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The Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS) is the principal organization for fans of the television series Doctor Who. It was founded in May 1976, emerging from the Westfield College Doctor Who Appreciation Society and the editors and readers  of the fanzine Tardis. The society currently produces a monthly magazine, Celestial Toyroom, hosts conventions, organises a network of local groups, and provides discounts to members for Doctor Who-related merchandise.

History
The society gained recognition from the Doctor Who production office at the BBC in 1976, succeeding the Doctor Who Fan Club which had operated since the late 1960s. Whereas the earlier fan clubs had often had only a single organiser, the DWAS was headed by an executive committee.

Early activities included the establishment of a newsletter to promote fan communication through pen-pals and swaps, titled The Celestial Toyroom after the first episode of the story The Celestial Toymaker, and the establishment of a reference department to collate and circulate accurate information about the production and storyline of each Doctor Who episode, headed by Jeremy Bentham. Early recognition came when the second edition of The Making of Doctor Who (1976) acknowledged society president Jan Vincent-Rudzki and co-ordinator Stephen Payne "and members of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society" for their help in writing the book. . 1977 saw members of the society help with the BBC documentary Whose Doctor Who?, and the society stage the first Doctor Who convention, held at Broomwood Church Hall, Broomwood Road, Battersea, London on 6 August, 1977.

During 1976 and 1977 membership of the society had been free of charge. Membership seems to have been loosely defined, and members and non-members paid to receive Tardis, The Celestial Toyroom (which was merged with Tardis for the duration of 1977) and other items such as the reference department's 'StInfos' without any of these charges being interpreted as society membership fees. However, anxieties expressed by the production office and the BBC's legal department about the reproduction of copyright material contributed towards the introduction of a membership fee with effect from January 1978. Restrictions on the exchange of copyrighted material such as off-air audio recordings through the society's publications were also introduced. A restyled Celestial Toyroom would be sent to all society members to carry news about the programme, associated merchandise, and the society, while members would continue to pay for Tardis, which moved from monthly to bi-monthly publication, and reference department items.

This set the pattern for the next few years. Late 1977 saw the emergence of the DWAS's fiction magazine, Cosmic Masque, edited initially by John Peel and Stephen Evans. In 1978 the convention was given the name Panopticon, named after both the the ceremonial gathering-place on Gallifrey and the prison building designed by Jeremy Bentham, namesake of the head of the society's reference department. Other early activities included a DWAS Drama Group, led by Mark Sinclair, which produced a film, Ocean in the Sky, starring Leo Adams as the Doctor.

The advent of Marvel Comics Ltd's Doctor Who Weekly in October 1979 led to changes as Bentham became its principal feature writer, and resigned as head of the reference department. He was replaced by David J. Howe. During 1980 the remaining founders of the society resigned from the executive, president Jan Vincent-Rudzki departing in August. . Vincent-Rudzki went on to join Stephen Payne in founding the magazine publishing company Visual Imagination.

Challenges faced by the society in the early 1980s included tighter control of news by the production office; Vincent-Rudzki complained in his last president's column that independent fanzines were printing news about the forthcoming season which the production office had asked DWAS not to publicise. This would be an issue throughout the 1980s. Another issue was the growth of the society's local group network, which by October 1980 included seventeen groups, two of which were in North America. The society executive felt that they were unable to effectively supervise overseas groups, for whose actions they had legal responsibility, and withdrew recognition from them as DWAS local groups. The society continued to recognise an allied North American Doctor Who Appreciation Society until 1984, but the change encouraged the formation of the Doctor Who Information Network as a fully distinct society for Doctor Who fans in Canada.

New ideas introduced in the early 1980s included a fanzine poll and regular fanzine reviews in Celestial Toyroom. Smaller events such as Interfaces and DWASocials began, complementing Panopticon. The local group network continued to expand. While the executive never became an elected committee, executive members made visits to local groups and the DWASocials included panels where society members could express their views on society governance. Membership fell for a period in the early 1980s - recorded at 1820 in the August 1981 Celestial Toyroom, it had fallen to 1000 by November 1982 - but then began an upturn, reaching 1175 by March 1983, and 1550 by December. The editor of Celestial Toyroom for much of this period (from June 1981 to December 1982) was Gary Russell. The rise was probably helped by the DWAS's presence at the BBC-run Doctor Who convention held at Longleat, Wiltshire, in March 1983.

Competition for DWAS as a news provider emerged when Gary Levy began to publish DWB in August 1983. Levy's DWB was sold through specialist shops (as were other leading fanzines in the early 1980s) and its newspaper-inspired format met a demand for news, whether or not it was authenticated by the Doctor Who production office, that Celestial Toyroom's sparser news style was not matching. In April 1984 Dominic May became editor of CT and increased the word and page count, increasing member participation through publishing reviews of merchandise and Doctor Who related happenings supplied by readers. Costs were carried by increased membership fees.

Against this the society was facing more pressure from the rise of commercial Doctor Who fandom in the United States; conventions to mark the twentieth and twenty-first anniversaries of the programme had to be cancelled after guests were contracted to appear at American events on the same dates. The society planned that Panopticon VI in June 1985 would compete in scale with American conventions, but

During the early 1980s Celestial Toyroom remained a brief monthly newsletter, with Tardis (which moved to quarterly publication in 1983) being the main forum of articles and letters.

Developments in the late 1980s included a decline in membership, perhaps due to the evolution of Marvel's Doctor Who Magazine into a more fan-based publication. Rival services also appeared, such as DWB for monthly news, The Whonatics or the MLG for local gatherings, and Phoenix for conventions.

Failure to register for VAT led to a crisis in the Society's finances in the late 1980s, but the DWAS recovered from this to survive as the core grouping of Doctor Who fandom in the UK. A separate company, Space Rocket Ltd, now administers commercial affairs such as conventions and sales, on behalf of the DWAS.

The Society's honorary president is Nicholas Courtney who played the hugely popular recurring character Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart on the series from 1968 to 1989.

Links

 * DWAS Online &mdash; Official site for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society