When the Disneyana Fan Club started over a quarter century ago, a mere handful of disneyana enthusiasts gathered in Southern California looking to create an organization that would afford them a recurring opportunity to meet and share their love of things Disney.
That has not changed, but since then, the Club has grown significantly, expanding across the country and around the world. There are chapters from California to New England, from British Columbia in Canada to Japan. Each chapter has a unique perspective in how its members honor and celebrate the legacy and ideals of Walt and Roy Disney. And yet, each of them is importantly part of the same organization, a family with a common bond.
We have also matured as an organization by developing important symbiotic ties with various divisions of the Walt Disney Company, creating and fostering both a Disney Legends and Heritage Awards Programs for those who have done so much to help create the magic, and facilitating charitable work at both the local and national levels.
At the suggestion of our VP of Finance, the Board of Directors recently approved the creation of the Disneyana Fan Club Foundation, a separate private non-profit corporation that will soon enable members to have a tax deduction for charitable donations. It can also become an opportunity to receive donated estate items of disneyana and establish scholarships, drawing us more national attention and building our membership base in an era of increasing competition for the disneyana enthusiast's attention. This independent entity will be staffed by members volunteering to serve as trustees and, when the time comes, I will appoint a member, preferably from Southern California, to solicit other members as prospective trustees and move forward with the business at hand. Much like the Disney program of "give a day, get a day", it is appropriate for us as torchbearers of the Disney philosophy to return a little of what we have received.
And we have lots of magical things in store for everyone in 2011. Stay tuned...
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