Chatt, TN Chattooine's 5th Anniversary

Chattooine's 5th Anniversary

TheForce.net... this is where it all started.

After a few attempts at making the required 3 meetings (to become an official FanForce Chapter) dating back to 2001, a small group of people were finally in the right place at the right time.

Well, maybe not the right time... at least for that first meeting. We all decided to meet up (first time in person) at Sir Gooney's one night in late August. Turns out, there was a nice hurricane passing over us! A little wind and rain wouldn't stop us, so we all gathered outside Sir Gooney's doorstep only to be thwarted. They were having their Halloween planning meeting, so it was closed. Not to be denied, we went to Ankar's nearby and officially had our first meeting. By the time the third meeting (which made us official) came around at the Chili's in downtown Chattanooga, we were choosing our first President (Layren) and thinking of what to call our new club. I think we settled on "Chattooine" during that 3rd meeting, but we were also looking at a "full" name, so here are some that were tossed around:

Chattooine Homestead
Chattooine Mountain Brigade
Chattooine Sea
Chattooine Wasteland
Pit of Chattooine
Chattooine Temple
Chattooine Space Port
Chattooine Clone Troopers
Chattooine Space Slugs
The Chattooine Sarlacc Pit
The Chattooine Menace
Chattooine Unleashed
Mos Nooga Cantina, Chattooine - (which is eventually what we called our forums)
Chattooine Bounty Hunter Lookouts
Chattooine: Outer Rim Lookouts
Chattooine Rebels

In case you didn't know, we're officially the Chattooine Outer Rim Lookouts, but nobody ever uses the full name...

Now that we had a name, we soon got website and pretty much moved off theForce.net boards and moved here. After the first several meetings, we decided we needed a base. In January 2005, we met at The Dragon Caves in East Ridge for our only meeting there, but we started gaming nights there soon afterward which resulted in an epic Star Wars RPG campaign that lasted 2 years. In February of 2005, we began our monthly meetings at The Rave Theater. It was at that time that talks of doing something for the Episode III premier started.

The summer of 2005 (specifically May) was not just a huge moment for Star Wars fans, but it was big for Chattooine as well. We went to the toy release at Toys R Us, costumed up for a newspaper article, and an appearance at Chick-Fil-A. All this led up to our big event. For the entire weekend of the premier, Chattooine made The Rave the place to be at. For the midnight showing, we decked out in costumes and helped with crowd management. Right up front, we had gaming demos of the miniature game and Attacktix. Also, thanks to Best Buy, we were letting people play the PS2 Episode III game that was giant sized and projected onto the front of the Rave itself. All throughout that weekend, we were on hand as we held a costume contest, ran gaming demos, staged mock lightsaber battles before as many showings of the movie we could, and had the PS2 gaming finals.

To show their appreciation, The Rave invited us to a private showing of the movie "Serenity" before it was released.

Now that we had our feet wet with that experience, we decided to tackle conventions. In 2006, we hosted some events at Chattacon including the Star Wars vs Star Trek debate. In an effort to get our name out there, we were on the program called "This-N-That" hosted by Don Welch. As a follow up, they sent a news crew to cover the debate we held at Books-A-Million right after Chattacon. During Chattacon, we had a warm-up in which members of the 501st Legion went up against the Klingon Assault Group. We held the debate at Chattacon one more year before moving it to ConNooga for the past two years. Speaking of, ConNooga would never have come about if not for Chattooine.

Once we were organized, we came in contact with other Star Wars groups. Namely the costuming groups of the 501st Legion, the Rebel Legion and the Jedi Assembly. Several of our members has since become a part of