Have you ever joined a fan club?

[SiHart]

This week I have been offered a coveted place in Frenz- the Finn Brothers fanclub. This is something of an hnour as they only let 20 people join a year, somewhat bizarrely. Anyway, I was thinking about it, and I realised that if I do join (which I'm almost certain to do) it'll be the first ever fan club I've joined. Oh I've considered it before, and the closest I ever to got to joining one was Horizon- the Blake's 7 Appreciation Society in the late 80s, but I've never actually done it.

Have you? Share your fanclub experiences here!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I tried to join the Sonia fanclub when I was 12, but they hadn't set it up yet and I believe they were ultimately beaten to the post by her decline in hits.

The Hanson Fanclub is a constant dilemma for me. No, really. I'm not interested in the club, or the e-mail account, or the offers or anything. But you get a disc of rarities each year and these songs simply can't be located ANYWHERE else. What's a completist to do? So I'm in a constant battle with myself if this disc of treasures every year is worth the ?30 price of entry.

Si.

[Phillip Culley]

15-20 odd years ago I joined the Lego fan club and for my sins I got a news letter every few months, plus some stickers and things, but that's about it...

[Dirk Gently]

I may have joined the Nicola Bryant fan club...but then again I may not.

[SiHart]

I see... better not mention it to Angela, eh Tim?

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

When we saw her at the "Revelation" event the other month, she was telling us that she had to close it down because someone kept writing pestering letters to her. You wouldn't know anything about that would you Tim?

Si.

[Antony Cox]

15-20 odd years ago I joined the Lego fan club and for my sins I got a news letter every few months, plus some stickers and things, but that's about it...

Me too!

Although it was more like 25 - 30 years ago for me...

[WhiteCrow]

Fan clubs in a way don't seem to be what they used to. That's not knocking them.

I've been a member of a few fan clubs. Mainly it was the social side of having a group to meet up with. That blurred line between a fan club and a fan group. Well you kind of needed the fan club to find the fan meets.

In the 80's you'd live for those 4 fanzines a month. They were an opportunity to hear and communicate with other members, write articles and short stories for etc. Even share video copies of programs you'd missed.

Most of the need for a fan club is gone now we have the internet, and can communicate on forums like this daily.

I belonged to Empathy and Genesis (Star Trek fanclubs). Genesis was based in Birmingham which was a train ride away, Birmingham seemed to me an exciting vibrant city compared to Burton.

But best of all was The Thirteenth Tribe - a Battlestar Galactica group, based only a few miles from where I lived. But they didn't care too much they were eclectic in their tastes - we only watched one story in over 12 years of meetings. They were a great group of people, I used to do my best to make meetings despite my parents leaving Burton. But there was a limit to the number of meetings I could make at 120 miles each way. So I've lost touch with them a bit, some of the members like "Diane Spencer", "Mandy Smith" and "Lando" (never found out his real name) unfindable on Facebook.

I thought I'd never meet a group like them, until Ali brought me around to my first Bracknell meet.

[Pip Madeley]

I was in DWAS for a year back in the late 1990s, and I was in Bloc Party's fan club "Marshals" for a couple of years.

[Dirk Gently]

I see... better not mention it to Angela, eh Tim?

Si xx

Yes, that would be prudent.

You wouldn't know anything about that would you Tim?

Si.

Ah, no. Not guilty...although P-Bal has promised me that I can "have" Nicola at memorablia.

[Lissa]

DWAS was ok in the mid 90s. CT was a decent magazine at the time. I had a strange rush of b to the h about a year ago and rejoined. It is a hugely pointless organisation now and CT has become a pamphlet.

I was a member of the Xena fan club for ages but only because it took about three years to get a year's worth of magazines. It ended up being about ₤20 for a ten minute video cassette of not very funny bloopers.

[Simon R]

15-20 odd years ago I joined the Lego fan club and for my sins I got a news letter every few months, plus some stickers and things, but that's about it...

I was in the Lego club too for a year or so circa 1992. I remember the rather flimsy "Bricks and Pieces" magazine. I fear my badge is long lost.

I'm a member of Madonna's official fan club Icon and have been for three years now. In all honesty it's pretty crap and not especially cheap. You get a free gift (usually a t-shirt and a glossy photo or something of that nature) each year although there hasn't been one this year. You used to get a 4 magazines a year before I joined but it went down to 1 and then a digitial PDF thing. There's also various online access things but in truth it's not worth the money. The main reason for me joining is to get access to the pre-sale tickets when concerts are announced and it's paid off as we've had great seats and avoided the horrors of trying to buy tickets when they go on sale to the public.

