Going to a convention is a big expense, and we want to make CrossingsCon as accessible as possible for all our attendees. In the spirit of building community and reducing entropy for everyone, we established the Lifeboats assistance fund to help more people make it to CrossingsCon.

On October 12, 2024, longtime CrossingsCon community member Dre Nall (exor674) passed away following a battle with cancer. She was enormously supportive of everyone in our community and all the endeavors that CrossingsCon has undertaken. Through Dre’s incredible generosity, our Lifeboats fund was replenished in 2025 and the fund has been renamed in her honor.

How do I donate?

When you buy your badge, you will have the option to donate money to the assistance fund. (You can also come back and donate later.) Your donated money will be used to help pay for badges and travel for people who would have financial trouble coming to the con otherwise. We will also use the fund to donate some badges to Con or Bust, and to help cover travel costs for presenters.

If it is more convenient, you can drop a donation in our Ko-Fi account tagged “Lifeboats” or “GNU Dre”1.

How can I apply for assistance?

Contact us at [email protected] and tell us a bit about yourself: What assistance do you need? Are you a first-time con-goer, or do you go to conventions often? What’s your relationship with the Young Wizards books and the works of our Guests of Honor?

On receiving your request, we will put you on the list of potential assistance recipients, and notify you when we have the donations to support giving you assistance.

  1. Note: “GNU” is a reference to Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. In the novel, it is a command sent over the Clacks system instructing that a message be repeated indefinitely, since no one is truly dead whose name is still spoken. See also: X-Clacks-Overhead. ↩