South West Amiga Group?

[zerohour1974]

As the heading says ... Is there a group of Amiga enthusiasts in the South West Region.

As a guy in Swindon it would nice to meet a group of like minded people from the surrounding areas of Bristol, Bath or anywhere else around the region.

If not would anyone be interested in helping form one and help set up a meeting ...

[roberthazelby]

I was a member of the now defunct South West Amiga Group (SWAG).

I'd be interested in assisting if there was interest from others.

[zerohour1974]

Ok fantastic to hear Robert... so we need to see if we can find more South West people who are interested...

[roberthazelby]

I did try a few years ago (you should be able to find the thread on here. If not I can try and dig it out) but there wasn't any interest.

I've just had a look and the SWAG web site is no more. I'll have a look to see if I have anything of it on hard drive. At the very least we could use the logo.

[zerohour1974]

Yeah just searched and read some of the threads... seems as if you were hitting a bit of a brick wall.

[roberthazelby]

Could be worth giving it another go. A few other parts of the country seem to be able to get enough people for semi regular Amiga meets.

[zerohour1974]

We can but try...

[TCMSLP]

I believe the SWAG mail list is still going, although very inactive. I did send a message a few years ago and had a response from someone in Weston Super Mud.

zerohour1974: Well, I'm happy to hear there's at least two of us in Swindon. I'd suggest we plan a beer sometime and call that the first of many SWAG revival meetings.

roberthazelby: Just realised the last posts to the SWAG list were actually me replying to a post of yours ... in 2010

Steve (TCM/SLP)

[fondpondforever]

I'd be interested if Cornwall counts.

[amig060]

ill be interested bring back swag website yeahhhaaaaa.

[zerohour1974]

Well it seems as if we have some interest so we will have to see if we can make some arrangements ...

[Yesideez]

I'd be interested!

I'm from Devon, friend of TCM.

//Zeb

[roberthazelby]

OK. A bit of an update. I've taken it upon myself to give this idea a bit of a plug, and have promoted the idea in the following places:

My Amiga Gamer Blog
(http://amigagamer.blogspot.co.uk/201...iga-group.html)

My Amiga Gamer Twitter Feed
(https://twitter.com/amigagamer)

The Commodore Amiga Facebook Group
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/CommodoreAmiga/)

The response on the Commodore Amiga Facebook Group looks to be very positive indeed! I've asked people posting in there to respond to this thread.

Things are looking up!

As mentioned on your FB post I'm interested. Can talk amiga all day so might as well do it with people who are interested :-)

A former SWAG member alerted me to this thread.

Basically, (Robert may remember me) I ran SWAG for several years until I closed it a few years ago due to a lack of interest and attendance.

I actually had the domain name (swag.org.uk) until a few weeks ago, and had no intention of letting it "go", but for some reason I never had any renewal notices and I basically lost it to someone else who has since registered it. I am somewhat annoyed by this to say the least. I do still have the old site on my server, but you may want to do a new design if it goes forward.

I believe interest in the Amiga has had a boost recently, but I can't say if you will get many people together - back in the day, it did get to the point where trying to get people to meetings was, well, not easy.

Right now, I am not sure if I am able or willing to get involved myself, but if someone else wants to try, you are welcome to. I would suggest sending a message to the old mailing list (you are welcome to use this) at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/swag/info and see if you any response from there (there are currently 34 members, but I don't know how many are still "active").

If you have any questions, let me know.

[roberthazelby]

Andy! Of course I remember you! What a blast from the past.

You were kind enough to give me the login details to the SWAG web site around 10 years ago. I resolved a few dead links and started to update the members area. Unfortunately I failed at getting enough support from the community to be able to arrange a meeting.

I've had a rummage around the Mac hard drive, and it looks like I downloaded the pages from the FTP site way back in 2005. Although the site was simple, the thing I liked was that it worked on an Amiga (I think!).

I'll pop over to the SWAG list and give the idea a plug on there.

Thanks for the help. If this does come to fruition it would be great to see you.

[wilshy]

I would be willing to travel to a group if it wasn't all about the newer Amiga's, modded Amiga's and the like. If the group added some fun of old groups with game competitions, maybe show & tell of developments / creativity and so on that would be my ticket to the dance

Originally Posted by roberthazelby

Andy! Of course I remember you! What a blast from the past.

[...]Unfortunately I failed at getting enough support from the community to be able to arrange a meeting.

I think the best thing is to arrange a generic meeting to start off with in a pub, or similar to see what sort of traction you can get. A meet where you can set up computers, etc., may be better, but finding somewhere is a pain as you have to pay for most venues for something like this. I did find somewhere local to me (a "folk house") that we used, and people paid a couple of quid or so to go towards the hire costs.

I also had several of my own machines that I took along for one thing or another.

I've had a rummage around the Mac hard drive, and it looks like I downloaded the pages from the FTP site way back in 2005. Although the site was simple, the thing I liked was that it worked on an Amiga (I think!).

It's all still on the web site space - I created it all on my A1200T back in the day, from the custom images, html pages and Javascript, and it worked on Amiga browsers.

If you can get another domain (mutter mumble, grr), you can use the web space and site.

I'll pop over to the SWAG list and give the idea a plug on there.

Thanks for the help. If this does come to fruition it would be great to see you.

[roberthazelby]

Andy, you've probably seen that I've had responses back from a few former SWAG members.

I was very interested to read about how Colin is now really into emulating the Amiga on the Raspberry Pi platform. I'd say this sort of thing was right up the street of what the user group could cover.

Do you still have the details of the venue you used before? If zerohour has no luck with sourcing somewhere to meet, it could be an option.

I remember when I went along to the first Bristol and Bath Mac user group meeting back in 2005 (I think!). That was the first meeting held in an effort to get it moving following Mac Format dropping ownership of it. At that meeting we just met in a pub and talked Mac. We didn't actually bring any machines along to that session.

Over 10 years later we're still going. We have a decent venue now, and although we only meet quarterly, meetings are still interesting, informative and fun.

Great to read that you still have all the web pages. I can probably get us some really cheap web space from a friend. All we'd need to do would be to register a domain - www.swagamiga.co.uk for example?

I do hope you can be part of this in some way, Andy. Even if it's just an online presence.

All the best,

Rob

[TCMSLP]

Hi All,

Just posting to a) bump the post and b) check for any updates. Do we have a potential date/venue?

Edit: Rob - I can provide free webspace, DNS etc if required.

Steve