Club Cosmos
(Did you mean another cosmos?)
A club in Gothenburg, Sweden, officially founded March 24, 1954, and still active today. The founder was Gabriel Setterborg, who after having read the first issue of Häpna! discussed it with librarian and sf fan Roland Adlerberth, who suggested that it might be time to form a fan club. Setterberg turned to two sf-reading schoolmates, Lars Erik Helin and Hans Sidén, and together they formed the club and advertised meetings at the library where Adlerberth worked and in schools. A small number of further members appeared, and in April, the club published its first clubzine issue, with Helin as editor: Cosmos News thus became the first proper sf fanzine published in Sweden. However, only two issues were published during the 1950s, and the club gradually sank into lethargy with few meetings and long gaps between them.
Happily, new and more active members joined later. In 1956, the club started a new fanzine, Cosmos Bulletin, which under various editors quickly became a major Swedish fanzine with 29 issues through 1977, when it finally fell dormant. In 1960, new members took over the club, renamed it Nova Cosmos, and started holding more regular meetings; as membership grew, so did plans for further activities. A further influx of new fans led to the name being changed back to Club Cosmos in 1967,
During this highly active period, when the club for almost a decade from the mid-1970s until 1985 had its own rented clubrooms at Majorsgatan 2 in Gothenburg, Club Cosmos also ran several conventions in Gothenburg: Götcon in 1967, Alcocon in 1972, Alcocon 2 in 1980, Göcon in 1984, Göcon 2 in 1985; later followed Göcon 3 in 1986, ConGenial in 1987, ConKurs in 1989, Cosmica in 1991; after that, a decade-long hiatus ensued before a new round of Gothenburg conventions began with AkrostiKon in 2001 and continued with ConCeive in 2005 (also that year's Swecon), Conviction in 2007 (also that year's Swecon), Alcocon 3 in 2009 and several further smaller cons in 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, and later.
Apart from regular meetings, Club Cosmos, since the demise of Cosmos Bulletin, publishes a small clubzine, Stargate, and, since 2016, a semi-annual short story magazine, Brev från Cosmos, intended to both publish already established Swedish sf and fantasy writers and to offer a platform for new talents. It is distributed free of charge in PDF and ePub formats. This and some other club activities are financed by a bequest from long-time fan and club member Arne Sjögren, a member since the mid-1950s who died in 2012 and in his will left a considerable bequest to the club, which in 2024 will celebrate its 70th year of activity.
| Club | 1954— |
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