Alyx Lechner Needs to Resign as Chairwoman of ANCEA/Sakura-con

We are demanding that the current chair of ANCEA/Sakura-con resigns. This demand is being made due to several factors-

• Under Alyx’s leadership Sakura-con has been ignoring and/or sending unsatisfactory responses to concerns brought to their attention via email. This includes concerns about privacy, accessibility, refund requests, and statements made by board members at their April 2025 general meeting. Some emails with concerns were ignored. Some email senders received replies that their concerns would be forwarded to the correct team (and then never got a reply from another team). 
• Under Alyx’s leadership, at least one person who attended the board meeting and/or wrote an email about their concerns had their membership for the 2025 year rescinded. This person was also not informed that their membership was rescinded until they attempted to pick up their badge at registration. 
• A group of concerned 2024 Sakura-Con members have been trying to express concerns via email since after the 2024 convention, but have not received responses via email to our concerns. We posted on social media, and had many of our comments hidden. We went to the April 2025 meeting after receiving no responses addressing any of our concerns. Alyx started off the April board meeting with a statement that the majority of people posting on social media and sending emails about privacy and accessibility concerns are “disingenuous and threatening” and that we were spreading misinformation about Sakura-con. Alyx also stated that we were spreading misinformation by saying that Sakura-con didn't have an ADA information page on their website. That page was only put on the website the night before the board meeting. 
• Another concern brought up during the April board meeting was the Sakura-con badges. Last year some attendees had their full legal names printed on their badges, asked to have them reprinted with a preferred name, and were told by staff that they could not be reprinted and that if they tried to cover their name that their badges would be revoked. The Sakura con board members first told us that incidents like that could not happen, because they have policies to prevent that. Then later in the meeting, they told us that actually they had to fire 2 staff members who were not following those policies. This year, members still had issues with their dead names and/or full legal names which they do not want on their badges. 
• In 2024 disabled Sakura-con members had to wear a bright sticker on the front of their badge with an outdated ADA symbol on it. When this issue was brought up at the board meeting, board members told us that they have to put the sticker on the front of the badge due to convention center policy. However, PAX and ECCC which are in the same buildings both do not put ADA stickers on the front of their badges. When someone said that it's really frustrating and hurtful to have that sticker on the badge, and that other conventions do not put the sticker on the front of the badge, Alyx said “I'm not trying to tone police, but” to which many of the audience members responded “you are!”

Please check out this Google doc by a person who had their membership rescinded. This includes an email written to Sakura-con after the April board meeting, and some other info. There's also a note at the bottom about one of the comparisons made in the email.

Email with concerns about Alyx and Sakura Con-membership rescinded.

Here are Sakura-Con's meeting notes, the April board meeting notes are up now!

General board meeting notes from Sakura-Con

Please note that their meeting notes are not detailed minutes that are typical to other board meeting notes. I do not know if they are required to have detailed minutes/notes or not. Many boards are required to have detailed minutes with word for word transcripts of the meeting. Sakura-con may not be required to have those. It is worth considering that regardless of what they are required to record, that they have only chosen to include brief descriptions of many of the things that were talked about during the April meeting. This is however, typical to all of their monthly meeting notes. 

Alyx Lechner Needs to resign immediately. Please sign this petition if you agree!