Star Trek Central Europe

Fan Club
Name:	Star Trek Central Europe, Offizieller Star Trek Fan Club (since 2000)
Dates:	1976-present
Founder(s):	Ricky E., Marlies K.
Leadership:	Dirk Bartholomä
Country based in:	Germany
Focus:	Star Trek
External Links:	http://www.ostfc.de/
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Star Trek Central Europe (STCE) was the biggest German Star Trek fanclub. Later it became the Offizieller Star Trek Fan Club (OSTFC).

Star Trek first aired in Germany in 1972. Ricky E., a woman from Augsburg, was a huge fan and joined the Leonard Nimoy Association of Fans in 1975. That way she got to know Marlies K. from Switzerland. When Ricky wanted to join a different club, Star Trek New York, she was told that she couldn’t become a member because she didn't live in the region but they would be happy to associate with another fan club. So together with Marlies she founded Star Trek Central Europe in 1976 and they published a small newsletter. Through a listing in the Star Trek Catalog more and more fans from Germany, Austria and Switzerland found the STCE. One of them was S.Z.M. who happened to live in Augsburg as well and soon joined Ricky and Marlies in their efforts. The newsletter published fanfiction, fanart, and articles and it was the enthusiasm of these three women that made the STCE thrive. After a few years Ricky drifted away from the STCE and left it in 1983, by then Marlies and S.Z.M. had been running the club for a while.

In 1987, when S.Z.M. didn't have the time to continue, the women who were running the club agreed to merge the STCE with the another club from Augsburg, the Europäischer STAR TREK-Fanclub, which had been founded by Dirk Bartholomä in 1985. He would take over the STCE members and continue the combined fanclubs as STCE. Trekworld was introduced as the new format for the newsletter and the club continued to grow. Star Trek: TNG had found its way to Germany in 1990 and after a mainstream magazine reported about the fanclub membership grew faster and faster.

In 1992 Dirk founded Fedcon.

(more, stuff happens, STCE becomes OSTFC)

In 2000 the STCE gets official status and becomes the Offizieller Star Trek Fan Club (OSTFC).

Publications

• The Great Link

Links

• Die Geschichte des STCE - timeline of the history of the STCE