[kwlug-disc] OT: User group

[CrankyOldBugger]

Charles, you're from Barrie?  So am I!

On Wed, 24 Jan 2018 at 14:14 Charles McColm <charlesm at theworkingcentre.org>
wrote:

> 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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