How not to run a club

     In the early 1970s, I had a combination science fiction(SF)/space interest club in Southern New Jersey. We had the usual monthly meetings, outings to certain local places, and I put out a two-page twice-a-year newsletter (NL) that covered club business. We (Dominick and I) did this from about 1970 through ‘76.

     In 1976, a new member from Massachusetts named Steve, joined our club and told us about a local Star Trek (ST) club that he used to belong to in MA. He said that the MA club had meetings like ours, but no NL. Then he mentioned the former president of the club, Mike, who moved to Ohio around the same time that Steve moved to NJ. Nevertheless, Steve and Mike kept in touch by mail and phone, and they both stayed in contact with the two women running the MA ST club: Blanche and Karen.

     Within a few weeks, I received a letter from Mike. In it he said that Steve told him about me. Mike then hoped that we could be pen pals and talk about ST, some SF, space, and our clubs, etc. Thus, I agreed to that, and we corresponded.

     I learned through his letters that since moving to OH, Mike became good friends with Bill, the president of a local OH ST club that Mike joined. 

     Then on Labor Day Weekend 1976, in New York City, a company named Tristar was having a four-day, ST convention (con) that several of my club members planned to attend: Trektennial. (I couldn’t go because I was saving money for an October trip to England.) Then Steve told me that he was going to the con and having a reunion with Mike, Blanche, and Karen. In addition, Mike’s friend Bill was coming along as well.

     Afterward, at our late September club meeting, the members of my club, who attended Trektennial, gave me reports about the con, but Steve’s report was especially interesting:

     Steve said that he had a great reunion with Mike, Blanche, and Karen. He also met Bill and said that he got along with Bill as well, and then, he and the rest of them met Jane from Canada. According to Steve, Jane impressed all of them very well, especially Mike, so much so that Mike had an idea about starting a ST correspondence club in 1977 as well. Here were the details:

     This club would be called the USS Constitution, as in the Enterprise being a Constitution class star ship. The club members would have honorific Star Fleet ranks, and Mike being president, made himself the ship’s captain. Steve was vice president with the rank of commander, and Blanche would also be a commander as well as the club’s secretary. The other three had the rank of lieutenant-commander: Bill, Jane, and Karen—who also served as the club’s treasurer. Anybody else who joined between September 1976 and throughout 1977, would be given the rank of lieutenant. If they first joined in 1978, they would be made lieutenant junior grade, and those who first joined in 1979, would start as ensigns. Meanwhile those under 14 were made cadets. Membership was ten dollars a year and included a membership card and a quarterly NL.

     I personally thought that ten dollars was a bit steep for 1977, but Steve said that the club needed “seed” money to get started, and since I found Steve personable, I joined and so did some of the other members of my club.

     About a week later, I received a letter from Mike, my membership card, and the rank of lieutenant. Then he informed me that the first NL should come out in January 1977. In an extra enclosed private letter to me, Mike wrote about forming chapters and asked me if I wanted to make my club a chapter. I told him that I would put it to a vote during the October meeting.

     By the October meeting, my club voted no about being a chapter of the Constitution with the main reason being that we were a SF and space interest club, and ST was just one of the things we covered in SF. Of course, the other news was about my trip to England during the social hour. (For the first hour of our club meetings, we conducted club business, but the second hour on was social.)

     After our club’s Halloween party, Dominick announced that he was moving to Maine in the new year, and that left me in charge of the club alone, but not for long. I contacted George who had been with my club since 1972, and he helped me in the running of this club as vice president. Anyway, I needed help because during the November meeting, I announced the changes that George and I planned for 1977:

     We would increase the dues from two dollars to five dollars a year because I had access to a few extra photocopy machines. This meant that I would print a 4 page NL four times a year. I also purchased another typewriter. Instead of a manual typewriter that typed in pica (or courier 12), I now had an extra electric typewriter that typed in elite (or courier 10). Although A few members complained, almost everybody else agreed with my reasons. Anyhow,  our dues haven’t increased since Dominick and I founded the club in 1970. 

