HPEF, Inc. News

You may have seen some internet posts that give incorrect opening dates for the
World of Harry Potter. I have spoken to Universal and have been assured that
the park will be ready for Infinitus 2010. Any questions can be directed to
jenn@infinitus2010.org or info@infinitus2010.org. Thanks!!

Jenn Clack
Chair, Infinitus 2010

Judith Krug, founder of Banned Books Week, dies

EVANSTON, Ill. — Judith Krug, a director of the Chicago-based American Library Association and a founder of its Banned Books Week, has died. She was 69.

Judith Platt, president of the ALA's Freedom to Read Foundation, says Krug (KROOG) died late Saturday at Evanston Hospital in suburban Chicago following a battle with stomach cancer. She says Krug had been ill for more than a year.

She had been head of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967.

Banned Books Weeks has been observed since 1982 during the last week of September. ALA officials say the event celebrates intellectual freedom.


Judith Krug was our very first keynote speaker at Nimbus - 2003:
Nimbus Keynote Luncheon Friday, July 18, 2003
Harassing Harry: The "Demonizing" of the Harry Potter Series:
Judith Krug, Director, Office of Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association.

She was immensely supportive to HPEF's earliest efforts and she gave an unforgettable talk that weekend. She told me that we should be very proud of what we managed to accomplish, planning our conference in the digital world of email, and making it reality.

Our heartfelt condolences to her family and friends, and to the associations for which she worked so tirelessly.

The Infinitus room block at the Universal Resort properties is open for reservations! Rooms are available for $210 at the Portofino Bay Hotel (http://www.universalorlando.com/ht_pbh_index.html) and the Royal Pacific Resort (http://www.universalorlando.com/ht_rpr_index.html). For those of you who want to experience the (w)rocking lifestyle, we will also have a small number of rooms at the Hard Rock Hotel (http://www.universalorlando.com/ht_hrh_index.html) for $255. If you'd prefer a suite, there is a twenty-five percent discount available to all Infinitus attendees on suites at all three Universal Resort hotels. Please note when making your reservations that the majority of the symposium will be taking place at the Royal Pacific Resort convention center. There will be plenty of readily available transportation options between the hotels, such as a lovely water taxi, shuttles and beautiful walking paths.

In order to make your room reservations, simply call 1-866-360-7395 and mention that you'll be attending the HP Education Fanon Inc., Infinitus 2010 Symposium.

We've had some requests - and of course we've looked at the economy...

And we've decided to extend the $145 full event registration price until April 15, 2009.

A basic registration includes all Saturday through Monday programming tracks, the Welcome Feast, the Leaving Feast, pick-up Quidditch, the LeakyMug podcast, admission to the Vendor Room and Gallery, Common Room, the auction, in-hotel film showings, the Fun with Your Flock meet-ups, the Podcasts, and a ticket to the Prison Break Ball.

Why not put together your programming submission for AZKATRAZ?

If you hadn't heard yet, LiveJournal is moving its data to Montana today, so it's going to be down for four-plus hours, starting at 8 AM Pacific time. It's a terrific time to do something else, and we've extended the deadline for Early Decision submissions!

Need a little more time to submit your proposal to AZKATRAZ? But wait… you still need to know before the end of the year whether or not you've been accepted so you can secure funding for travel! What's a presenter to do?

There's no need to worry, as we have extended our early submission deadline for presentation proposals to Monday, December 1, 2008! We know this time of year can get crazy, and we want you to have the time to submit your best proposals. Remember that proposals for lectures and panels should be 250-750 words in length and include as much detail about the content of the proposed session as possible, including a title, rationale for the session, and a summary of the paper or a list of questions and issues to be discussed. Proposals for roundtables and workshops should be 200-500 words in length and include a title, rationale, and a list of questions and issues to be discussed or demonstrated. A 150-word abstract and a short biography of each presenter will also be required with each proposal. There will be a separate process to submit if you want to participate in a fanfiction reading or submit a video for the vidding show. Submit your proposal electronically on the Azkatraz website at submissions.hp2009.org

Accepted early submissions will be notified by December 15, 2008. If you have any questions about programming, please contact our programming team at submissions@hp2009.org.

All the info you need - and the form - can be found here, or visit our forums for collaboration/brainstorming discussions.

For five years, HPEF has helped to promote the spread of literacy by producing magical events for fans and scholars. Now it is your turn to help share your love of reading and the Harry Potter novels, just by purchasing your summer reading list at any Barnes & Noble Booksellers the weekend of June 20-22, 2008.

All purchases, outside of textbooks, gift cards, and B&N membership cards, will help support future HP Education Fanon events, include PORTUS in Dallas, LEVEL TWO in San Jose, and INFINITUS at the Universal Orlando Resort. All you need to do is tell the cashier the Bookfair number 310268, or provide the voucher upon checkout. Whether you purchase a mocha and a scone in the Cafe or your third copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a portion of the proceeds will go to help support future HPEF events.

