TAFF, for those who don’t know (and there will be a few reading this), stands for Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund. It exists to fund trips by a science fiction fan in alternate years from North America to Europe or Europe to North America, to meet the sf fans on the other side of the pond and attend the major sf convention. I must hurriedly add, in case of misunderstanding, that it’s not the same fan every time. There is an election each year with voters from both continents, so it tends to be the fans who are most active and are known by most people who win and make the trip. At least, that’s how it was in the 1970s and 80s. I don’t know now, what with social media and all.

In 1982, the trip was Europe to USA, to attend the sf worldcon held over Labor Day weekend (beginning of September) in Chicago. Since it was the fourth worldcon to be held in Chicago, it was called, with typical imagination, Chicon IV.

The success of TAFF spawned DUFF, the Down-Under Fan Fund, designed to exchange fans between America and (you guessed it) Australia and New Zealand. It was followed by a Europe – Antipodes exchange, and since ‘down under’ had already been taken, that was called the ‘Get Up and over Fan Fund’, or GUFF.