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I'll leave it up to Erica for the early on stuff but I believe the roots of the club began sometime around the time the Art museum had their Star Wars Exhibit. Yes it was around the time of episode 1 but I don't believe it was fully formed until after the premier.

They were around for a little bit before I signed on I know.

here are some ramblings about our history...

Founding members as I know it are Erica (Bobafemme), Kristina (Bria), Lisa (Darth R2D2), Bill (Vader2000), Chris (SelaciousCrummy), Joe (TK171), and Mike (Master Eki) but as I understand it Lisa and Erica are the two that really got it off the ground. Joe had a big part as well since he was a large part of the Rebel legion and 501st formation. He was initially both the 501st and Rebel legion Commander for our area.

Crummy has been MIA since shortly after Episode 2 but all the others are still in contact with some people occasionally even if Erica and Bill have both moved away. (Kristina just moved back). I am sure there were a few others in and about the initial times but those are the folks that were there and stuck around for a while.

Early on we were just another fanforce chapter and the "club leader" was simply the person who was the chapter rep at the time. First Lisa, then Me, then Minnesota Jones. We started the co-leader idea I think around the time Erica moved away. She was a Fanforce Moderator/admin so she was always a co-leader in all sense of the word with both Lisa and I from the get go. We thought it really worked well having two people running things instead of one all powerful individual so we made it a "official" position when she left. After Erica Rosemary (Jedi Riibu) took the job and Minnesota Jones took it when Rose moved away. Mike took the CR job and Kate (Padawan Kate) took the co-leader when I stepped down.

We unfortunately had a split with some members who moved on and Kate and Mike resigned with Kate leaving the club. After that we re-organized a bit with the Leaders and the Fanforce CR position becoming something separate. (not by rule but as a way to again spread things out a bit) Tom and I were voted for the Co-leader job after the split and then Steve and Phil took it after we stepped down.

I know sometime between C2 and C3 we had a bone head idea of having a "leadership council" (I can say that because I was part of making that bone head idea) Basically a handful of people instead of an official "leader" who would meet occasionally to talk shop but that didn't turn out so well. Too much of a super special member type thing that was made in an over reaction to some people's fears of indivuals having too much power/control over the club. (There were a lot of fanforce clubs across the country having issues with this at the time... nerds with power are a scary thing but nerds fear of those with power is epic )

It's part of our history so worth mentioning. (or did we want the suger coated version only?) It didn't last long. (I think we had just one or two council meetings) Basically we learned one leader is too few. 5-6 is too many.

Two equal administrators with everyone having a say is just about right.

Not long after C2 we choose to separate ourselves a bit from Fanforce. Not completely but we made an effort to not be just the Minnesota Fanforce group and be our own club. This was in result of theforce.net becoming more of a commercial venture but that may be a bit of an over simplification. We pretty much all agreed that we didn't want to be tied directly to a for profit business. So we moved off theforce.net boards as our main online communication forums to our own Ezboard (which then became Yuku)

Initially Book club was our most popular and regular activity with occasional movie outings. In fact some would say we were basically just a book club early on though I am not sure everyone would totally agree on that. Book club really flourished during the Vong war so to speak but sort of dropped off a bit after that. Not completely by any means but I think it's safe to say it's not our "main thing" anymore.

While there was always big membership cross over between the 501st and Rebel Legion it wasn't until after C2 where the costuming thing starting picking up steam. Initially it was just Episode 2, the Anoka parade, and a few occasional 501st outings they invited everyone too.

We also had some successful Toys for Tots outings and an adopt a family for some holiday charity work in the early years.

We started having regular meetings in the library basement at the Minneapolis public library by the U of M for a time but I couldn't put a date on that off the top of my head. That then developed into regular non book club monthly activities from there with book club going on as a secondary thing.

We had our first Convergence party 7 years ago? or was it 8? It was a cantina much like our icy cantina but we served spiked punch. Our second go at it was the Temple of flannel which was a homage to all of George's creations. (we even had a Howard the duck reference somewhere) We covered the walls in all flannel fabric and everyone wore flannel shirts/kilts... (it was visually sickening but I LOVED IT) (as a note I lost my pictures of that in a hard drive crash so if anyone has them please let me know. ) We skipped a year for the party and then came back with the Mustifar volcano room. Then it was the hoth beach party and then we've been running with the mos-icee cantina for a couple of years now.


Our size has has been anywhere from 5-10 active people to as many as 40 regularly active people. I think the most stable number over the years is something along the lines of 15-25... There always seems to be about 10-15 really active folks with another 5-10 who are just in and out occasionally/casually though I am just rough estimating here. It's hard to peg down because there have always been people who were more 501st/RL folks than MNForce folks and what not. Not that most people ever made a big deal of the difference but it is worth noting.

The regular active people changes from time to time as people drift away, drift in. It's a natural thing I think in all clubs of this type.

So it's been at least 9 years... Some ups and downs for sure but over all it's been a good run.

Hopefully I am remembering everything right. Obviously it's all colored from my point of view and shaky memory.