Last year, we, VFOD – Vietnamese Fans of Declan, had a happy meeting to say “Happy birthday to Declan!” together, and made a video which you might once watch. This year, we make no exception, but a warm get-together with a lot of new members. We felt like brothers and sisters when together singing the song “Happy birthday”. Declan and his music connect fans and make them closer!
Here is the video shot at the get-together. Hope that you enjoy watching it, as you did last year. Let’s share the great feelings that we all have in this wonderful day!
(As the party has just been held and the video’s just been made, there may be some mistyping mistakes. Hope that you don’t mind )

And here are some photos taken :

The cake we’ve made:

The cake with candles






We all love Declan and his music, because they make us become friends and support us to do charity. It’s really great that a music idol cares much about that social work. Here is the video we made when we did the charity work:

Together, we say Happy birthday to Declan and wish the best of best for him!
Once idol, forever idol! Once friends, forever friends!

Happy birthday to you, DECLAN!

After the 3rd get-together, we heard the news that there’s been a video contest, which is held by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training. It’s a big contest for video clips, named “Friendly Clips”, made by college and high school students only.
We decided to edit our videos to take part in this interesting contest. We’ve sent this to the official website of the contest, in order for people to vote for our clip. Luckily, after only 3 days, it has received more than 100 votes and a lot of supporting comments. Even more amazing, it outweighs the video posted 1 month ago, which had maintain its No1 position for a long time.
Though we have received a lot of support from many people, we just want you, our friends on FOD, to support us as you have done . Here are some guidelines for you to vote we’ll be thankful to you for this.
Here is the link to the clip: http://www.cyworld.vn/myhome/12000510482/15/292
It’s named: “VFOD – A Friendly Fan Club” ^o^
This clip is in both Vietnamese and English!!!

To be allowed to vote, you have to register in the website.

Step 1:Click the box marked number 1.
Step 2 marked with number 2) fill in the form of registering with the information guidelined ( in red colour). After finishing filling information, you click the box at the bottom ( the lowest red arrow) to save the information.
Step 3:the instruction is easy enough to understand, right?
Step 4: turn back to the website and vote! Take a look at the following picture:

Click the line: “click here” in red. Finish!
If you’d like to leave a comment, look at the bottom of the page:

Through this contest, we hope that more and more VNese people will know about Declan and his music!
So we’re really appreciate your voting and comments!

Thank you for always supporting us! See ya!

Best regard,
_V.F.O.D_

As you already knew, we held 2 get-together quite long time ago..and from then on, we’d had no chance to meet.
Till 17th May, we had the 3rd one, with a trip to Children Village ( a center for adopted children) to do charity. As usual, we had a lot of fun, and some profound lessons, too…about the unhappiness of those children and their little dreams of being loved by parents. It’s really a meaningful and priceless trip for all of us.

This is some pictures of our get-together!

===> The picture we took with some children there

Best regard!

_V.F.O.D_

Vietnamese Fans Of Declan

A forum has been expected by all the members of VFOD, who wants to share the feelings and inspriration about Declan < everything about him, of course >. And to meet their expectation, as well as to support our final aim < bring Declan’s music to as many Vietnamese people as possible >, we’ve tried to establish an official one. Here is the link:
http://vfodpro.road2us.com/

You also can go to our forum by a very simple way: Just type “VFOD.TK” and ENTER! ^_^-

As you enter our forum, you’ll see the banner <designed by VFOD’s designer>

Especially, in order to help you all, participate in our forum to share together with Vietnamese fans, we’ve added a separated subforum in English . See it here:

Because the forum’s been established recently, it’s now not been filled up with many things yet. So, just register in our forum (the instruction is in English, also ), and build it up together.Hope that FODers and VFODers will have a good time there

Best regards,
V.F.O.D

The first question of VFOD to Declan is also a small suggestion

Penetrating the Vietnamese fans desire of receiving even only some little words from Declan, V.F.O.D’s representative sent him such a suggestion, on the occasion of “Ask Declan a question” opening (the first time in 2009)

Dear Declan,
Here is V.FOD – Your Fan Club in Vietnam!
Happy Lunar New Year! <have you received our calendar?! >

We hope that you still remember this small FC in a small country!!
For a start, we’d like to send big thanks to you. thank to you and your musical talent, we’re not only the people who have the same interest, but become true friends as well. That’s really great! one thing we want you to know is in February 8th, we will have our second get-together! Many things to do are being expected!
We sometimes feel sad because of incapability of buying your CDs <in Vietnam, it’s a big problem> . In this condition, we just try our best to do something that would be good for you. We hope that with our attempt, we can bring your songs to much more people in our country!

It’s really, really difficult for us to express our love to you and your musical talent…

And this is the most expected thing of ours:

What words can you speak to all of us – V.FOD???

