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Happy 10th Birthday ABBAMAIL!
Wow! I can hardly believe it, 10
whole years! What a fantastic achievement for a mailing list bringing people
together who had one common interest – ABBA!
I can’t remember how long I’ve
been a part of ABBAMAIL, since sometime in 1999 I think, but whenever it was the
years that I have been associated with ABBAMAIL have been a fantastic and highly
memorable experience. I initially joined ABBAMAIL, as I wanted to be a part of
something with an ABBA connection as well as wanting to keep abreast of all
things ABBA. ABBAMAIL seemed to be the best place for it.
I very soon realised that
ABBAMAIL did not just function on ABBA with the sole purpose of keeping the ABBA
legacy alive. I soon came to learn that ABBAMAIL consisted of people who cared
about others and shared with everybody, be it ABBA related or not.
I started connecting with people
from all over the world and as a result made so many friends that I would never
have had the opportunity of doing if I were not a part of ABBAMAIL. We all have
good times and bad times and the support that I have received from ABBAMAILER’s
from all over the globe in both happy and tough times has been amazing and
something that I will no doubt cherish forever. I’ve only ever met two
ABBAMAILER’s, Mike Scurr from Cape Town and Joy Hafner from New York, sadly Joy
is no longer a part of ABBAMAIL. There are other’s I’d love to meet and
hopefully one day I will, especially seeing that I feel that I know so many
ABBAMAILER’s so well and yet I have never met any of them!
As a member of ABBAMAIL, it is
very hard to explain to people what ABBAMAIL is about and unless they’ve
experienced a part of what goes on in this community, they will never grasp the
concept. So many times I get asked ‘Why do you do it?’ or ‘Why do you still take
part?’ and the best of all ‘Don’t you know enough about bloody ABBA?’ I just
shake my head and know deep down that they will never understand, and it most
certainly is not just about ABBA, no matter how many times I tell them!
There have also been some real
space cadets that have been a part of ABBAMAIL, quite a few of whom have tried
my patience at times, and no doubt that of many others as well! Thankfully, they
have moved on into the sunset and found other places to be of irritation! There
have even been those who were a part of ABBAMAIL under ‘disguise’ merely to try
and cause havoc and upset the apple cart, unfortunately for them they ended up
meeting their ‘Waterloo’.
One of my personal highlights
with ABBAMAIL happened just over 3 years ago. Graeme announced that something
was being added to ABBAMAIL and that was a Columnist section and interested
individuals should apply with a written piece. For many years, I’d wanted to
write. A book was out of the question due to time constraints and other
commitments. I still had this yearning to write about something that I had felt
so passionate about for so many years, ABBA, even though this has been done so
many times. So, I thought I’d give the Columnist thing a try and duly wrote
something and sent it off to ABBAMAIL HQ.
I still remember thinking to
myself that it would never be good enough. That was in November 2003 and I’m
still here, writing columns every month, missing deadlines most of the time, and
I’m still enjoying it! I don’t always write about ABBA and some of the reviews
are rewarding and some are scathing, but when you touch on some sensitive topics
like I have a couple of times one learns to accept the reviews in whatever form.
One of my absolute highlights of being a columnist was my ‘Proudly South
African’ column from September 2005 where I wrote about ‘Four Jacks and A Jill’,
I still get people contacting me today about that column and the group. Every
now and again I go back and read some of my columns and today I realise, I could
have written that book after all. Whether it sold a copy would be another story!
My fellow Columnists, both past and present, do an amazing job of what they
write each month and I personally find their columns highly interesting. Quite a
lot of time and effort goes into writing something and I don’t think many people
realise that. I have no doubt that the running of ABBAMAIL in itself is no
different, just on a much grander scale when you take the logistics into
account.
ABBAMAIL itself has also had its
fair share of drama and I think the worst for any ABBAMAILer was the Universal
Music Sweden debacle in 2006. I for one felt very threatened by it and the whole
affair most certainly left a very bitter taste in my mouth, in fact I was quite
heart sore about it. It was very hard to fathom, that the very four people I’ve
adored for 30 years would want to shut something like ABBAMAIL down all over a
shop providing fans with what they, ABBA, and Universal Music Sweden would
simply not provide the fans with. In a nutshell, we’re all sick and tired of
buying the same old songs in different packaging; we want the type of product
that was being provided through the ABBAMAIL web shop.
Thankfully, ABBAMAIL, managed to
pull through this with the introduction of the subscription service and the
additional financial contributions by so many others who were a part of
ABBAMAIL. This was where I really saw the true colours of ABBAMAILER’s coming
out, those that had no qualms about paying to be a part of ABBAMAIL and those
that simply would not, for whatever reason, which quite frankly is their loss.
I’ve come to appreciate that
being part of ABBAMAIL is a Team effort. We all have very different opinions but
at the end of the day, we all stick together and make ABBAMAIL work, with
whatever we have to share whether it is ABBA related or not.
At the end of the day, I think
there are two people who deserve the world of thanks for ABBAMAIL and they are
Graeme Read and Grant Whittingham. Without the two of them, ABBAMAIL would not
be what it is today. Guys, I’ve been an ABBA fan for as long as you both have,
but you have both taken that fandom to the next level and provided us all with
something that ABBA never did. From your humble beginnings with the Australian
ABBA Fan Club in the 1970’s, right through to today, you’ve kept our interest
and fascination with ABBA alive and opened up a world of friendships as a
result!
Thank you for 10 years of
ABBAMAIL, I most certainly would not have missed being a part of it for the
world!
Happy Birthday and here’s to the
next 10 years!!!!
Neil
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