SET your faces to stunned, writes SARAH HUDSON

As a member of the Star Trek fan club, Ballarat's Michael Doggett is used to living a double life.

"I don't say upfront that I love Star Trek because people think you are a real dork and they don't want to know you," says Michael, who is a salesman by day.

"But when you get to know people they'll admit they love it too.

"I'd say, for argument's sake, there are 50,000 people in Australia who admit they're fans but the real number is probably more like 400,000. It's a real secret club."

Michael, though, is proud to declare his love of all things Klingon and Spock from the TV and movie sci-fi series.

And, as he points out, he's not alone.

Not only are there hundreds of official fans of Star Trek, but around Victoria and Australia other fan clubs gather to worship and celebrate their cultural icons, from music's Elvis, Kiss and Queen to TV's Doctor Who and Lost In Space.

Andrew Hall is such a devoted Kiss fan, that he not only belongs to the Australian Kiss Army, but also the US version, to which he pays $90 a year and receives a T-shirt and has first dibs on any concert tickets.

And an entire room in his Sussex Inlet house, on the NSW south coast, is devoted to Kiss merchandise, with his most treasured item a 5cm torn piece of (fake) blood-stained towel from Gene Simmons.

"I was at my very first Kiss concert in 1980 and he threw the towel into the crowd and there was a frenzy and I grabbed my piece," says Andrew, who is a postman by day.

"I can still remember being introduced to the band in the fifth grade by a guy who bought a record into class, Kiss Alive. I was just intrigued, hooked."

While Andrew's musical bent incorporates a broad range of 1980s metal, he says he's only an official fan club member of Kiss.

At last count he has been to almost all of the band's Australian concerts, will collect any of their merchandise - including action figures, soft toys, a signed guitar, bean bags, beadspreads and much more - and has even "brainwashed" his wife and three children into following the band.

"I've always enjoyed their music but I suppose it's a hobby for me. Everyone's got some kind of hobby," Andrew says. "I like being a member (of the Kiss Army) because it's just a bunch of like-minded people. A whole bunch of us get on the internet and chat. I get on daily."

He says while his Kiss merchandise collection keeps on expanding, the "holy grail" is a $5000 pinball machine, and he's also saving for a $1000 meet-and-greet ticket at the band's next Australian concert.

Luckily for Ballarat's Michael Doggett, he has been fortunate enough to meet one of the Star Trek actors, Marina Sertis who played counsellor Deanna Troi.

"It was at a Star Trek convention in Melbourne about 14 years ago when I got her autograph and spoke to her for about 10 minutes. I've also met one of the stars of Battlestar Galactica," says Andrew who was born and raised in Ballarat.

He says he first became hooked on the TV series when it came to Australia in the 1970s, watching it in black and white as a five year old.

He has since watched and now owns every TV episode - about 1200 - and every movie,  and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the cult program.

Collecting merchandise is also part of the fascination and he frequently trawls eBay for Star Trek gems, which now include a tricorder (a scanning sensor), a model of the Star Trek Enterprise and a phaser gun.

Michael says he became a member of the fan club to keep up-to-date on latest news and chat with like-minded fans, which was particularly useful living in the country in the years before the internet.

He says his wife, Ana, while not as passionate, has learnt to share his enthusiasm.

"No I don't speak Klingon. Don't get me wrong, I'm right into Star Trek but I only know a few words. I could easily sit here all day, every day and watch it," he says.