Welcome to ASFA
News & Announcements
We are working on new features for the ASFA Community Network and beginning the groundwork for the 2013 Chesley Awards. Please check back; we will post more as information becomes available.
Call for Chesley Award Suggestions
The Chesley Suggestions List is currently being developed, and the Chesley Committee would appreciate some more input from the membership. Whatever artwork, published or unpublished, 2-D or 3-D, that caught your eye in 2012, let us know! The categories are listed below and you can make up to 5 suggestions in each category.
- Best Cover Illustration - Hardcover
- Best Cover Illustration - Paperback
- Best Cover Illustration - Magazine
- Best Interior Illustration
- Best Unpublished Color
- Best Unpublished Monochrome
- Best Three Dimensional
- Best Gaming Illustration
- Best Product Illustration
- Best Art Director
- Lifetime Artistic Achievement
Please submit your suggestions including the artist, the publication (where appropriate), or where seen/shown, and of course the title of the work, to:
Mitchell Bentley
Email ASFA President
I will forward any suggestions to our committee. Remember, anyone can suggest - this is only the first step and is open to the public. The next step is nominations, which is for members only, followed by the actual voting.
Streamlining and Automating ASFA
The board held a meeting at the Chicago Worldcon and voted to move towards streamlining and automating our membership process and focus on the ASFA Community Network as a hub of activity and payment gateway.
To that end we had an additional vote and eliminated two of our member categories. This is partially due to the limitations of the platform, but moreover to service our membership more effectively.
- We eliminated both the Family & Business categories;
- Family and Business memberships are converting to Regular memberships;
- New memberships will soon be available ONLY at the ASFA Community Network or in person and via mail;
- All online renewals will be handled through the ASFA Community Network payment process;
- When the conversion happens, members already signed up at the ASFA Community Network will receive extra time;
- Any members caught out in the change-over will have to re-purchase their membership, but will be refunded if they are otherwise current and paid up.
The new system will have to be implemented suddenly once everything is in place. If you have any problems, questions or issues, do not hesitate to email me and I will address them as they arise. This is YOUR membership and YOUR organization - what we do, we do to better serve YOU.
Unfortunately, we will be eliminating our joint membership program with the Illustration Exchange. The new payment method will not allow us to provide a reciprocal funds exchanges with any other organizations.
The ASFA Community Network
We are in the process of setting up the ASFA Community Network as a pay area. This means we will start using the ASFA Community Network as our primary membership payment gateway. You will be able to buy your membership, Regular (1 or 2 year) or Lifetime (forever) membership as you sign up to get into the ASFA Community Network. There will be no more sign-up after becoming a member - it will all be just one sign-up.
Unfortunately, that means some members may get caught out of the switch over... the more members that go to the ASFA Community Network and sign up NOW, the easier it will be to make sure they have access and are not charged twice. We will be granfathering in any members who are already signed up, and they will automatically receive a full year just for being in there - from the point of the switch (and regardless of their dues month). That system will take over for us.
If you are not yet an ASFA member, buy your membership here. After you do that, follow the instructions below:
IF YOU HAVE BOUGHT YOUR ASFA MEMBERSHIP, here is how you sign in at the ASFA Community Network:
Go to the ASFA Community Network and find the Sign Up/Sign In box on the top left of the Home Page, and click on SIGN UP to open the pop-up window.
Fill in your email (the one you gave to ASFA when you purchased your membership), create a password, retype it, fill in your birthdate (it will always remain private unless you change that), and solve the Captcha.
You will then be sent an email as verification, and you will need to click on the link in that email. If you don't get it, check your spam filters. Once you click on it you will need to fill in your name, member number (which will be secret - it is on your certificate and your card, or you can put in IDK13 and we will look that up for you), membership type (either Regular or Lifetime - all others are being converted to Regular), address, website and a profile picture.
You will not get into the community right away; you will have to be approved by an administrator who will check your membership name and number number against our database.
Once that is done, you can upload pictures, video, create a blog, participate in forums, list things for sale... and much more as we move forward and create our new ASFA community together!
Please stay tuned for more as we make this new ASFA a reality!