You can also help support the Dallas area charity, LIFT (Literacy Instruction for Texas) by purchasing an item off the LIFT Wish List. Any books purchased for LIFT will be used in providing literacy classes to adults surrounding the Dallas area. LIFT was created to address the critical adult literacy issues in Dallas through programs which are accessible to adults at the lowest levels of literacy. With specialized ESL and Family Literacy programs, LIFT focuses on those who would normally be overlooked or ignored in standard educational initiatives. A child’s educational success is greatly increased by a parent who reads and reads with the child. We all know the joy reading Harry Potter has brought to us. Let’s pass that joy on by making a donation of a book to LIFT. Simply call the Arlington Barnes and Noble store on June 20-22 (817-472-7559) to place an order off of the LIFT wish-list.

If you have a meet up group, and would like to host a meet up at a Barnes & Noble the weekend of June 20-22, please send us an email to pr@portus2008.org.

Please pass along this along to your friends, family, and fellow Harry Potter fans. Anyone can help by purchasing during the Bookfair. This is an event they won't want to miss!

The TAXMAN brings you our last discount before Portus!

It's May, and owls are flying all over the country dropping off those much desired tax refunds. To celebrate all the extra galleons and sickles being dropped at our doorsteps, we have decided to present you with one last discount before Portus arrives this July! From today through May 31st, enter the code TAXMAN when registering for Portus, and you will receive a 20% discount on full and day registrations. It's the perfect time to give your friend or relative a gift registration for Portus! Act soon before the price freezes at $220.00 for a full registration!

A note from the Minister of Magic:

And... we're back! The Portus Staff thanks you for your understanding and patience while our technology elves brought our website back from the dead. We were fortunate enough to be able to restore our entire site and the forums from a complete server crash.

The month of May brings exciting news about Portus. We are pleased to announce the addition of a complimentary Deluxe Continental Breakfast on Friday and Saturday mornings to all registered attendees. Do you feel like four days of Wrock just isn't enough? Join Alex of The Remus Lupins, Matt of The Whomping Willows, Christian of Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls, and Jace of Catchlove on the night of Sunday, July 13 for the Post-Portus Wizard Rock Dance party. Admission is just $20 and includes snacks and soft drinks.

Have a burning question? Want to get a head start on the presence of your Portus Pals? Join the Portus Staff and your fellow attendees for our Live Chats Monday May 19th, Thursday June 5th, and Tuesday July 1st from 8 to 10 PM EDT. To participate in the chats, you will need to have yahoo messenger and a username, which you can download for free here: http://messenger.yahoo.com/. To join the chat, send an instant message to PortusPublicRelations requesting access to the chat and you will receive a notification inviting you to the chat. Press "Accept," and you'll be chatting with the rest of us in no time!

Finally, don't forget to book your room at the Hilton Anatole. The fabulous room rate of $155/night is only guaranteed until June 7, 2008.

We learned this week that our server's hard drive crashed completely. Luckily, we had backups of much of the content of the various events' sites - but we didn't have a complete backup of the database from the forums. And unfortunately, both people at our site host who can go in and remove the broken hard drive so we can do data recovery measures on it are unavailable this week (one because of a family tragedy, and one because of end-of-school-term issues). We hope to have the hard drive in hand by the end of the week, and get the forums up at that point. We are also re-loading all the content for portus_2008 and the other events to the new server, and those should be back online by the weekend.

Thanks for your support and patience, and don't forget that you can still register for Portus 2008, make your reservation at the Hilton Anatole and enjoy our pseudo-forums at going2portus.

While the Portus website is still down, our forums are back up and running.

If you want to meet up with fellow attendees or ask questions about Portus, please visit our forums today! You can also register for the symposium.

Unfortunately the Portus 2008 website is currently down. We are aware of the problem and are busily working to solve it.

In the meantime, you can still register for Portus.

If you have questions about Portus, please feel free to ask here, or you may also direct them to info@portus2008.org.

Hello artists!

The Portus 2008 Harry Potter symposium, taking place in Dallas, TX this July is looking for artists who are interested in submitting their original artwork for display in our art gallery. It's a great chance to have your work publicly displayed, make possible commission connections, and to participate in a fun event geared towards Harry Potter fans.

We are also holding a charity auction that benefits LIFT, a literacy organization that assists adults in need in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. All proceeds from artwork donated to our auction will benefit this group.

We hope to get some great submissions this year!

http://portus2008.org/call_for_artwork.htm

Portus 2008: A Harry Potter Symposium will be accepting proposals for Formal Programming through midnight CST on Monday, January 21, 2008. Now is your chance to be a magical part of the 5th HP Education Fanon, Inc. event, to be held July 10 - 13 in Dallas, Texas!