All the best,
_V.F.O.D_

After waiting for 18 days long, VFOD’s just received Declan’s answer:

Hi VFOD

How about “Thank You” and “You guys certainly seem to have fun………”

But can I also say “It never ceases to amaze me how much effort all of you around the world go to ……”

“I hope you all enjoy the music I may do in the future wherever in the world you are, and I hope it won’t be too long before I get to visit all your countries.”

Best wishes
Declan

This answer was posted at 11h51 p.m . Though it was quite late, Declan’s tried his best to answer many questions from his fans, including of VFOD’s. It seems to be certain that all of us feel great admiration for his kindness. It’s impossible to find another one who is dearer than him!

We, VFOD, would like to send our big thanks to Declan, who is loved not only for his talent, but his likable personality as well!!

After 2 months since the first get-together had been successfully held, V.F.O.D’s members gathered once again! Those enthusiastic people, who were very eager to meet their friends, got together at 2 Pm in February 8^th, 2009. The place chosen was a small café called “Banana Café” – 472 Le Duan Street, Ha Noi.

Waiting rather long for the second offline, with full of eagerness and things to share, V.F.O.Ders all came on time to make a meeting of minds.

That get-together was held in order to summarize the work of V.F.O.D from the very first days and announce the future plan of the FC. They will be not only interesting, but helpful as well. Of course, our big aim is to tighten the solidarity among the members and popularize Declan’s music in Vietnam.

To make dreams get out of fantasy…V.F.O.D have tried our very best as Declan has. Since we do not only trust in Declan’s musical dream, we also trust in our dreams ourselves! 8)

This get-together marks the matureness of V.F.O.D in both planning, carrying out the activities and the bonds of the members. We’re now in each other’s pockets, proving our solidarity, activeness and creativeness!

Thanks all members for your attendance. We hope that in the next offline, others will have time to attend to make it more successful. The biggest hope are wished for the members in Ho Chi Minh city, who are very far from us but always in favour of the FC, that someday all of you, together with us, we can hold a get-together at the same time and in the same place! We’re always proud of you!

All of you already know, having an official product of Declan, to most Vietnamese fans, is really a big difficulty. Sympathizing with this disadvantage, V.F.O.D’s president had planned to design an unique calendar for only V.F.O.D’s members.

The design was completed in November 22^nd 2008. The calendar with 5 pages was introduced on the blog to collect member’s ideas. The last design was decided. Here it is:

The calendar named “Declan super cool calendar 2009” was in the process to be the real one before Lunar New Year 2009. It’s a special gift for V.F.O.D’s members on this occasion. It’s made more special when it’s on behalf of V.F.O.D to be sent as a gift to DECLAN. We hope that this small present will be soon delivered to Declan and he will love it! :D

To all Vietnamese people, Lunar New Year is always a spiritually meaningful holiday. However, to V.F.O.Ders this year, it carries much more meaning.

This meaningful gift was introduced on FOD, and we have received lots of positive replies. Many people have asked us for sale, but unfortunately, the copyright that allows it does not belong to V.F.O.D. Moreover, as we said earlier, all V.F.O.D’s products are not made for any commercial purposes. Thus, we do not definitely sell this calendar.

V.F.O.D would like to send big thanks to FOD’s members, who always care and support our activities.

As Vietnamese citizens, we’d like to present you about our Lunar New Year Festival (“TET NGUYEN DAN” in Vietnamese), an oncoming occasion. It is a national and traditional festival in Vietnam (Chinese, too). It takes place in this month, from 26th to 28th. In Lunar Calendar, this period is corresponding to the first three days of New Year. In other words ( easier for you to understand), this New Year will begin in Monday, January 26th (it’s only for this year. The next year depends on the Lunar Calendar. In Vietnamese, they often call this occasion “Tet” (/teit/).

Since it is the biggest festival in a year in our country, Vietnamese people have many activities to celebrate this occasion. We bet then a certainty that they will take you by surprise! 8)
Now, let’s join our New Year Festival!!!;):D

Several days before the main festive day, in every corners of our country, people prepare many things with a great eagerness. Painting houses, preparing Tet food, holding flower festivals all over the country…are some main activities on Tet occasion.

After a year flooded with work, people prefer to refresh themselves on Tet. For personals and students, this is a 7-day holiday to relax. Workers stop working, students stop studying in class several days before Tet, to prepare. We strongly believe that all of you are excited about our special food on Tet. So, let’s take a look on some of them!

In North of Vietnam, the weather is often cold on this period. On the other hand, South of Vietnam always experiences hot weather. Therefore, there are some differences in Tet eating and drinking between these 2 regions. The main food of North is a kind of cake called “Chung cake” (/ t∫u:η/). In English, it’s called “sticky rice cake”.

