Celebrate Gil-galad, the Slovene Tolkien Society, in style!

Invitation to the Slovene Tolkien Society's Fifteenth Anniversary
Invitation to the Slovene Tolkien Society's Fifteenth Anniversary

The Slovene Tolkien Society has just been spreading the news about this year’s special festivities as they are celebrating their fifteenth anniversary. I would highly suggest you join in because I know the Slovenes and I know they know how to do a party, a great weekend, all about Middle-earth, with plenty of workshops, talks, brilliant ideas and tons of fun. And most important: Laško!

Five years ago I received an invitation to visit Gil-galad’s tenth anniversary (I was then still chairman of the German Tolkien Society and lived in Regensburg which is much closer to Slovenia than Berlin!) and gladly accepted. I made contact with our fellow Tolkienists from the Austrian Tolkien Society and managed to travel part of the way with old and new friends – to make even more new ones! I won’t bore you with the details but I can promise you it was one of the most hilarious and wonderful events I ever participated in, located in a beautiful green valley of the Slovenian alps, with a small stream swooshing by. Pure magic!

O my god, save the Lasko!

O my god, save the Lasko!

At the time my mind was set on other things as you may see here. However, that is of no importance now. Get your butt to Slovenia, that is important!

The international part of our fifteenth Grand Annual Meeting will be held from Thursday, 8 August, to Sunday, 11 August 2013. As usual the program will be rich and diverse, with plenty of workshops, activities and chances to simply relax and socialize, and will reach its peak on Saturday evening, when we hope to have a wonderful party with numerous friends from foreign Tolkien societies with us. [Invitation to Grand Annual Meeting, Slovenia as a pdf download.]

How the Slovenes will convince you to join them!

How the Slovenes will convince you to join them!

To show you to what lengths the Slovenes will go to in order to convince their friends to come along and party with them … A year later, when it was time again for another Grand Annual Meeting I received a package with a personal invitation and a can of Laško, my favourite Slovenian beer 🙂

I will most certainly try and make it there (it is really difficult to say no to a personal invitation by the chairman :)) and I am quite sure the Austrians, Italians and Hungarians will be there again, just as in 2008. Maybe there be will even more Tolkien societies to come along, so – go there or be square! P.S.: You can contact them via their Facebook page as well!

Take part in the ‘Mellon Ceremony’, meet trolls in uber-life-size (honestly!), see swordsmiths work, paint Middle-earth banners, see fireworks, sword fighting and more!

Marcel R. Bülles

Marcel R. Bülles is the author of thetolkienist.com, a specialist blog centering on worldwide Tolkien fandom, geekdom and research. He works as a freelance translator, journalist and writer and is the founder of the German Tolkien Society as well as a co-founder to RingCon, Europe's formerly biggest fantasy film convention. You can find him in cafés all over the world sipping an espresso blogging, writing, reading. At one point he was married to an extremely lovely French lady by the nickname of Sauron. Yes, that Sauron. He is also active with the International Tolkien Fellowship on Facebook and the Tolkien Folk on Instagram.