The Anshu Appreciation Society has a long and glorious history, recorded here for the benefit of future generations.
Humble beginnings
The society was founded after AMUNC 2008 by Alfred Lee, who started the original Facebook group, the Anshu Wijeyeratne Fan Club (Appreciation Society). He appointed himself Vice President, with Lisa assuming the role of Anshu's #1 fan as President (without her knowledge). A controversial family tree, spelled out via Facebook group officer titles, labelled Doc as being married to Anshu, with Bec and Michael as Doc's parents and thus Anshu's parents-in-law. The group swelled rapidly in numbers, eventually peaking at 27 enthusiastic fans, although some may have joined for other reasons: Jenny cited the need to "protest at all the LIES! BIG LIES! of Anshu being a rational, decent person" and Daniel Z focused on the mention of facecake.
Growing up
This Internet-based adoration was good for a time, but some members felt that more could be done. With Anshu's birthday approaching, the first AnshuSoc merchandise was created as his present. This consisted of an Anshu facecake, which was delicious, and AnshuSoc T-shirts, where the difficulty of finding a word to rhyme with Wijeyeratne was revealed. The two slogans were "Wijeyeratne, cooler than Shatner" and the acrostic "Anshu is Nice and Sweet and Handsome and Unavailable :(". Many of the partygoers expressed interest in buying one but they remained a very limited edition. More photos are available on Facebook, if you're friends with Tristan Rendall.
Taking it global
After the success of Anshu's birthday, another celebration seemed like a good idea. The result was Anshu Appreciation Day, February 6th 2009. The specific date was the result of a comment Anshu had made one year earlier, when after receiving lots of UN-related emails, he attributed his full inbox to the world having an Anshu appreciation day. This event called for more planning and following a top secret letter to Lisa, a meeting of 3 organisers was convened at the Alfred Hotel in North Sydney, which has fantastic chips if you're ever in the neighbourhood. Bec was in the northern hemisphere for StatesMUN at the time, making her an international ambassador for the Society, and marking the first international Anshu-focused event. Because of this, an American theme was used for the new T-shirt, with the Sheperd Fairey-inspired "Anshubama" graphic and the slogan "Yes We Canshu". On the day, a widespread campaign of Facebook profile photo changes and status updates to "... appreciates Anshu" was very effective in spreading the joy of the new public holiday. In the evening, Lisa brought Anshu to the Lowenbrau where several of us were secretly waiting for a feast of pork knuckle and sausages, celebrating Anshu's twin loves of meat and German.
The end of an era
All of these events had been fun and brought much glory and prestige to the Appreciation Society, but they were becoming difficult to improve upon without expending more time than we could spare. Accordingly, we decided that the momentous occasion of Anshu's 21st birthday would be the site of a relatively grand finale, a present that would enable Anshu to be immortalised in the minds of many generations of children far into the future - the board game AnshuLand. Based loosely on a design sketch for an Anshu-based theme park that Michael had drawn earlier, the game challenges contenders for the role of Anshu's successor in a race filled with trivia and riddles, with the aim of collecting memorabilia from his life. A fully working version of the game was produced (see the Facebook album for photos), and you can see the board and rules below.
Officially, we have now come to the end of AnshuSoc, but it will always live on in the hearts of people everywhere.