Proposals for presentations, panels, workshops, roundtables and posters are being sought in the following areas:
*Literary and Media Studies
*Law, Politics, Ethics
*Social Sciences
*Education and Library Science
*Fandom Studies and Culture
*Fan Creativity

For topic ideas and submission directions, please visit the Portus Call for Proposals.

Hello everyone. First off, I'd like to apologize for any lack of response that you have received this past Holiday weekend.

There are three points to this message, and they are as follows:

1. Unfortunately, while the hotel initially promised us that people would be able to make reservations by now, it seems that recent updates to their system don't allow them to accept reservations more than 18-20 months in advance. Therefore, if you want to make your reservation directly with the hotel, you'll have to wait another thirteen months or so.

However, starting in January 2008, you will be able to add your name to a reservation list with our event's travel agents, who are going to coordinate with the hotel on your behalf. More information on this will be available in the coming weeks.

2. The Universal Resort complex has over 2400 rooms available between their three hotels, and our designated room block - which we can enlarge - is for over 500 rooms for each night of the conference. In other words, the hotels can hold nearly 10,000 people on any given night.

We are working closely with the hotels to make sure that rooms are available for everyone who wants one. The reason we hoped to enable people to make reservations this far out is because people sometimes get gifts of conference travel as a holiday present - we know of a few people who plan to ask for their trip to Infinitus 2010 as their Christmas present for the next three years. We wanted to make it possible for them to do this, but in turn, we don't want anyone to feel that they're under enormous pressure to make their reservation this week or next month or even in the next year. The hotels won't sell out that quickly, and if they do we'll get an overflow hotel nearby and bus people back and forth. And everyone will have a terrific time!

3. We are working with the hotel to resolve an issue regarding additional per-person costs in standard rooms and suites that are above double occupancy, and hope to have our questions answered in the next few weeks.

Again, we thank you for your patience throughout this situation.

Respectfully,

Kari Phillips
Minister of Magic, Infinitus 2010

EDIT: We're so happy that you're looking forward to Infinitus!

We're currently in contact with the hotel about this glitch in their system, and we're well into discussions on how to rectify this situation! Please be patient while we work this out. :)

In the meantime, don't forget about Portus 2008 who's registration is still open!

Please check back for updates in the next few days.

Thanks again,

Kari Phillips
Minister of Magic, Infinitus 2010


For Immediate Release:

After months of waiting, we've finally got some news to share to all of the Harry Potter fans that are eagerly awaiting information on the highly anticipated Infinitus 2010 HPEF symposium!

We're proud to announce that starting on November 20, 2007 the Infinitus room block at the Universal Resort properties will be opening up for reservations! Rooms are available for $210 at the Portofino Bay Hotel and the Royal Pacific Resort. For those of you who want to experience the (w)rocking lifestyle, we will also have a small number of rooms at the Hard Rock Hotel for $255. If you'd prefer a suite, there is a twenty-five percent discount available to all Infinitus attendees on suites at all three Universal Resort hotels. Please note when making your reservations that the majority of the symposium will be taking place at the Royal Pacific Resort convention center. There will be plenty of readily available transportation options between the hotels, such as a lovely ferry ride.

In order to make your room reservations, simply call 1-866-360-7395 and mention that you'll be attending the HP Education Fanon Inc., Infinitus 2010 Symposium.

The entire Infinitus Team is working tirelessly with Universal Resort properties and the Universal parks to plan a spectacular event. More information will be forthcoming throughout 2008 and beyond. In the meantime, be sure to check out Portus 2008 that will be taking place in Dallas, Texas from July 10-13, 2008, and Level Two 2009 taking place in San Jose, California from July 23-26, 2009.

-Kari Phillips
Minister of Magic, Infinitus 2010

This Friday (that's November 9) at 6 PM at Universal Studios Orlando (exact location to be announced soon), some of the organizing team members from INFINITUS 2010 and the HPEF board are going to kick off our Planning Season over libations and nibbles, so everyone can learn more about the event and Universal's Harry Potter plans while we're in town for our first site visit.

Everyone is welcome but we need you to RSVP at http://www.hpef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=462 or http://community.livejournal.com/hp_florida/19034.html or by emailing Heidi so she can send you the EVITE for the event. Please, anyone in the Central Florida area - we hope to see you there, and feel free to forward the info about the event around! And if we can't see you this month, we hope to see you in the summer of 2010!

For Immediate Release


While millions of readers worldwide are about to read the final chapters of Harry Potter’s epic story, HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF) is looking to his—and our—next adventure.

The end of the Harry Potter series is only the beginning of an infinite number of possibilities.

