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I was conscripted!

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Title: I was conscripted!
Creator: Carol Keogh
Date(s): summer 1983
Medium: print
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Topic: Empathy News and Empathy Star Trek Club leadership
External Links:
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I was conscripted! is a short essay by Carol Keogh.

The topic is the newsletter, Empathy News and its sponsoring fan club, Empathy.

Carol had just been given the leadership role on both the club and its publication, as Dot Owens was too ill to continue as the president and editor.

This essay was printed in Empathy News summer of 1983.

Some Topics Discussed

From the Essay

As you know from the last Newsheet, Dot has had to give up the club due to ill health - but never fear, Carol is here!!!

As I was saying in the last Newsheet, loyal fans, was conscripted!

It happened like this...

There I was, back in 1974, being a closet Trekker, thinking I was the only one in existence, when one day, I chanced upon an article on a forthcoming Star Trek Convention in Leicester. Faster than a Klingon with carnivorous tribbles on his tail, I registered, bought a rail ticket, and took off! (Considering I didn't know where Leicester was, and I had never been on a train on my own before, and nor hadn't booked a hotel because I didn't know about things like that, and I was a very young 17, and I was supposed to be in a convent at the time, I think I can be quite proud of actually getting to that Convention...)

It was wonderful, it was marvellous, it was ..... etc., etc.

While I was there, I got a flyer about a new club called Empathy. I didn't know there were Star Trek clubs, so I joined up and went back to my normal, mundane, cloistered little life.

Then, one day, just before Christmas, I got a telephone call from some strange person from 'up north' called Catherine Owens, who was coming 'down south' to visit and wondered if I would like to meet her at Madame Tussauds...

That meeting in December 1974 was the beginning of my involvement with Empathy. The next thing I knew, I was travelling all over the country to meet other fans, I was "writing" fan fiction, typing stencils, producing zines, selling zines, manning sales tables at Cons, sewing costumes, modelling costumes... the list is rather long, loyal fans, so I won't bore you with it.

Suffice to say that from that day to this I have been helping (or as some might say, hindering) out with Empathy, but I never thought I'd have to run it! (Help! I can't cope! Oh, the strain! Oh, the delusions of goddesshood! Oh, The Power! - oh, shut up you fool, you're letting your imagination run away with you!)...

Well, Dot says I'm the new President, and having been duly lectured by various persons on the duty and responsibility of my new position, and the things I should and shouldn't do (guess which list was the longest?) and having listened to all their points, and given deep and careful consideration to all

their advice - I'm going to throw it all out the window!

As far as I am concerned there is only one thing I have to remember. Empathy doesn't belong to me, it belongs to you. That is a point that you may have to remind me of from time to time - as you may have noticed, I have this little problem with my ego...

I hope to continue running the club the way you want it to be run. If you don't like what you see in the Newsletter, say so. If you want me to make changes, say so. It is your feedback that keeps this Club running. You have to provide what goes into the Newsletters: the fiction, the articles, the bits and pieces of news about Star Trek and the Actors. You are the Club. So please don't let me down. I am depending on your help.

Since Dot has put the safe-keeping of the Club into my hands, will do my best to take care of it. The club will not be closing down (not while I'm around, anyway!) but if any of you want to pullout, just drop me a line and I will refund whatever proportion of your membership remains. I hope you will give me the benefit of the doubt though and stay with us for at least another NL before making your mind up on that point, but the choice has to be yours. I hope to keep Empathy the way it has always been: friendly and interesting to all of you out there. The social side of the club will still continue; there will be Empathy Get-Togethers, and Day Outs as before, but it will take a little time to get these sorted out. Hopefully for the next NL I will be able to give you some indication of what will be going on over the next six months.

Comments in the Same Newsletter by Keith Jackson and Dot Owens

[From Keith Jackson, the newsletter's executive assistant:

I'm sure that we all wish that things could have turned out better than they have, but that's how life sometimes is. You just have to keep going, accepting facts you can't change and try to keep a positive view and believe me, it can be very difficult and well nigh impossible at times, but you simply don't give up.

Carol must have felt a little bit like that recently, as the Gestetner was revealing its working to her. This Newsletter is her first, with help from Dot. It is very difficult to be an editor; it requires judgement and skill not to take too much of one side against another but remain neutral and balanced. It may take a few issues, but I'm sure the Newsletter and club will continue in the same style as before.

[from Dot Owens, the club's former leader]: Write a letter for the Newsletter, Dot." So said Carol, thus getting her own back for the number of times I've used the same words to her. I did try to get out of it, but she reckons I should keep in touch, even though I'm no longer in the "Captain's Chair".

Firstly, my thanks to all of you who have either written to me, or told me personally that I have your good wishes, and in many cases your prayers for the future. They are much appreciated. I have always considered that I was lucky to have made so many friends in fandom, but only over the last couple of months have I found out just how good my friends are.

I think by now everyone knows the "health reasons" given for handing over the presidency of the Club.

Despite not having been too well for some time, and knowing there was something wrong, it really came as a shock to be told I had cancer and there was nothing they could do. I don't think I had truly thought of that - in most people's minds it is the kind of thing that happens to others, not yourself.

Still, I am not doing too badly at the moment and I shall be at "Triple Coo and look forward to having a chat with some of you. I also hope I shall still be fit enough to get to EmpathicCon II in February - I'm certainly planning on being there, though I doubt anyone will see me dashing about much. After that - well, we shall just have to wait and see.

Anyway, I hope you will give Carol the same support you have given me over the last eight years. I think she will make a good President and run a good club - she's even made me an Honorary Member, so I shall still be putting in my 'two-pennyworth' for as long as possible.

I shall now have more free time, so if anyone feels like dropping me a few lines I'd love to hear from you - it will seem strange to have time to write personal letters again, but I shall enjoy doing so.

Hope to see some of you at "Triple C" and have a chat. Till next time.

Shalom, Dot.

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