Who’s Who

Meteor Inc is managed by a committee, whose members are listed below. Also see: Consultants to the Committee.

Paul Bray - President

Paul is not a science fiction fan but is sympathetic towards Meteor Inc’s objectives. His mundane skills, particularly in the areas of legal compliance and corporate risk management, made him a natural selection for inaugural President of the Association. In that role he acts as an independent and totally objective convenor and facilitator

Mark Loney - Vice President

It was eighteen years ago that Australian science fiction fan Mark Loney, recognising the long term benefit to Melbourne fandom from having a permanent home that could be used for a library/archive as well as a meeting place, proposed that twenty Australian fans should each contribute $1,000 to make a down-payment on an inner suburban property. That deposit would have had to be augmented by the Australian Science Fiction Foundation (ASFF) to secure a mortgage loan on the premises that could have been paid out over time by institutions like the Melbourne Science Fiction Club, literary discussion groups and SF conventions. SF fans liked the idea but no one has done anything about it until Meteor Inc arrived in Aug 2007.

Carey Handfield - Treasurer

Carey Handfield is an organiser. He has been organising things and people since he started in fandom in 1969. He was the President of the Monash University SF Association in 1971/72. He has worked on all Australian World Science Fiction Conventions - on the central committees for Aussiecon 1 in 1975 & Aussiecon 2 in 1985 and as an advisor to Aussiecon 3 in 1999. He also chaired the Sydney in 1983 Worldcon Bid. He has worked on numerous Australian SF Conventions including Chairing BOFCON 1976 Natcon. He was fan GOH at the 1988 Natcon in Sydney. In 1975 he founded Norstrilia Press with Bruce Gillespie the Australian SF small press of the 1970 & 1980s.

Bill Wright - Secretary & Memberships

Bill Wright is a Great Man whose irreverent sense of humour and slightly eccentric way of looking at the world is not always appreciated by some Australian fans. Bill joined the Melbourne Science Fiction Club in 1955 and was in evidence at Australian science fiction conventions until the 1980s.

In 1970 he joined Anzapa (the Australia and New Zealand Amateur Publishing Association) where the first incarnation of his fanzine, Interstellar Ramjet Scoop (IRS) was published regularly until the late 1970s. Bill’s claim to enduring fame is to have been Secretary of the bid committee for Australia’s first Worldcon, the 1975 Aussiecon.

Bill reentered fandom in 1995 when he revived IRS in cahoots with computer graphics wizard Dick (Ditmar) Jenssen. In recent years, because of IRS, Bill Wright has won every ANZAPA popularity poll for which he has been eligible to stand. Visit IRS at http://efanzines.com/IRS/

Rob Gerrand - Committee member

Rob Gerrand’s books include Transmutations (Editor, 1979), Fortress (novel, 1993), Rewrite Your Life! (self help, co-written with Eve Ash, 2002), Rewrite Your Relationships! (self help, co-written with Eve Ash, 2004) and The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: a Fifty Year Collection (editor, 2004). His stories have appeared in The Altered I (ed. Lee Harding, 1975), Envisaged Worlds (ed. Paul Collins, 1978) and Alien Worlds (ed. Paul Collins, 1979). He founded the Victorian Arts Centre Magazine in 1982, and was its Editor-in-Chief until 1987. He was a partner, with Bruce Gillespie and Carey Handfield, in the Australian publishing company Norstrilia Press, 1975-1989.

Bruce Gillespie

Meteor Inc is grateful to Bruce for allowing us to to tap his vast network of fannish contacts. In addition to carrying out routine maintenance on this website, he heads the Communications subcommittee that promotes the Association’s aims and objectives at SF clubs, conventions, literary discussion groups and on the Internet.

Bruce Gillespie has been publishing fanzines since 1968. The first issue of SF Commentary, which first appeared in 1969, has been nominated three times for the Hugo Award (1972, 1973 and 1975), and has won a number of Ditmar Awards (Australian SF Achievement Award). He is a foundation member of Anzapa (Australia and New Zealand Amateur Publishing Association) and has contributed to a number of other apas. He was Fan Guest of Honour at Aussiecon 3, the world science fiction convention held in Melbourne in 1999, and is the winner of more prestigious local and international awards that any other Australian science fiction fan. Electronic versions of all his fanzines since 1991 have been published on Bill Burns’ celebrated website http://www.efanzines.com.

Bruce was a partner, along with Rob Gerrand and Carey Handfield, in pioneering SF publisher Norstrilia Press.