     Meanwhile, Steve said that he understood why our club didn’t join Mike’s club, but he also told me that Mike convinced the original MA club to be a chapter, as well as the OH club that Bill ran, and even convinced Jane to make her Canadian ST club a chapter.

     1977: I published my first four-page NL, and I received the first NL called Captain’s Log from the USS Constitution ST Club. It was only one page. In it, Mike gave a greeting and his plans for the future of his club.

     The second Constitution NL had two pages, and that included input from both Mike and Steve.

     For the rest of 1977, I noticed that Mike’s NLs were mostly two or three pages. (Meanwhile I kept thinking that I’m paying ten dollars a year for this, a correspondence club? My NLs have four pages, and my club was local. In addition, I only charged five dollars a year. Then, Steve reminded me that running a correspondence club was more complex than a local club.)

      In Spring of that year, I learned about a ST con that was going to be in Philadelphia called ST Philadelphia, run by Tristar, and taking place in July 1977. This time, members of my club and I planned to go and share a room, and Steve was sharing a room with Mike and Bill. Blanche, Karen, and Jane would be in yet another room.

     I didn’t know about the rest of you, but this was my first SF/ST con, and I finally met Mike, Bill, Blanche, Karen, and Jane, but only briefly. Because I was in a quest to see it all, or as much as I could see at this con, I also briefly saw Steve. Even most of my club members that I shared a room with, I only saw at night when we were back in the room. (In later years, I learned to study the con program more and pick out the events I really wanted to see vs. those events I could take or leave. I guess I sounded like a first time person on my first cruise on the subject of eating. When I was a travel agent, many people who went on cruises told me that on their first cruise they tried to eat at almost every buffet or restaurant—and they usually gained weight after the cruise. By the second or third cruise, they realized that they didn’t have to do that everyday and go to every meal. In my case, I didn’t gain weight from my first con. Instead, I lost weight because I didn’t eat much during the con, but I didn’t take too much time to socialize.)

     For the rest of 1977, I attended a one-day ST mini con in Pennsylvania, and again in Spring 1978. I also rejoined Mike’s club. Nevertheless, the Constitution NLs didn’t get much better. They still averaged two or three pages each. Meanwhile, Some of the members of my club didn’t renew their membership in the Constitution because like me, they found the NLs too brief. If it wasn’t for Steve and our friendship, I might have dropped out as well.

     1978: This wasn’t a good year for me financially, and I only went to that mini ST con in the Spring, but I did publish my four-page NL’s four times a year. Some of my club members went to other cons, including Steve. Then from my reading his letters, so did Mike. I asked Steve how he and Mike could afford to attend cons while the NLs remained brief? Steve replied that putting together a NL for a correspondence club then mailing copies out was more complex and expensive. He said a local club doesn’t do a lot of mailing, but he assured me that things would get much better in 1979.

     In late 1978, our club had a troublesome person named Carl,  who joined earlier in the year. As the year went on, it got to the point where he made several members at the meetings feel uncomfortable, especially the female members. After I warned Carl about it a few times, but to no avail, our club voted him out. Shortly afterward, different people involved with ST, received a series of nasty, photocopied letters that Carl wrote & signed about our club. At first, I started replying to them as I heard from these people, but the letters started coming in more frequently. So I wrote my own photocopied letters and mailed them out as I received letters asking about Carl’s letters. Mike received one of Carl’s letters and asked me about it. When I told him what happened, Mike was very supportive about my situation. Of course, Steve acted the same toward me when he heard about Carl because he saw Carl’s actions at out meetings firsthand.

     In late Autumn, Steve moved to upstate New York to start a new job, but he still kept in touch with me by letter and phone.

     Another person who started writing to me was Jane, and she seemed very nice. The main reason I rejoined Mike’s club for 1979 was because of the friendly letters I received from Mike, Steve, and Jane.