I sent off for the DWAS information that was advertised on the back of the videos but it never really appealed. It's funny that not many people on PS it seems were/are members.

[Si Hunt]

I never got the idea of DWAS at all. If there had been just a tiny bit more incentive I would have joined like a shot, but aside from four issues of CT, you seemed to be paying an awful lot of money simply for the opportunity to be able to buy things.

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

In the mid to late 1980s CT was monthly, TARDIS was theoretically quarterly but never was, and DWAS negotiated deals with BBC Video and W H Allen for members' discounts on videos and books. I was a member of a fairly large local group for several years at the time, but while the LG structure was one of the better things about DWAS it also meant that people had a tendency to outgrow the need for the society itself.

I think fan clubs (or the official ones) have generally been marketing or promotional tools and in this day and age, the official website and message board serve much the same purpose. The time was when the members of a fan club could be used to spread word of mouth and advance publicity before the internet etc., but nowadays the slightest rumour goes around the world in hours.

[Simon R]

Did anyone here ever join the UNIT Hotline thing in Doctor Who Weekly?

Does anyone have the code thing to translate the message in the Completely Useless Encylopeida(s)?

[Larry]

I may have joined the Nicola Bryant fan club...but then again I may not.

now that's a club i'd happely join - but only if we got the Nicola Byrant topless callender as a complimentry joiners gift..

[Phillip Culley]

Did anyone here ever join the UNIT Hotline thing in Doctor Who Weekly?

Does anyone have the code thing to translate the message in the Completely Useless Encylopeida(s)?

Pah - be a man and figure it out without the code

I worked it out several years ago...

[SiHart]

I've just joined a fan club. Oh my. I think this is a good one to join. I'm looking forward to getting hold some of the exclusive Finn related merchandise!

Si xx

[WhiteCrow]

Did anyone here ever join the UNIT Hotline thing in Doctor Who Weekly?

Does anyone have the code thing to translate the message in the Completely Useless Encylopeida(s)?

I was talking about this club with Si Hart last year! You got your little ID card as well. It was one of the best pages in a very good comic. Didn't it also have like a fact file on monsters and a whole "watch the skies" motto? I took being a part of UNIT VERY seriously!

[Alex]

I joined the Ghostbusters fan club when I was about 10 and it was a complete rip off, they took the money but never sent anything to me, the b*****ds, so I never joined another club again.

[WhiteCrow]

I joined the Ghostbusters fan club when I was about 10 and it was a complete rip off, they took the money but never sent anything to me, the b*****ds, so I never joined another club again.

What a rip off! I bet you complained and they said "who ya gonna call"!

[Alex]

But no...Oddly enough their phoneline was disconnected when we tried.

I do remember a time when every time a new big film came out there'd be a fan club set up, and wondered how many of those were cons too. I imagine there quite a few.

[Dave Lewis]

I translated that thing in the Useless Encyclopaedia via guesswork... all I remember is Ian Marter and the word "f**k" - or was it "shit"? - being involved somehow. I also remember - in a moment of middle-ish-nineties madness - writing off for 'information' about DWAS from the back of a Who video and getting some grubby photocopied sheets of paper back inviting me to spend money on joining them. I decided against it.

Years prior to this I was on numerous band mailing lists back in the early to mid nineties; whenever the bands got big enough to ask for money and try and ensare the mailing listees into a newly formed fanclub I would, as the LAPD might say, step away from the vehicle. I did this with Suede and the Manics and have never felt I was missing out on anything. Actually now I come to think of it I might have actually signed up for the former eventually; I remember a few quite lavish pamphlets - not to mention tickets to the Heaven gig where Little Dicky made his debut. Or did I get them from my then girlfriend, who was as obsessed with Brett Anderson as I was? Hard to say; even harder to remember with any accuracy.

I was definitely in something called Railriders as a young child; some ridiculous railway randomness whereby you got absolutely nothing in return for wanting to travel by train and paying to show your desire to do this, save for some cheap fripperies and tickets that were never valid for any journeys ever. Come to think of it, Midland Mainline and Virgin Trains may have based some of their early corporate strategies on the Railriders model.

Stop waffling now!

[Milky Tears]

I also joined Rail Riders and was on the Suede and Manics mailing lists. It was all a load of old toss.

Probably still got my Rail Riders badge somewhere, but I never managed to spot their train.

Saddest Link I've Ever Posted?

[WhiteCrow]

I remember finding there was a Star Trek fan club/group which met monthly near Basingstoke in 1999. I phoned up and had a lovely chat with a member when I moved to the area (his name was Robbie Williams, but not THAT one).

To my absolute shame, I never got around to making a single meeting.