The 86 tram goes right by outside, and the place is fairly close to the Northcote and Merri railway stations. Hey, it's the town hall, you can find it.
We occasionally get moved around, but so far have always been somewhere upstairs, and usually in the room more or less directly ahead when leaving the lift.
WHEN
12:30 pm to 5:30 pm, mostly on the 2nd & 4th Saturday of each month.
Check the MAS mainpage for the latest screening times.
SCREENING SCHEDULE
The screening schedule is kept by Bruce Barnes at http://home.connexus.net.au/~bruce42/ProgNow.html and mirrored at http://www.geocities.com/twin_spires/ProgNow.html (which has ads). It's also occasionally available from the MAS forums.
DOOR FEE
| Non Members | $2 |
| Members | $1 |
For a complete listing of fees and prices of things normally available at screenings, check this link.
A HISTORY OF THE M.A.S.
The Melbourne Anime Society was formed in 1990 and to the best of our knowledge is the second oldest continuously existing anime group in Australia. (The first one is in Western Australia, I think.) The founders were Adrian Pett, Robert Thompson and Ken Stone. In April 1997, Adrian and Robert decided that seven years at the helm was quite long enough. By the end of July the task was handed over to a new committee, and door-fees were introduced to cover the costs of the public hall in which -- due to expanding membership -- screenings now took place.
Difficulties never experienced before now cropped up, such as the time somebody closed and locked the main doors of the Oakleigh hall used back then, while members were still turning up, and another occasion when the hall was broken into and the t.v. stolen from its locked cupboard. Ever since then we have used a portable television projector.
From 1998 to mid-2005 all screenings were being held in a suitably-sized hall at Monash. This changed to Ashwood, then briefly to Elsternwick, then to where current screenings are at Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street, Northcote.
The reason the society was started was to help people find out about anime, and for people who did know what it was to actually get to see it. (In those days, not as easy outside Japan as now.) In line with this the society from its very beginning has had a policy of encouraging others to form anime clubs in Australia and to support them once they have started. From the beginning we have engaged in promotional exercises in Melbourne and occasionally elsewhere. Just recently I came across the program of one such early effort outlining the 25 hours of anime videos we put on at the Cancon'92 gaming and role playing convention in Canberra (quick geography lesson for overseas visitors - Canberra the national capital is located in the Australian Capital Territory while Melbourne is the state capital of Victoria).
The current meeting venue is quite comfortable, and close to public transport. The club has its own video projector for the screenings.
The MAS maintains a free loan library from which members can borrow up to five recordings at a time. The loan library had over 750 tapes by the time it was superceded in favour of DVDs, which soon packed more hours of material onto DVDs than the tapes ever held. The library continues to grow.
Titles which are known to be available locally (E.G. are available in video libraries) are withdrawn from the loan library as soon as we know about them.
Distribution of recordings is mainly limited by what there is of our free time. Other Australian Anime Clubs get priority for our sending out recordings. We do not distribute commercially subbed or dubbed anime shows. We do make trades of course. Without swaps there would be a lot of shows missing out of our collection. See here for more details.
MAS and three other University clubs held a combined clubs' marathon at Melbourne University in 1999 which morphed into the Manifest - Melbourne Anime Festival, (Australia's first anime convention), in 2000. Since then, the four clubs have continued to hold the convention each year with the informal addition of La Trobe University's anime club, starting in 2002 (formally from 2003).
With the flood of anime from Madman, Siren and other companies beginning around early-mid 2002, MAS has shifted much of its focus to newer and the much older releases from Japan. The advent of digital video of reasonably small size, the explosion of digital storage media capacity, and the increased availability of broadband internet connections has allowed MAS to move in this new direction.
2005 heralded the introduction of MAS's Screening Code of Conduct and Anti-Harassment Policy after long discussions to help make MAS a better place for all.
MEMBERSHIP
To join the Society there is presently a yearly membership fee of $1.00
Please read the Anti-Harassment Policy and help us keep MAS the club for everyone.
LOAN LIBRARY
Members can borrow three (usually, but sometimes up to five) DVDs at a time from the free loan library, on the condition they are brought back at the next meeting or two.
For further information on the titles available, please go here.
DISCOUNTS
The club has arranged for members to get discounts from some shops/supplies. For further details refer to the discounts page.
HOW TO JOIN?
Simply attend one of the meetings and ask the person handling the door fees about membership. Of course you can attend as a visitor (for a slightly higher non-member door fee), but then you miss out on the loan library.
| President | Andrew Dynon |
| Secretary | Matthew Lescich |
| Treasurer | Louis Patterson |
| Librarian | Chad Walker |
| General Member (DVD sales) | Neil Murray |
| General Member | Alex Norman |
| General Member (Web monkey) | Bruce Barnes |
Enquiries masinfo@metva.com.au (email sent here will go to the Secretary, or if they are unavailable for some reason to another appointed Committee member)
Postal address:
Melbourne Anime Society
PO Box 14191
Melbourne VIC 8001
E-mail website enquiries to masweb@metva.com.au (C) 2006, Melbourne Anime Society, Inc. Org No.: A0038233Z