     1979: This year started with a surprise NL from Mike’s club: It contained four pages for the first time. Later that year, it went back to two or three pages during 1979.

     The year started better for me financially, and I went to my second multi-day con. It was in NYC and run by Tristar, called ST World Expo, in February for three days. This was George’s, my VP, first con as well. This time I took time to meet Mike and Jane, as well as seeing Steve for the first time since he moved to NY. Then Carl tried to talk to me, but I brushed him off because I was still getting letters about his “being thrown out of our club.” In addition to the people above, I also met a guy from North Carolina named Bob, and several other people from other areas: Stuart, Shona, Patty, and so forth. Thus, I learned my lesson from the first con and only went to those events that really interested me, and I spent more time socializing. One of the first people I socialized with outside of the con hotel was Mike when he treated me to lunch at Burger King.

     The lunch went well with Mike until he made a pass at me. Then he asked why I turned him down, and I told him I didn’t go to the con for that type of activity. Finally, he asked me why did I think he treated me to lunch, and this made me shocked and surprised. So I gave him the five dollars that my lunch cost—and he took it!

     After I stormed back to the hotel, I told Steve what happened, and he was angry with Mike. A few hours later, Mike showed up, gave me the five dollars and apologized to me. As for me, I took the money, but while I could forgive, I couldn’t forget.

     For the rest of the con, I spent some time talking with Jane, and other people, attending panels and other events--but not too many. 

     On the last day of the con, I received a phone call to my room. It was one of my club members, named Carol, who was staying at her friends’ apartment in the city. Her first words to me were, “Look outside of your window.” I did and saw the snow pilling up out there.  So I woke up the other people in the room and we booked the room for another night. For the rest of the day, I attended events and socialized. Then, the official con was over around 4:00 pm, but it wasn’t unofficially over yet. A Washington, DC ST club organized a big room party called “Snow Con.” There were filk songs being sung, talks, snack foods, soft drinks, and items being sold. Meanwhile, between the songs and talks, the DC ST club asked around make sure that everybody had a place to stay the night. (I heard that some people slept in the lobby.) Later that night, the party was over, and it cleared up enough the next day to take the bus home.

     Months after the con, I received the Spring issue of Mike’s NL, and it was still three or two pages for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, I was still putting out four pages four times a year and still charged five dollars while Mike still charged ten dollars for his club membership. By this point, I was thinking of not renewing my membership in Mike’s club if things didn’t improve during 1979.

     Then in late Spring of 1979, Mike said that he wanted to go to different places in the country to visit some of his members. When I mentioned this to my parents, they said that he could stay at our house while he was in NJ. I went along with it because I knew Mike wouldn’t get as bold with me at my home as he was at the NYC con. My parents were there, and I had two brothers nearby, as well as my friends. I mentioned to Mike that he could stay a few nights at our place, and it was fine with him. When I mentioned it at my club meeting, Carol suggested having a cook out, and she contacted Mike. 

     On a Tuesday in July, we picked up Mike at the bus station in Philadelphia, and on the way home, he told us that he misread his bus pass. Instead of going back on Sunday, he had to go back on Saturday. This meant that I had to have the cook out on Friday instead of Saturday as planned. When we got home, I phoned Carol, who organized the picnic. She and I then phoned the others who had planned to go, about the date change. I was not surprised to find that several members couldn’t go on Friday at such short notice. In the end, on that Friday we had about three or four other members show up. During the days before Friday, I learned that Mike could be argumentative and rude to some of the members who dropped by if they didn’t agree with him, including George, my club’s VP. Then, he directed his attitude toward me. First, he asked if I invited Carl, that former member our club voted out, to the picnic. When I said no, Mike reminded me that Carl was still a member of the Constitution club. At this point, I told him that if he wanted to see Carl so bad, then we would drop him off to take the train to Philly and meet Carl there. Mike declined. He told Carol that ST fans who liked the Klingons were hypocrites to ST. (Carol’s closest friends in NYC published Klingon-based ST fanzines.) With this, Carol told Mike the reasons why her friends wrote those fanzines about Klingons. She presented some very logical reasons, and Mike was silent. Another friend liked Romulans, and Mike said the same thing to her as he said to Carol about the Klingons. This person too, gave some interesting reasons that made Mike silent, and that was one of reasons why so few people attended the cook out on Friday—in addition to the last minute changed to Friday. On Saturday, I was glad to see the back of him when we dropped him off at the Philly bus station.

