** Regular user group pages / 826 words **
UKAAUG Changes
Harry Sideras
Please note, with immediate effect, the new address of the UKAAUG is: UKAAUG, 37 Garwood Road, Yardley, Birmingham, B26 2AN, England

MACE down under
** MACE.GIF here **
Graham Hurford, MACE secretary
Melbourne Atari Computer Enthusiasts (MACE) is Australia's oldest Atari user group. MACE meets once a month, puts out a monthly magazine (except January), a Disk of the Month (DOM), operates a full time bulletin board using the wonderful Ratsoft Software and we have our own web page.
Our monthly magazine (The Mag) is a print based magazine and we intend to continue its production for the foreseeable future. However, our main concern is getting members to write articles. They all say they can't but we all know they can don't we?
The DOM is a relative newcomer at only two years old(!) and we all want to keep that running means finding new software to include on it - at least we have access to the Internet!
If you have any articles to contribute or programs we can include on our DOM please do get in touch and if you find yourself in Melbourne, Australia do drop in and say "Hi"!
** BC on **
Email: hurfy@alphalink.com.au
URL: http://connexus.apana.org.au/~julian/mace/mace.html
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The SHAG Report
Jeremy Beadle
In case you were wondering SHAG stands for Stevenage & Hertfordshire Atari Group! It's new group covering an area that was previously devoid of exclusive Atari support. Our first meeting was held on the 9th of April at Bedwell Community centre, Stevenage...
After putting up numerous flyers, enlisting the help of the local papers
and telling people via the BBS network, we waited with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation for users to turn up and we were pleasantly surprised. 23 fellow Atarians attended with ages ranging from under ten to over 70. We took along STe and STFM machines and a Jag (which ran Doom all evening) and were pleased others had also brought along their machines. Paul arrived with his Falcon, another member arrived with his STe and one member turned up with a laptop PC! Before the lynch mob got him he managed to get his Atari XL emulator up and running some classic Atari games.
"Capt James T" deigned to visit us, a modern day Delboy. In he trotted (pun intended), set up his market stall in the corner and started selling everything you could think of, software, hardware add-ons and he went home that night richer man financially but Atariless - another enthusiast bites the dust.
As it was the first meeting we tried to make it as informal as possible with everyone mingling and using the computers it was a great success. The tea and coffee kept flowing and before anyone realised it was 10 o'clock and we were forced to end the evening far too quickly.
By the end of the evening we'd solved many problems and even created a few as people realised Atari machines could do much more than play games. Thanks to Nobbie there should be at least two new BBS users with hopefully more to follow.
Meetings will be held every second Wednesday at Bedwell Community Centre, Bedwell Crescent, Stevenage) so if you're in the area do pop in and say hello...

April WAG Meeting Report
** WAG.GIF here **
Richard Spowart, WAG Secretary
The immortal words from the (in)famous WAG Webmaster, Roy Goring, on seeing us all enter this meeting were "Blimey, they've all crawled out of the woodwork today, haven't they"?!
Whilst there were a fair amount of people at the last couple of meetings the forthcoming shows seem to have attracted a higher than average turnout.
Most of the usual crowd attended including Colin Fisher-McAllum, Si Gardner, Chris Bloy, Chris Holland, Norman Bland, George, Mick Lock, John Heywood and some new members, whose names I haven't all memorised yet.
A general talk followed during which Mick Lock took charge and votes were taken regarding the possible purchase of an STe system by the user group using our subscriptions, and the ability of the committee to spend up to £50 of WAG money without having to get permission from the group via a vote. This, in theory at least, should enable WAG to take advantage of any special hardware/software offers which might arise. The new members were also introduced and looked after by some of the other members.
After the general talk, everyone went about their own business at the meet. Mick Lock was showing off the latest PixArt using a Wacom graphics tablet, me and Chris Holland were showing off some new demos, Si Gardner was trying to get my Zip drive to work as I'd forgotten to bring along my boot disk.
All in all, a most enjoyable and successful meeting. It was nice to see some new people there, let's hope they attend the next meet, along with YOU!
** BC on **
Email: felice@zetnet.co.uk
URL: http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/maggie/
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