New England Interactive Literature History

Intercon has a long history, and there are more details elsewhere. (Also see "25 Years of Intercon" on this site.)

By March of 1996, a number of New England LARPers were travelling down to the Baltimore/Washington DC area to play in games, and to meet up at the southern Intercons. The idea of running a local LARP convention was raised by several people. There'd been a convergence of a number of LARP groups in the Boston area, and it seemed like critical mass was there. On Columbus Day weekend, at Intercon 11.5, the bid for a New England Intercon was accepted.

The first thing that was different about the New England Intercons was the staff. Each southern Intercon had been organized by one or two con chairs, with a small dedicated group of volunteers. Intercon the Thirteenth had a large group of volunteers, sharing the work amongst a much wider set of people. This is the model that we've followed ever since.

The second thing that was different was that, at the first meeting, no one person knew everyone else in the room. Everyone was a newcomer to someone in that room. Organizing a convention was a new thing, so we had to trust people we didn't know to do important jobs. While the original people now know each other, we still follow the model, letting newcomers come in and do important things for the con.

The first three New England Intercons were run under the aegis of the Interactive Literature Foundation (ILF). Given the distance, there were concerns about the liabilities and responsibilities for those efforts. There were also some problems internal to the ILF itself, which led to its dissolution and the creation of LARPA. NEIL was incorporated in October of 2000, in order to define a local entity solely responsible for the New England Intercons.

This was done with the understanding and agreement of the local New England community, the ILF and the new LARPA leadership. This was a friendly delineation of responsibilities, agreed to by all involved. Rather than split the community with schism, we defined a model for how to run several LARP conventions a year in a friendly and cooperative manner.

No experience is necessary to be a part of Intercon or of NEIL. We're open to anyone willing to put time and effort into our conventions and the LARP events that are associated with the cons. You don't even have to be local to New England; many of our volunteers come from outside the region.

These are the people who have served on the NEIL Board. (In 2011, the Board voted to expand its membership to seven active members and three advisors.)

Year*	President	Board Members						Advisor	Treasurer	Clerk
2011	Chad Bergeron	Laura Boylan	Anna Bradley	Jeff Diewald	Joshua Sheena	Tim Lasko	Trey Reilly	Dave Kapell	Julia Suggs	Tom Traina
2012	Laura Boylan	Julia Suggs	Dave Kapell	Jeff Diewald	Joshua Sheena			Chad Bergeron	Chad Bergeron	Tom Traina
2013	Joshua Sheena	Phoebe Roberts			Joshua Rachlin	Tim Lasko	Julia Suggs	Laura Boylan	Chad Bergeron	?
2014	?	?	?	?				?	?	?
2015

* Year - Indicates the year in which the board members are elected. Terms begin at a date specified by the Board after the New England Intercon convention that year until after the convention the following year.

Key
President (and Vice President)
Board members
Non-voting Advisor
Open in upcoming elections