About us
Who we are
WLAS (World Leaders Autograph Society) is an independent and nonprofit community of people from all over the world who share the common hobby - collecting of autographs of world leaders. This closed community has 29 members from 12 countries - Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, the USA and the United Kingdom.
Our community members work in two sections - the first section works on Facebook as a closed group, the second section is a public group on this webpage. The webpage was created in order to promote our hobby and our cooperation and we want to show we are real people from different parts of the world, but with common interest. We believe that our cooperation can improve understanding among nations, we can promote our countries and we can make the relationships among countries better.
We all collect primarily the autographs of presidents and prime ministers from all countries and regions. Some of us collect also the autographs of royalties, governors, foreign ministers and other important politicians. The items signed can vary - pictures or photos, paper cards, signed letters or business cards, signed books or some specific items.
The history of WLAS
The first idea of the cooperation arose from Jan Syversten from Norway who advised to bring more collectors in one place and start to cooperate more professionally. The first group was founded by Jan Syversten from Norway and Michal Dominik from Slovakia on Facebook in 2012. We invited more people and we started to work together with big enthusiasm.
Later our member from Poland came with the idea to organize the common meetings and to meet also personally. The 1st meeting was organized in Krakow, Poland in 2013. The Polish friend hosted Jan Syversten and Rune Moe from Norway and Michal Dominik from Slovakia. WLAS was created and founded in Krakow by four participants.
The 2nd meeting in 2014, which was organized by Jan Syversten and Rune Moe in Oslo, Norway, brought the cooperation with the German autograph collector club Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Autographensammler e. V. Thanks this cooperation WLAS can publish the articles about its activities in their magazine.
In 2015 the members of WLAS met together during the 3rd meeting in Leipzig, Germany, in 2016 was organized the 4th meeting in Žilina, Slovakia and in 2017 the 5th meeting in Belgrade, Serbia. The 6th meeting in August 2018 in Minsk, Belarus brought for the first time the meeting with the former world leader - Mr. Stanislav Shushkevich accepted the invitation of WLAS.
The 7th meeting was realized in Sofia in August 2019, where the members of WLAS had the opportunity to meet 2 former prime ministers of Bulgaria - Mrs. Reneta Indzhova and Mr. Professor Georgi Bliznashki. The meeting with Mr. Bliznashki was organized by the Slovak Embassy in Sofia, so this society starts to cooperate more with the diplomats and to promote more the society and this hobby.
In 2020 we should visit Sarajevo and organize our annual meeting there. Because of the situation with coronavirus all over the world we needed to postpone the meeting one year later. In 2021 it was not possible again to realize our meeting in person, because the situation did not allow it. After 7 very nice meetings in various places around Europe we had the break in 2020 as well as in 2021.
In 2021 we realized the first virtual meeting. All participants were invited and we "met" also friends, which we did not see before. It was a good way how to know the members better, who are not able to participate on personal meetings.
It has finally been possible to realize the 8th meeting in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 2022. This meeting had a special spirit, because the WLAS-family met after 3 years. This meeting hosted 3 former leaders of the country - Mr. Edhem Bičakčić (former Prime Minister of the Federation of BIH), Mr. Prof Ivo Miro Jović (former Chairman of the Presidency) and Mr. Prof. Spasoje Tuševljak (former Chairman of the Council of Ministers). We started to award our guests with the certification of appreciation as our thank you for their willingness to participate on our meetings. This meeting was also an opportunity to remember our first distinguished guest Mr. Stanislav Shushkevich, who passed away on the 3rd of May 2022 at the age of 87 years.
In 2023 we were able to organize the 9th meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia and WLAS celebrated the 10th anniversary of its existence. The former prime minister Mr. Mamuka Bakhtadze accepted the invitation as a distinguished guest. The society had also the opportunity to receive the autographs for all 11 participants from the former prime minister Mr. Giorgi Gakharia as well as of the former president Mr. Giorgi Margvelashvili. We started with a new tradiiton to promote the autographs from the host country.
The philosophy of WLAS
The philosophy of the group is to bring under one umbrella the collectors from all over the world, who collect autographs of world leaders; who are fair and honest people, who collect the signatures only for their private collections and private use or for an exchange with other collectors within the group. Only people accepting the conditions and the philosophy of the group will be allowed by the board members to join. We are very strict against selling of the signatures and against the production of fakes and we are prepared to fight against it with all power we have.
Collecting of autographs is our hobby and we are living with this hobby. The cooperation is not the competition. We collect only original authentic signatures (no autopens, stamps or facsimiles etc.). We can get new signatures via postal request, in person or via exchange.
We would like to inform all visitors of our webpage that we are a serious community with honest people. We know, that nowadays many people are not real collectors just only businessmen, who collect for their own profit and not for fun. They are selling the signatures and some are willing to make fake signatures. We, the members of WLAS, dissociate from this kind of activities and we are strictly against it.
Conclusion
We would like to thank to all world leaders who provided their signatures for us and to all persons who helped us to get new signatures or who managed the signatures for us.
We would like to ask all world leaders from all countries and regions for their support and for their willingness to provide their autographs for us. We would like to ask the secretaries of the politicians, ambassadors and honorary consuls for their understanding and eventually for their help.
Thank you very much