     Because of my parents hospitality, when Mike wrote to me, he asked if they could be in NYC with me at the September NYC ST con, ST America, presented by Tristar. My parents didn’t want to go to a ST con, but I was attending. So Mike invited me to a decent dinner with Steve and Patty.(Patty was a member of the Constitution club, and she was active in the local OH ST club.) So I said okay.

     When I arrived at the con hotel in NYC on Labor Day Weekend, the weekend proved to be as hot as the February con was cold—a complete contrast with temperatures rising as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit on one of the days.

     Later, I saw Mike at a party in his room with Steve, Jane, and several others. Meanwhile Mike’s ego was running high. He talked about obtaining more chapters, getting a license from Paramount Pictures to be a dealer, starting a magazine (I hope it’s a lot better than his club’s NL.), and running a con, as well as getting involved in other SF. I told him that he may run most of ST fandom—which I doubt, but he could never try to take over general SF fandom.

     The next afternoon at the dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, that he and Steve treated Patty and I to, Steve said that I would have a lot of competition in the masquerade. I mentioned that I was aware, but while it would be nice to win, I did not count on it: I just liked to show my costume. That was when Mike spoke up and suggested that I should withdraw from the masquerade to give another girl, who Mike was flirting with named Nora, a better chance at winning. He said Nora planned to promote the Constitution club if she won. I of course refused, and when he complained about club team spirit, I decided once and for all to leave his club, even if the newsletters got better. Then, I heard Steve tell Mike, “it was just a suggestion.” (Meanwhile, I was thinking that this was one of the reasons Mike wanted to treat me to dinner: just like at Burger King in February, but for a different reason.)

     As I entered the green room before the masquerade, Stuart,  Shona, and another member of Mike’s club asked me if Mike suggested to me to withdraw from the contest. I said “yes, and what about it?” Then they told me Mike tried to suggest to them to do the same because of Nora—whose costume was a showgirl—would have less competition.  Anyway we all entered the masquerade, and none of us won, not even Nora.  The next day, Mike complained about those of us who were self centered. Then I said to Mike that he only wanted Nora to win so he could score with her. When Mike asked me what was wrong with that, I told him he was unbelievable.

     In October 1979, I received the last Captain’s Log from Mike’s club: It was only a few pages. Later in December, within days after Christmas, I received a Xmas card with a photocopied list. In it, Mike announced that the following people were no longer assets to the club and were made former members. My name and about a dozen more people were listed—many of whom I knew. I didn’t care because I had planned to not rejoin the club.

     In the months to follow in early 1980, Steve mailed me a copy of an anonymous photocopied letter that was blasting the USS Constitution ST Club. I could tell by the lack of editing and horrible grammar, it had to be Carl. He too was on Mike’s no asset list. The difference was that Carl signed his name on the letters about my club the year before.

     In the months to follow, Steve informed me that the club was losing more and more members as he took over the club. (Mike lost his OH job and ended up working on a freighter at sea. Thus, this left Steve in charge.) Later that year, the three chapters pulled out of the Constitution or disbanded altogether. I also learned that Blanche was enrolling in college full time, Karen was getting married, and Jane was moving to the USA and entering college as well. Therefore, the October NL, was a one page NL where Steve gave a farewell to everybody, and the USS Constitution club was no more after October 1980.

     The USS Constitution club reminded of what my father said: “An empty tin can makes the most noise.”--Joseph R. Kurtz, 1923-1994.