Fast Party 19th June 1999

Herma
How did it all happen?

When I first got online I was just stunned by the amount of George Michael sites. I subscribed to two major newsletters and occasionally posted to them. Very soon I got an email from a Dutch girl about something, that George would be on T.V. here, I believe. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Planet George had a buzzing Dutch chapter. Soon after that the Dutch weekly newsletter started and ofcourse I had to be involved..LOL I can never let anything go :). I always have to bud in..
I don't know many people here who are fans, almost all my friends are pretty moderate about George, some are even negative and tired of my endless devotion. Finding so many George fans on the web was a welcome surprise.

The tiredness from my family is quite understandable I think. I used to be one of the managers of the old fashioned Wham! fanclub. Before internet :). All my time back then went to the fanclub, writing the magazine, phonecalls from members (one even called me more than once in the middle of the night when a planecrash had happened somewhere in India or wherever, worried to tears that George had been on that plane.) And the organization of fanclub days. Twice a year, quite some organizing went into that, but oh, what fun it was.
My husband however was quite relieved when we called it a day, finally he got my attention.
When I discovered the internet and everything happening there around George and enthousiastically told him, he sighed deeply. He said: "so it starts again". I smiled and told him no ofcourse not, this is all computer stuff, these people just email and that's it.
LOL Little did I know...

Apart from newsletters I started mailing with people, I then was invited, no strongly advised to take ICQ, and that was the end...Or the beginning I should say. A lot of fun and a phone bill sky high..:)
I started talking more and more, got more and more involved with the George thing..:)
Then I heard about chapter meetings in other countries, thinking back, the good old days and I realized more and more how much I had missed it all the last years. So soon I popped the question! When will there be a Dutch meeting? Bianca, the Dutch Chapter Manager very cleverly answered: "When someone organizes one". :)))
Who was she talking to??? So kind of shyly I said..well...maybe I can....She then told me that Jeannette had already talked about it in the past. So maybe we should get in touch, see if we had the same ideas and would be able to pull it off together.
Jeannette was the girl that had sent me the first Dutch email about George.....I knew her a little bit. We got in
touch and....I now her very well ......roflol.
And as it turned out...my husband was right. It started all over again. He spent many days sighing deeply
since that first time. :)
 
 

Jeannette
I cannot remember who came up with the idea of a party. Must have been a a mix up between Bianca, Herma and myself.
Soon after our first ideas, plans became more definite: yes, we were definately going to have a party and Herma and I got ourselves together to organize it, with support from Bianca. We're speaking March 1999.

As Herma and I organized, we thought Rotterdam (our homecity) would be a fair place to have the party :). Ok, ok.. it came in handy for us, but hey! it's quite difficult to organize something outside your hometown.

So, how to make promotion?
Of course we knew that most people who wanted to come, would be Dutch. Still we decided to get some international promotion as well. Promotion was done in the Dutch Planet George newsletters, in the international Planet George newsletters, in Yogmael and in G-Mail. This first promotion took place at the beginning of April.

Because of "some concert" that took place the 10th of April in London, and our decision that we (Herma, Bianca and I) constituted ourselves as webmasters of our very own site soon, we didn't manage to get it organized to launch our party on our first "set" date. The party had to be postponed a while...
Herma and I set a new date: the date would be either the 19th of June or the 26th of June, although "someone" kept on telling that "he" would be attending another (birthday-)party the night before the 26th… Haa!

While we were reneweing our adds in the diverse newsletters, we renewed our search for a suitable place to have the party.
This was a lot of fun! Herma and I knocked on a cafe's door, the night Feyenoord became Dutch soccer champion…the night a couple of hundred "supporters" "celebrated" the victory. You won't be surprised when I tell you we weren't let in…we have a real hooligan look, you know! ;-)
After this incident, I found the perfect place: Het Partijenpakhuis (Wijnhaven) in Rotterdam had it's own Jesus To A Child stairs and was absolutely suitable for our party.

At that time, we must have come up with the name of the party. I mean...what is a party without a name? After a lot of thinking, the three of us decided to call it FAST PARTY.
We arranged the visitation/entrance tickets, the driving directions for those who came by car, the dinner buffet, the video to be shown during the dinner buffet (2 hours of tape; 6 hours production time :D  ), the music (well, actually…Stephan did this after we told him our wishes), the prize contest, the prizes etc. etc., but one thing was still missing.  We didn't have enough present promotional material to build the place into a George Michael party place…
Luckily, a prince on a white horse came to our rescue (our own Promotion Manager), who arranged for Herma and me to drive to Heemsteede on a Thursdaymorning to plunder Sony Holland's last promo material. This whole lot of promo material kept us quite busy the building day of Fast Party.
We considered for a moment to rename the party into PRAYING FOR TIME, but in the end everything turned out fine.
And then it started…
 
 
 
  
 
 
 

Willeke:
Hi!
I wanted to let you know that I really liked the GM meeting last Saturday. And before I forget someone: this applies everyone who has helped organizing this meeting…thanks!
And for the ones who didn't come…stupid.. it was really nice !
I hope there will be another meeting soon!
 
 

Ursela:
Hi,
At the party I got this kind request to write something. No, I'm not gonna name anyone, they know who I mean…

I've managed to keep my reputation high on Fast Party: I think I talked a bit to anyone present.
The evening was really nice. All night there was great music, taken care of my Stephan; you're hired for next meetings! Compliments! :D
We saw a video and there was a prize contest…I hardly dare to call myself a fan after that one!

Bianca, Herma and Jeannette did their utmost to make Fast Party an unforgetable evening. They succeeded. My compliments go out them as well. The organization of a possible next party can be trusted to those ladies without doubt! I think anyone will agree on this (and it's a way for me to get out *phew*)

That evening, George's new look was one of the talks of the evening.  [the "dead octopus-look; ed.] To me it's clear: he looks like he has gotten straight out of bed. Terrible! Beautiful as he is, George shouldn't give himself a look like this. Awful!

Ofcourse, during the evening we exchanged icq numbers and email addresses.
End of this story is that I had a wonderful evening. We're looking forward to the next meeting. Ladies? Lol
 
 

Stef:
I just wanted to say that we (my girlfriend Marjon and I) went to to Fast Party in Rotterdam.
We really liked it and thought it was well-organized  *applause for the organization and for Stephan who was in charge of the music and for Bianca, who I presume, had something to do with it *
The evening was really great. So…for the ones who weren't there…..DO come next time!