Beta-Niobe (Star Trek fan club)

Fan Club
Name:	Beta-Niobe
Dates:	early 1981-May 1985
Founder(s):
Leadership:	Jan Burton (president), Jennie Gough (secretary)
Country based in:	Ormskirk, Lancs, UK
Focus:	Star Trek
External Links:
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Beta-Niobe was a Star Trek fan club for the Lancashire area.

It published a quarterly newsletter called Beta-Niobe.

About its Beginning

I was asked? why a new club? We, there are a few of us folks, started off as a group of people, who just wrote to each other. The number started to grow and then we decided to form our own small club. It was called Fizzbin, but it was soon clear to us that there was already a club by this name so we found our new name. We realised that there were clubs catering for facts and many that dealt in zines and to find a middle of the road was not easy. So we decided to try to find this and deal in short stories, poems, articles, quizzes and general points of view. We also realised that there were many younger fans and a great deal of age statement material so we decided not to use age restricted material. That does not mean to say we aim for the younger group only; we are trying to reach all ages. We aim to reach all ST fans but not in any competition with other clubs. We enjoy what we are doing and we hope those of you who have joined us enjoy reading our efforts.

Its Demise in May 1985

From Beta-Niobe:

From Jan:

As some of you may already be aware, the club has been going through a few difficulties over the past 12 months. It is with sadness that we now have to announce that this will be Beta Niobe's final newsletter. The club has, since the beginning back in 1981, relied heavily on the support and generosity of both time and effort of Barbara and Graham Armitage, our printers. Wow they are moving on from printing into other areas of business less directly related to the needs of publishing regular Trek N/Ls. I would personally like to take this opportunity to wish them every success in their new venture. I would also like to say that I have taken great personal pleasure in the making of new friends through Beta Niobe. There is no doubting my life has been enriched due to Star Trek and a good deal of that can be attributed to Beta Niobe. There are, of course, always a few people who deserve special note at times like this and on a personal level I would like to mention Sarah and Jennie who, in the early days, devoted a lot of time and energy to the establishing of the club; Geraldine and the Northern Ireland bunch, Sue, Paul and Ann for their remarkable friendship; once again Barbara and Graham for their unfailing energy, patience and friendship; but perhaps above all Dee Pennington who was my introduction into the incredible world of Trek fandom. She got Beta Niobe off the ground in the first place and has picked me up off the ground a good few times since. Thank you Dee, and thank you all of you.

From Barbara:

I would like to add my thanks to Jan's, to all those people who have helped with the club and to all those people who have been our friends (and I hope still will be, despite the club's demise). Especially I'd like to thank Maggie Symon and Sharon Lowe who have "been regular contributors to our N/Ls, and without whom the issues would have been rather thin! The winner of last issue's caption contest is Lesley Atkinson, who sent in 5 different captions - the one we liked best is "I told you, Dr McCoy, I can do anything better than you." Lesley will be receiving a selection of our Trek stickers. We are also sending some stickers to Maggie Symon, who was the only other person to send in a caption - we think she deserves a prize for just bothering to write!