GUFF delegate 2014 is Gillian Pollack!

We have a winner – the GUFF delegate who won the very exciting 2014 race and who will be attending Worldcon and Eurocon this summer as the official representative of Australasian fandom is Gillian Polack! Kylie Ding, the current Australasian GUFF administrator, and me offer heartfelt congratulations!

We are looking forward to seeing Gillian at Loncon 3 and at Shamrokon were she will be representing the awesome Australasian fandom! You can find our more about her on her website and you can follow her on Twitter.

We would like to thank all the candidates for running an excellent and very exciting race!

After voting closed and Monday, June 9th, and all the print out ballots collected by our representatives and past GUFF winners Sue Ann Barber and Justin Acroyd were scanned and emailed to Kylie Ding and me – for which we owe them a great thank you and a few drinks, too! – we were left with a very delicate and touchy job!

I would like to put “sticky” there but it just does not sound right in English! There is an awesome adjective in Croatian that would fit perfectly here – pipav [pipav] from the verb pipati, which means to touch, to feel up. The adjective however carries the implication that whatever you are doing that is pipavo is likely to easily stick to your fingers in an uncomfortable or annoying manner or create a mess if you do not approach it with care and great attention to details. (Incidentally, I learned this word from Petra Bulic, the Kontak chair who is heading up the volunteers at Loncon 3!)

There were over 100 votes cast for four candidates and the vote was very close, which is why you have had to wait so long for the result: we have checked and rechecked each vote. So, it was pipavo indeed! You can read all about it in the 2014 GUFF Vote Details, if you are interested.

Let me tell you, counting votes in the Australian voting system is very confusing. Had I been by myself, you’d probably be still waiting for the results! Luckily, Kylie was there to explain everything and demonstrate immediately, as well.

Both Kylie and myself would also like to thank James Shields for his Google Docs vote-counting spreadsheet.  We found it to be a very useful resource.

And now on to preparations for Worldcon and Eurocon!:)

 

GUFF delegate 2014 is Gillian Pollack!