A short history of the CWMC banquets and awards ...
Feb 14, 2019 12:12:07 GMT -8
Post by Interested bystander on Feb 14, 2019 12:12:07 GMT -8
A short history of the CWMC banquets and awards ...
... for those not in the know.
The first Cyber Whore Mongers Convention (CWMC), or Cyber Whore Mongers Club Meeting (CWMCM) as Bashful likes to call it, was held in July 1997. Bashful posted on GP's old website that he would be in the Reno/CC area during a certain period of time and if anyone wanted to meet him they should show up. There were no events, no planning, Bashful just told when he would be at certain brothels and that was it. The guys hung out at the houses, talked and partied. Doc was there and during the week suggested that the guys get together for dinner on Saturday night. The chose Rapscallions seafood restaurant and the first banquet was born. There were no festivities, just 8-12 guys having dinner at the same place.
Since the first get-together was so much fun it was decided to have a second CWMC in July 1998. People that had heard about the first one wanted to get in on the fun, including me. Since the dinner was popular at CWMC1 there was a call to do another. It was assumed that Doc would set it up again. When nothing was forthcoming a couple of months before the event I called Doc and asked about the dinner. He responded that no one had asked if he was organizing anything and that he didn't intend to organize anything. I stepped in and found a place to have the dinner and asked people to reserve spots. The reservations didn't have to be prepaid, I would collect the night of the dinner, I just needed to be able to tell the restaurant how many seats we needed. Since there were a dozen or less at the CWMC1 dinner I expected the number to increase to about 20 ... maybe. I was shocked when I got 45 reservations. We ended up having an entire banquet room at the restaurant. While I was organizing this affair, GP said one day "wouldn't it be fun to give out some awards" and asked if I cared if he gave them out at the banquet. I told him I didn't care so he made up a few categories, put up an information page on his website and we had our first vote. The original awards were Brothel of the Year, Courtesan of the Year, and Webmaster's Choice award. There was no equivocating by GP, these were his awards and he would make up the rules for voting. He reserved the right to decide who got the Webmaster's Choice Award himself (thus the name). The first COY was Katherine Leigh, the first BOY was Sagebrush 1, the first Webmaster's Choice Award winner was Bashful. I don't think there was any controversy over any of these. Katherine not only pulled the most votes but garnered over 50% of the vote with the other 50% being split between the other 7 or 8 nominees. At the time Sagbrush was the class of the state as far as brothels go. Bashful was a popular choice for the last award because his FAQ was one of the seminal documents on LPIN on the net. It's interesting that the number of votes that first year would not be exceeded until CWMC5. There were over 100 votes cast for the GP awards at CWMC2.
I figured I had done my job with the CWMC2 banquet so I said I would let others do one for CWMC3. Flyfisher and Curious stepped up and said they would do it. GP's interest in awards waned and he said he didn't plan to do it again. ArcticBear ICQed several of us and suggested that if GP wasn't going to do awards maybe we could get a committee together to give out awards. One night the committee got together consisting of me, AB, Curious, Flyfisher, Cowboy, Klatch and a couple of others. Since Bashful didn't have ICQ at the time we named him committee chairman (in abscentia) and told him about it later. The committee agreed on what awards to give out and hashed out some voting rules. Curious said he would buy the awards and we would charge a little surcharge on the banquet tickets so he could get repaid. He set up a website and took banquet reservations. Someone set up a site for voting but for the life of me I can't remember who it was, it might have been Klatch. Anyway, two or three people got CCed on the e-mailed votes and anyone that used an anonymous e-mail address had to be known to someone in the group for their vote to count. Banquet attendance dropped of that year to around 35 people. Since we were expecting the attendance to increase as it had the previous year we were locked into a 50 person minimum. On top of that some people made multiple reservations and then either didn't show or came alone. As it ended up not only was there no money to cover Curious' oulay for the awards but most of the committee members ended up paying from $100 to $300 for their dinner that night to make up for the no shows. Brothel of the Year was Sagebrush 1 again and Courtesan of the Year was CindySpice. I can't remember if there were any other awards that year or not. Klatch made certificates for all the finalists in the voting that year.
For CWMC4 I once again agreed to organize a banquet. Learning from our CWMC3 experience I put up a website early and required that reservations be prepaid. I thought that would cut down on attendence but when all was said and done it was the largest banquet yet with 70 paid reservations. GP again wanted to give out awards and set up a page on his website for voting. By this time AB had his own website CWMC.ORG and wanted to give out awards also. GP gave out awards for Courtesan of the Year, Brothel of the Year, Webmaster's Choice Award, and added a John of the Year award. AB gave out Sweetheart of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and a couple of others that I can't remember (help me out her AB if you still have your list). COY was Nikita, BOY was Kitty's, JOY was Flyfisher, and I don't remember who got the Webmaster's Choice that year. Sweetheart of the Year was Dusty, Most Valuable Player was me, and like I said, I don't remember the other awards. GP was ill and couldn't attend CWMC4 so he had awards made and shipped but they were lost in shipment. I printed some certificates to give out to the winners of the GP awards.
Now we come to last year, CWMC5. I again organized the banquet, GP again wanted to give out awards. He gave out COY, BOY, and Webmaster's Choice awards. He dropped the JOY award. After the final voting there was a three way tie and GP was mad because he planned to give out replacement awards for the ones that were lost the previous year as well as awards for the current year, giving out 3 COY awards would increase the cost to around $800. He asked AB if he was interested in sharing the cost if they gave out awards to all the winners of the tie vote. AB said he would if he got to hand out the awards and an agreement was struck. To prevent a repeat of the shipping problem I had the awards made locally and GP paid for them when he got to town. COYs were Nikita, Adele, and Shannon, BOY was Sagebrush, Webmaster's Choice was Alexa Albert (her Mustang book had just been published). Kitty's and Nikita were given their awards from the previous year. Champagne contacted me and she also gave out awards. We had 60 paid reservations for the CWMC5 banquet. This was also the first year that the attendence was 50%/50% male/female, in previous years the men had outnumbered the women.
There you have it, the complete history of the banquet and awards. Each year I was involved in counting votes you had people trying to stuff the ballot box for certain ladies and they often weren't subtle about it. In every year I was involved in counting votes all legitimate votes were counted and the winner was determined fairly. Was this always the best candidate? That's always a matter of debate because this hobby is very subjective. My taste may not be yours and vice versa. Do (or will) the awards ever represent anything but the opinion of those that voted under whatever rules the giver of the awards set up? No. Are they (or will they be) a consensus of the cyber community? No. I'm not surprised that non-winners and their supporters cry foul, that happens at the oscar's, emmy's, World Series, etc. What does disappoint me is how many people believe the rumors simply because they don't like a certain person's personality.