Claudia has been involved on a peripheral level with local and national conventions for the past 18 or so years. She was on the Minicon Programming Committee in the early 90s and organized several panels both at Minicon and CONvergence. She has attended many Diversicons, and several WorldCons, Wiscons and last year's Gaylaxicon.

For the first four years of CONvergence, Claudia organized an entire hotel floor around the local leather scene as it related to Speculative Fiction fans. This involved coordinating closely with the hotel liaison and operations department to ensure a safe environment. In Minnesota, there is a large crossover between the two communities and has been for decades. We experienced a veritable con within a con.

More recently, she was appointed the Programming Chair for the 2007 Leather Leadership Conference, hosted by the Twin Cities in April 2007. In conjunction with that, she attended several national leather conventions in the last decade, from New Orleans to St. Louis to San Francisco to New York City.

In all of these activities, she has been observant about the registration process – what worked and what didn’t. She keeps a mental note file about the 30+ conventions attended over the years. These skills will assist her in running an efficient registration process for Gaylaxicon 2009.

Currently Claudia is involved in two monthly book clubs – one started in 1990, focusing on women authors, and the second, the local North Country Gaylaxian Bookclub that was started several years ago. She maintains the book lists for both clubs – updating them periodically and sending out announcements about future selections.

Claudia was a judge for the short story category for the Spectrum Awards in 2005 and 2008. She looks forward to meeting you all at the registration desk in October.