It is made from rice, boiled bean, pork and pepper inside. All of them are covered by “Dong” (/zo:η/) leaves.

And this is the making process of Chung cakes:

It’s rather complicated to make a Chung cake. And it takes us about 8 hours to boil them. People prefer to gather around the cooking fire and wait until it finish. It’s really warm and interesting to do so.

In South, we have “tet” cakes (/tet/). It’s also green-covered.

Another special meal in Tet days is “Nem” (Spring roll):

Vietnamese people from the ancient time would like to have a flowerpot to make their houses more beautiful. In North, the traditional kind of flower for Tet is Peach blossom – “Dao” flower (/dau/)

“Dao” flower is the symbol of happiness and blissfulness in Vietnam.

In South, we have “Mai” flower (it’s pronounced exactly the same to the word “my” in English)

They are only something special on Tet occasion in Vietnam . We also have many ceremonies around the country to celebrate our biggest holiday.

We hope that they will suggest you about a trip to Vietnam to join many activities on our Lunar New Year Festival. It’s also the most wonderful time in a year to visit Vietnam.

You can find out about Tet in Vietnam here:
http://www.saigoninfo.com/tet/meaningoftet.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E1%BA%BFt

Only 2 days left to the Lunar New Year Eve 2009. Surely Vietnamese people in general and VFOD’s members in particular are so busy now. They have to prepare many many things for your houses in Tet days.;) And they will show you all so many other special things in Tet holidays. :);)

On this occasion, we, all VFOD’s members would like to send to all FOD’s members a VERY HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!!! :D:D:D

And for all Vietnamese on FOD: CHÚC MỪNG NĂM MỚI!!! 8)

Sat Jan 10, 2009, at about 10:00 pm (Vietnamese time), 3:00 pm – UK time, radio VOV5 (Voice of Vietnam) broadcast the song CARRICKFERGUS of our angel: DECLAN!!

The voice of the radioman:”You’ve heard a wonderful song by Declan Galbraith. This is “the music of the UK”. His amazing and fantastic voice has attracted millions of people all over the world. He started his career very soon, and I’m sure, his talent will continue being sparkle….”
VFOD’s very proud of Declan, and surely, you’re all too!

We wanted to inform you all that the radio PR (VOV5) by Voice of Vietnam is a channel for the Vietnamese people and foreigners in the country in the world to broadcast short and medium waves with the radio in 12 languages including English, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Beijing, Guangdong, Lao, Thailand, Cambodian, Indonesian and English for the cells of the remote Vietnam Fatherland.
So, that weird song “Carrickfergus” has brought our angel to many countries through a small radio!

And, of course V.F.O.D has just wrote a letter to thank VOV5 for doing such an incredible job!
Hope that in the coming time, Declan’s music will be broadcast more on Vietnamese radio!

You all can visit VOV’s site here:http://english.vovnews.vn/

December 14^th, 2008 has been an unforgettable memory of all V.F.O.D’s members. That was the first get-together of the members in Hanoi. It took place in Bach Thao Park (Hundreds of Tree Species Park). We planned to hold a really big birthday party for Declan, in order for him to feel the hearty sentiments of Vietnamese fans.

Though it was the first chance for all members to gather and meet each other, there was no distance among them. Wearing the same T-shirts, we felt the closeness and dearness from each member. All of us were really excited and enthusiastic. Only 9 members joined, but the get-together were carried out successfully, and completed all small steps of our plan.

On Declan’s birthday occasion, VFOD also sent to Declan another gift. It’s a BIG and BEAUTIFUL banner being putted on the top of FOD’s site all day long Dec 19th, 2008. :D

With the continuous attempts, FC has overcome the very first difficulties. Then, a birthday party video clip for DECLAN appeared…

In the process of making this video, we came up against many problems. As a reward, all members experienced very funny moments. Sharing the same love, same interests and desire, we really had a good time. And, the greatest happiness for the last moments must be the time when V.F.O.D received Declan’s feedback! An enormous number of comments have been sent to express the support and admiration of FOD’s members to V.F.O.D. That has been the biggest thing that we obtained after trying our best. It’s really an undescribable happiness for only V.F.O.Ders.

Hello Everyone,
I would just like to congratulate you all on breaking the record….great to see you all here.

I have seen the party pictures from VFOD, it looked like you had good fun and the cake looked great!!

Thanks and best to all,
Declan

After that success, V.F.O.D has had a foothold in Declan’s mind and a considerable number of FOD’s members, too. This obviously proves that, in spite of our small scale, our spirit and success are really great. Receiving Declan’s feedback, everyone must have been so excited and proud of being a V.F.O.Der!

After all, our first attempts have been deservingly reciprocated. The success of that first get-together has urged us much to continue our plan and try our best.

All we do is for one love, one aim and one dream…