The Moons of Yavin
| Fan Club | |
|---|---|
| Name: | The Moons of Yavin (formally, Dragonbusters (perhaps Dragon-Busters) |
| Dates: | July 1986 (as Dragon-Busters until late 1989) - April 2002 |
| Founder(s): | Jason Grant |
| Leadership: | Jason Grant, James Simmonds |
| Country based in: | UK |
| Focus: | Star Wars |
| External Links: | website (offline); Wayback; WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Moons of Yavin was a UK Star Wars fan club.
It began with the title "Dragonbusters" (or "Dragon-Busters") and became "The Moons of Yavin" in August 1989.
About
The origin of the Moons Of Yavin or Dragonbusters as it was then, began at Kent Wood Secondary School For Boys, after a visit to see the Star Wars Trilogy in a Croydon cinema. The club was set up to maintain interest in Star Wars until the next movie release, particularly as other fanzines were not generating the interest that they should be doing. Jason Grant believed that he could greatly contribute to Star Wars fandom. [1]
Derek Tate, a fan and former member, wrote in 2021:
Jason's small Star Wars fan group, an undercover rebel alliance unit based in South London (lots of Imperial stormtroopers to fight in Croydon, haha!) and named the "DRAGON-BUSTERS UNIT" was formed at school with his friends sometime in late 1984 - a few friends who loved play-acting Star Wars together after enjoying watching the films and collecting the toys over the years. On the 30th July 1985, this small group of lads formed the club "officially". However, the advert in the March 29, 1986 issue of the official pro Marvel publication "Return of the Jedi" to get more members in didn't appear until early 1986. This means that by the summer of 1988 the club was three years old. Jason had pretty much run things since the '84 days, but he really started doing things in a more organized way after that RotJ comic advert, as they were swamped with letters and the other boys got overwhelmed and couldn't deal with it!
The "DRAGON-BUSTERS UNIT" name came from Jason's bad feelings toward the Dragon-32 micro computer, a machine that seemed to be very popular at the time with kids when he was 15 yeas old. However, he loved his Oric-1 computer. There seemed to be some sort of friendly rivalry at school regarding "who had the best computer" etc., so he joined forces with his Oric to take them on! 🙂 Taking from the recently released "Ghostbusters" film, he came up with that name for his SW group. The "Dragon" name was kept until Autumn 1989 (when I joined, funnily enough!) when it changed names to become "The Moons of Yavin" after a group members poll. [2]
Club Publications/Affiliations
- Telesponder (1986-2002)
- Scenario (1989-)
- Gutter Rag (1992-1994)
- Force Sensitive (1993-1995)
- Tydirium Louise Turner (1993-1995)
- Bad Feeling Louise Turner
- Bounty Hunter James Simmonds (1992-2000)
- Galaxy Travellers, Suzanne Godsalve (1996-2002)
- affiliated with Hyperspace - Rik Blakey and co. (1990)
- affiliated with Kashyyyk - Nigel Williams and co (1990-)
- affiliated with Bright Center of the Universe Newsletter Craig Stevens (2009)
- affiliated with Sol 3 Newsletter (Ivor Cogdell)
References
- ^ from the club's website
- ^ from an email from Derek Tate to MPH in March 2021, quoted with permission