Milwaukee Time Lords Blog

On August 26th, 1989, the Milwaukee Time Lords founded its private organization from a band of Renegade Time Lords, which was a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student club. (Non-students could be members, but not officers.) One of our founding members, Ed Hochman, obtained use of this residence hall meeting room at the Bradford Arms located in Milwaukee, so that we could begin with the business of establishing our club.

That evening, we agreed to the “Milwaukee Time Lords” as our club name. We named our club newsletter “The Relative Times” and our fanzine (no longer being published) “Qui To Time”. We had our initial by-laws drafted by our official parliamentarian, Christopher Cebula, also our official contact with our public television station, Channels 10/36. We had a board of five officers and a few committees established.

Then something happened that changed our business meeting to a Q&A panel meeting! Earlier that summer, Polariscon I in the Twin Cities, Minnesota featured two Doctor Who celebrities: Sylvester McCoy and John Levene. One of our members worked at the convention as a “gopher”. Connections were made and Mr. John Levene arrived as a guest at our club meeting!

Amazing! Right? How often does that happen? Here’s a photo taken and used in our club’s first newsletter. (Hence in black and white — better color submissions wanted!)

This is our 20th anniversary. We celebrated with a night out on a dinner cruise with Edelweiss from 7:45 pm to about 10:15 pm. The boat tour was very interesting and the food was excellent.

Here is my set of photos.

MTL Members: Tell your club memories here or join our blog and post your own stories. Let us know how you found us. If you attended the cruise, share your stories and photos here.

In the spirit of the lines exchanged in Doctor Who: Time Crash - All my love to long ago — and to the days yet to come. We’ve accomplished a very difficult challenge — keeping a science fiction club alive during the days of no new Doctor Who up through the current series. If anyone else has accomplished a continuous run for 20+ years in science fiction fandom, let us know!

Also thanks to the excellent service of Edelweiss Boat Tours. It was probably our best event in our 20 year history, next to our founding day surprise event.

The Milwaukee Time Lords had their day at the Wisconsin State Fair Sunday, August 9th. Some of us got there before the official meeting time of 12 noon. We met then in front of the horticultural building.

Debbie, Tina and I played bingo, while the others took off to as yet unknown adventures at the fair. (We rarely stay all together at any event such as this with so many options and we have varied interests, beyond Doctor Who.) Just as multiple companions do in Doctor Who, we scatter and roam about the area looking for our own kind of trouble.

For Debbie and I, it was a very excellent Kids of Wisconsin revue that ended abruptly by a heavy late afternoon storm. We left when there was a slight break in the rain.

Here is my set of photos I took at the fair.

Please share your photos and stories!

The Milwaukee Time Lords had their day at the Renaissance Faire Sunday, July 26th. (With ComicCon 2009 going on at the same time in San Diego) We departed from the usual meeting place at Holt Park N Ride lot at around 9:00 am and got there at the gate before it opened at 10:00 am.

Here is my set of photos I took at the faire.

Please share your photos and stories!