[kwlug-disc] OT: User group

[Charles McColm]

Back in 1983 I joined a computer group called BUG (the Barrie User’s Group – a Commodore group). The very first meeting I went to had approximately 100 people in attendance (pretty amazing when you consider Barrie itself had a bit more than 28,000 people at the time). The meeting was held in the gymnasium of a school. It was a really nice venue because the main presentation took place on the stage, while a number of members had other things going on at booths (much the way you’d do for a tradeshow). One of the “booths” was a 5 ¼” floppy disk of the month, a compilation of software put together by volunteers with some custom programming by one of the club members. Pretty neat at the time, perhaps not exactly fitting for today. Another booth had a member who was showing off his tiny dot-matrix printer (it printed on calculator-like paper). At one meeting I remember a member leading a few others building a “light pen” using a magic marker-like tube and electronic components.

I liked the booths idea because you could walk around and look at things that specifically interested you. When the group lost the spot in the gym attendance went down to less than half (around 40ish people) and eventually hit lows of around 20 people. The group operated a bit different, with a charter, insurance, etc. (one of the lessons from the school gym experience) than KWLUG. There was a membership fee that went towards the insurance and other expenses. Although they’re quite a bit different from KWLUG, they still operate as the Barrie Computer and Technology Club: http://barrietechnology.weebly.com/

Just thought I’d mention the group because I remember how much fun those initial meetings were and noticed they still do some things similarly (disc of the month).

Cheers,

Charles

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