Pádraig Ó Méalóid has been doing this kind of thing for some time now.

He was on the committee for Octocon for the years 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, for varying lengths of time. He also served on the committee of the now defunct Irish Science Fiction Association (ISFA), and co-founded the Dublin-based SciFiClub in December 2000. He has variously written the newsletters for SciFiClub and Octocon, before starting the Irish SF News in June 2002.

He also writes reviews for The Alien Online and SubCity News, as well as having various long-term plans for his own site, Slovobooks.com. Somewhere along the line, he also managed to single-handedly found SproutLore, The Now Official Robert Rankin Fanclub, as well as being in some sort of nebulous executive position on LostCarPark.com.

In real life, Pádraig considers himself to be a bookseller, though he is currently without premises, although he has been selling secondhand books at Irish conventions for a very long time now, first for Dandelion Books, then as The Flying Pig Bookshop, and now under his current nom-de-guerre, Slovo Books. Over a varied lifetime, Pádraig has sold most things at one stage or another, from records and tapes to crystal balls and magic wands, but books are his vocation, he feels.

Ian Sheppard, despite heavy commitments organising the monthly disco and chicken supper for the Combined Limerick Institution of Tantrists, Occultists, Rosicrucians, Illuminati & Sensitives, has managed to find time to turn his considerable, some would say almost otherworldly, talents to running the website for P-CON.

He is also the man behind the web version of Irish SF News, and can be found sounding off on that site, on the right hand side, where he has his own column called The Webmaster Speaks! (* see note below)

Indeed, it is an open secret that he uses this column to send out coded messages to his fellow Illuminated Ones, though mostly to do with things like the relative merits of farm-bred versus free range chicken for supper, rather than more esoteric matters, such as world domination, or the correct way to worship the Dark One.

Ian occasionally travels, complete with retainers and caravanserai, from his native Limerick, and is giving serious thought to making one of his rare visits to Dublin this September, to give his beneficent blessings to this convention.

(*) Ian adds: One, of course, should not mistake this for one of those recently fashionable weblogs, or "blogs", if you prefer. I actually did have one of those, whose sole entry ran along the lines of:  "****** off and mind your own business, ya nosy so-and-so!"

The picture is by way of explanation of the later onset of Santaphobia, or as it is commonly known, the "other" Claustrophobia.

Deirdre Walsh is originally from Waterford, that jewel of the southeast, but has lived in Dublin since she was a young girl, first in the lush rustic suburb of Portmarnock, and latterly in the even more salubrious townland of Donnybrook.

Deirdre is engaged to be married to fellow committee member Pádraig Ó Méalóid, and their wedding reception will be held in the same hotel as P-CON, though not at the same time.

Deirdre reads a lot of fantasy fiction, and enjoys Christmas more than most. She can be found most Sundays in Aya on Clarendon Street with the aforementioned Pádraig, where the magical words "all you can eat" draws them inexorably towards the sushi counter.

Deirdre is the conventions membership secretary, co-treasurer and flyer coordinator.

Angie has been a closet SF fan and confirmed computer junkie for most of her life. After a stint at running an online bookstore and writing a few genre reviews and articles, she participated in NaNoWriMo and decided that maybe it would be worth trying this fiction writing lark after all. Now she can rarely be seen without a pen and notebook.

Angie went to her first con in 2001 and hasn't looked back. Which makes her a bit of a newbie in fandom, but also means that nothing has yet dulled her enthusiasm. Her long term plans boil down to getting her first book published and having enough money to go to the 2005 WorldCon, hopefully in that order!

Gareth Kavanagh, despite being the youngest member of this committee, as well as being a full-time student in Maynooth, where he is learning the arcana and lore of computers, has somehow managed to find himself on not one but two convention committees this year.

As well as being P-CON's college liaison and general helper-outer, Gareth is much involved in the organisation of Dominicon.

Despite being a long-running gaming convention, 2003 is the first year that the students in Maynooth have decided to incorporate a SF-con element into their event, and Gareth is one of the main movers behind this. The rest of this committee don't know where he gets his energy!

Anne M Kletcha is a homophone (1) of the Irish language (or Gaelic, or Erse, depending on your preference) expression "Ainm Cleite".

"Ainm" is the Irish for "name", and is ultimately from the same root, the Latin "nomen", itself derived from the Greek "onoma". "Cleite" is the Irish for "feather". As a phrase, therefore, "Ainm Cleite" translates as "feather name" or, more prosaically, "pen name". In this regard it is the lexical equivalent of the French expression "nom de plume".

Anne M Kletcha is, therefore, a pseudonym, and one that is regularly used by one of the committee to write things like author bios for convention websites, as well as for writing puff pieces about this con for at least one well-known Internet SF news site.

Anna’s non-existent status does not seem to prevent her from being a valued member of this committee, however.