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Greetings, Crew!

It's been a pretty big week for our group, between the blood drive and the movie night!

On Saturday, we had the 20th Annual CONvergence Blood Drive at the DoubleTree Bloomington. It was held in the big conference room that used to house the Art Show, so there was a ton of room. We had 66 donors signed up before the day began, and almost all of them showed up. In the end, we collected a total of 57 pints, which is enough to touch up to 171 lives! This is actually the highest number we've ever had (beating our previous record of 55 from 2018), even though we've had more signups in the past. Since there was no convention, there were no donors that found a last-minute panel or other attraction to attend. Several people mentioned that they specifically wanted the highly coveted Blood Donor Badge Ribbon, so we definitely attracted some con regulars! It was great to be in the room with the drive, instead of having it on the bloodmobile where we can't see the action. Many thanks to Jane for recruiting and to Roxanne, Jenna and Diana for volunteering all day. Special thanks to Diana and Jack, who put their arms out to donate life-saving blood!

Also on Saturday was our annual backyard movie night, and it was really fun! The event is tailor-made for physical distancing, since everyone is spread out to watch the show, so it felt just like normal. Masks were worn when using the bathroom or getting food in the buffet line, of course, but this was but a trifle of inconvenience. Thanks to Emma for catering the event with delicious Jersey Mike's subs and chips. We also had assorted baked goods from my kitchen. A few members paid their fee and were unable to attend, so after all was said and done we raised over $100 for the club's coffers. I call that a win-win scenario!

I hope everyone is well. Take care, and see you around the Galaxy!

Mary

As you may know, several new Star Trek Little Golden Books have recently been published. They include "I am Captain Kirk", "I am Mr. Spock", and more. They're pretty cute and really well done. Here's a taste for your listening and viewing pleasure, as Ethan Peck (Discovery's Mr. Spock) reads "Too Many Tribbles!" To listen, just click HERE 

As mentioned above, last Saturday's blood drive was our biggest ever. Let's take a moment to celebrate the good we've done for patients:

• 39 blood drives between CONvergence, MarsCon and Manticon
• 1482 total blood donors
• 1209 pints collected
• Over 3500 lives touched

This is pretty amazing. Few groups can come close to this record. Thanks to everyone that has been involved over the years. We'll have to have a special bash for our next blood drive, our 40th!!

Did you know that Star Trek: Picard has the most Emmy nominations of any CBS All Access series so far? It has five nominations this year for the 72nd annual awards. Discovery picked up four last year and two in 2018, and this year is the most for any Star Trek series since Voyager got eight for their final season in 2001. The nominations include:

• Outstanding Period And/Or Character Hairstyling Picard for the episode “Stardust City Rag.”
• Outstanding Period And/Or Character Makeup (Non-Prosthetic) for the episode “Stardust City Rag.”
• Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup For A Series, Limited Series, Movie Or Special Picard for the episode “Absolute Candor"
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) for the episode “Et In Arcadia Ego: Part 2.”
• Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) for the episode “Et In Arcadia Ego: Part 2.”.

In addition to the Picard nods, Star Trek: Short Treks is nominated for Outstanding Short Form Comedy Or Drama Series.

Last Sunday, during a discussion of the current Star Trek Emmy nominations, Alex Kurtzman said the following about the upcoming series (due to start production in 2021):

"I think Strange New Worlds, under the guidance of Henry Myers and Akiva Goldsman, it’s going to be a return in a way to TOS [Star Trek: The Original Series]. We are going to do stand-alone episodes. There will be emotional serialization. There will be two-parters. There will be larger plot arcs. But it really is back to the model of alien-of-the-week, planet-of-the-week, challenge-on-the-ship-of-the-week. With these characters pre-Kirk’s Enterprise. I think what people responded so much to in all three characters is this kind of relentless optimism that they have. And that they are at the young phase of their careers."

Who's excited????!!!

Are you familiar with the video game "Tardigrades"? It's creator sued CBS in Manhattan federal court for copyright infringement because several episodes of Discovery involve a space encounter with a massive tardigrade. The court, however, did not agree with the allegation of infringement.

“[The author's] space-traveling tardigrade is an unprotectable idea because it is a generalized expression of a scientific fact—namely, the known ability of a tardigrade to survive in space,” the court said. “By permitting [the author] to exclusively own the idea of a space-traveling tardigrade, this Court would improperly withdraw that idea from the public domain and stifle creativity naturally flowing from the scientific fact that tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space.”

So rest assured that you can allow your creativity to naturally flow, and that you can feel free to create tardigrade stories to your heart's content. You're welcome.

Greetings, Crew!

It was great to see so many smiling faces (and hear some voices) at the Membership Meeting on Saturday. It sure is nice to have Zoom, not only because we're not meeting in person, but because we had attendees spread over Minnesota and Wisconsin on the call! A few updates for those of you that weren't able to attend:

• The biggest news is that we are postponing our 2020 Chuckwagon Social until 2021. We are targeting October 2021 for the event, and more information will follow. Since we're looking for fun things to do virtually, and since we know people put together some great auction items, we're considering a virtual auction. We'll be looking at options before the September meeting.
• We are working on an in-person woodcrafting class with a local vendor. Emma and I attended a fun event recently, at which we each made a custom cutting board out of domestic and exotic woods. More information will follow, and you can shoot me a note if you're interested in being informed directly about the plans.
• We are still eager to find fun options for virtual club events. We have discussed escape rooms, murder mysteries, happy hours and more. If you have ideas or have seen something work well for other groups, please let a board member know.

So, how'd you like Lower Decks? We had a fun watch party last Thursday and some conversation after Saturday's meeting. Personally, I thought it was cute/intriguing/worth a watch. My favorite thing of all is when the creators do things that are different and still give a nod to the fans. There were enough nods given to make my little Trekkie heart happy (Gary Mitchell?). I saw a funny quote on the Star Trek Universe group - "Nobody hates like a Star Trek Fan" - and of course some fans are appalled. Well, The Next Generation initially got terrible reviews from fans and look what happened there! Time will tell, and maybe a few more episodes.

Have a great week, and see you around the Galaxy!

Mary

If you are a fan of Deep Space Nine's Dr. Bashir, actor Alexander Siddig, here's some fun for you. According to the Sid City Social Club site, "the social club is an opportunity to connect with Alexander Siddig and a community of fans from around the world in a safe, socially distanced manner." You can attend discussions on Zoom, and the instructions are on the site. There are recordings of past meetings with special guests like Nana Visitor, Ira Steven Behr, and Andrew Robinson. Check it out HERE

We're happy to announce that every slot is filled for our upcoming 20th Annual CONvergence Blood Drive on August 22nd. The availability of antibody testing for COVID-19 undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of our drive. If you are interested in donating and didn't get a chance to sign up, let First Officer Jane know.

The August edition of Trek Trivia is August 12th at 7pm via Zoom. The theme this month is Phage Against the Machine! Sounds like a disease or pandemic-oriented theme, don't you think? If you'd like to play, let your captain know by August 11th at . It's a lot of fun!