Therefore, HPEF is proud to announce “Infinitus 2010,” a Harry Potter conference to take place July 15-18 2010 in Orlando, Florida – home to the all-new “World of Harry Potter” attraction at Universal Orlando Resort.

Hotel, Registration rates, and additional event information are forthcoming. As always, registrants can expect our high commitment to strong and diverse formal and informal programming on topics from Alchemy to Zoology and every subject in between. The conference agenda will also include at least one event at the “World of Harry Potter” theme park, allowing our attendees to explore and immerse themselves in the Wizarding World as never before.

HPEF is also pleased to endorse a team of organizers with a firm background in our conferences and event philosophy. Infinitus’ Minister of Magic, Kari Phillips, is the Head of Wizard Talent for Prophecy 2007, and is serving as Chair of Informal Programming for Portus 2008 as well. Her department heads include Jennifer Clack, who worked diligently on Informal Programming for Lumos, is part of the amazing Prophecy team, and is also part of the Portus team; Kristin Coleman, Meet-&-Greet veteran from Lumos, Prophecy, and Portus; and experienced Security Chief Aziza Aba Butain. These ladies and many other experienced volunteers, along with talented new blood, will continue our record of high-quality, magical events for scholars and fans.

The Board of Directors of HPEF looks forward to seeing what the next three years will bring. We look forward to the myriad activities, studies, communities, and projects that fandom has to offer. We look forward to Infinitus.

For Immediate Release


While millions of readers worldwide are about to read the final chapters of Harry Potter’s epic story, HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF) is looking to his—and our—next adventure.

The end of the Harry Potter series is only the beginning of an infinite number of possibilities for the fandom.

Therefore, HPEF is proud to announce “Infinitus 2010,” a Harry Potter conference to take place July 15-18 2010 in Orlando, Florida – home to the all-new “World of Harry Potter” attraction at Universal Orlando Resort.

Hotel, Registration rates, and additional event information are forthcoming. As always, registrants can expect our high commitment to strong and diverse formal and informal programming on topics from Alchemy to Zoology and every subject in between. The conference agenda will also include at least one event at the “World of Harry Potter” theme park, allowing our attendees to explore and immerse themselves in the Wizarding World as never before.

HPEF is also pleased to endorse a team of organizers with a firm background in our conferences and event philosophy. Infinitus’ Minister of Magic, Kari Phillips, is the Head of Wizard Talent for Prophecy 2007, and is serving as Chair of Informal Programming for Portus 2008 as well. Her department heads include Jennifer Clack, who worked diligently on Informal Programming for Lumos, is part of the amazing Prophecy team, and is also part of the Portus team; Kristin Coleman, Meet-&-Greet veteran from Lumos, Prophecy, and Portus; and experienced Security Chief Aziza Aba Butain. These ladies and many other experienced volunteers, along with talented new blood, will continue our record of high-quality, magical events for scholars and fans.

The Board of Directors of HPEF looks forward to seeing what the next three years of fandom will bring. We look forward to the myriad activities, studies, communities, and projects that fandom has to offer. We look forward to Infinitus.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Please distribute

The “Summer Of Potter” brings with it winds of change. Where will fandom take us next?

For HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF), the journey continues with Portus, July 10 – 13, 2008 in Dallas, Texas, and Level Two, July 23 to 26, 2009 in San Jose, California. And in 2010….

We have received a bid for an event at the newly announced and already widely anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter Theme Park at Universal Studios, Orlando Florida, for July 15 -- 18, 2010. The bid team is led by Kari Phillips, who can be contacted at utkari02@ yahoo.com.

In accordance with our bid procedures, HPEF hereby issues a Call for Bids to request proposals for alternate dates or locations. Anyone interested in submitting a competitive bid for 2010 MUST contact HPEF by June 23, 2007 at hpeducationfanon@ gmail.com, and MUST submit their bid materials no later than midnight Central Time on July 15, 2007, for consideration.

Although Harry’s story reaches its final installment in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” we at HPEF know that the phenomenon JK Rowling brought about in 1997 is far from over, and we eagerly look forward to the next chapter….

Dallas, Texas - After months of planning, hunched over our scrolls, the Disillusionment Charm has been lifted! We are proud to unveil the official website for Portus 2008: A Harry Potter Symposium and open registration.

Witches, wizards, and Muggles alike are invited to join us in this magical experience presented by HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF), a non-profit organization devoted to exploring academic themes based on the popular Harry Potter book series by British author J.K. Rowling. Portus will be HPEF's fifth academic symposium, following the success of the previous HPEF events: Nimbus-2003, The Witching Hour, Lumos, and the upcoming Prophecy.

All the spells and charms you will need for an enchanting experience in the Lone Star state are just a swish and click away at www.portus2008.org. Register now to experience this magical event for scholars and fans!

We hope you will all join us July 10-13th, 2008 in Dallas, Texas!