Chester, UK.

The convention also published the K/S CONnections contest zine.

Con Reports: 2004

I picked out a few gems from a sparkling weekend at K/Sconnections:

• Tea in the sunlit conservatory, slices of beautifully- illustrated K/S cake, with strawberries.
• Little presents lovingly made by Liz—a notebook with a shirtless Kirk on the cover, a neat calender, K/S name badges...
• Wonderful, clever, warm, funny women.
• A particular picture of Kirk with bare shoulders. Ah yes.
• Listening to someone telling me of her distaste for the violence in darker K/S, then catching her in fits of giggles over a story about a guinea pig who met an untimely and messy demise. It was funny.
• Anne's extraordinary T-shirt.
• The other Kate's generous, funny and thoughtful talk on the 'Dark Side' and the showing of 'Closer' (oh my.)
• Liz sharing with us the academic paper on slash she'd given at a conference. She explained how songvids are the encoding of new K/S narratives using decontextualized ambiguous cultural codes from canon.
• Other panels on zine editing, K/S and gender, computer tips and Kirk vs. Spock. I got a convert! That made three of us for Kirk. Don't worry, we all decided we need both for K/S.
• The really intellectual panel on Vulcan Genitalia. Anne brought an arresting life-size painting of a naked Spock without the best bits and we designed our own alien equipment for him. We had fraals, teeth(!) spirals and flowers, but no double ridges as far as I remember. Perhaps there is something strange about the British imagination.
• The meticulously constructed and interminable Trek quiz we all took part in on Saturday night. Our team knew all the answers except those to our own questions. I'm not bitter at all, Anne.
• A Frances Rowes story I discovered in the elegant zine-library room: 'A Deltan Decameron' in T'hy'la 12. This made me very happy.
• Best of all was spending time with a bunch of lovely people. Liz, Chris, Joan, Rosemary, Kath, Anne, Kate etc, I'm very fond of you all. Thank you for making K/S Connections so special.

2005

• K/S CONnections (camp) 2005, a small convention celebrating K/S in all its glory!
• WHERE: Hebden Bridge, a beautiful Yorkshire village,
• WHEN: August 2005, Friday 19th to Sunday 21st

From the announcement in The K/S Press #99: "As before we will revel in Kirk and Spock and K/S. Our new venue is a little more basic and has a campy <<no, not that kind of campy!>> feel to it. Bedrooms are basic but en-suite so don’t worry there aren’t any actual tents! The secluded and self contained nature lends its self to thoughts of pyjama parties, midnight feasts, reading zines in bed after ‘lights out’ and of course talking and talking into the wee small hours about Kirk and Spock. This is chance to meet with like minded friends old and new, the con is focused on you and your participation, we need and want everyone to take part! You can join in panel discussions, watch old favourites (or find new ones) in the video room, chat with friends, and drool over the art exhibition. There will also be a few dealers tables and an orphan zine table to tempt you. If you want to relax you can borrow a zine from the library for a read. There will also be a con-contest zine, so after you’ve registered get writing, we have had some excellent entries over the last two years, so here’s to even better ones this time round!"