2021
Lynn Beltz, recipient of the 2021 L. Frank Baum Memorial Award, has served the International Wizard of Oz Club as Vice President, 2014 interim Membership Secretary, and Chair of the 2014 National Convention. For years she was included in monthly conference calls with the executive committee, where her generosity of time and resources regularly solved Club challenges.
Lynn chaired the Club’s Winkie Convention in 1996 and 2002 and received the Winkie Award in 2011. Through the years she’s also organized children’s and other activities at many conventions including the Club’s centennial convention in 2000. She has shouldered enormous quantities of behind-the-scenes and upfront work for our events; if she’s not serving as registrar or managing the database during the auctions, she is stepping into productions, panel discussions, games, and contests to help move the program along.
For several years Lynn has attended the Oz-Stravaganza! festival in Chittenango, New York, where she has promoted Club membership, personally funded and presented awards to winners of the festival’s writing contests, judged the parade, and served as an ambassador to VIP guests—all as a representative of the Oz Club.
In 2010-11, Lynn made repeated trips from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco to sort, organize, and pack Club inventory from our two storage units when the board decided to move it to an order fulfillment service. She later took on indexing and moving two storage units of Oz material left to the Club in a Philadelphia member’s estate. She made it her responsibility to auction, sell, or donate all that material to support the Club.
Most recently Lynn has taken on staffing Club exhibits at public festivals, chairing the membership committee, and raising funds to cover expenses associated with membership recruiting.
Whether she’s driving something across the country that we don’t trust to a commercial shipper or serving as a judge in our annual contests, Lynn has distinguished herself time and time again as one of the Oz Club’s most dedicated and faithful volunteers.