Booking is now open for the next ABUG South.
The meet will take place from Friday 18th to Sunday 20th January 2019 at The Ely, London Road, Blackwater, CAMBERLEY, Hampshire, GU17 9LJ .
The venue is a short distance from J4a of the M3 and pretty close to the M4 too. There is a reasonable amount of parking on site. There is a nearby station at Blackwater which is 8 minutes by car (and, as usual, I am sure that there will be volunteers to do pick-ups). It is just a branch line but is only 20 minutes by train from Reading and less than an hour from London Paddington. It is about a half hour drive from Heathrow Airport.
Now the big news
: The meeting room is much bigger than anywhere else we have been in recent years. The official capacity is 110 (although I think that is perhaps a bit sporting). At the last ABUG South, we were comfortably able to accommodate everyone who attended with a full table each and plenty of room to pass between tables. Having said that, it will still be of assistance, when booking, for you confirm what days you intend to come and whether you will be bringing kit or not.The room also contains a large projector screen. So, if anyone has a Beeb compatible projector and cable they can bring along, I am sure there will be much fun to have with that.
If you wish to stay at the hotel, you can book direct through the hotel website or you can phone them on 01252 860444. At the moment, they have rooms available for a total of £135 for the two nights. (UPDATE: thanks to sbadger for finding a promo code for the hotel - Win18Break - which takes the price down to £63.90 for the two nights. I don't know how long this code is good for I have found the terms and conditions online and the code appears to be valid for stays up to 31 March 2019, with no particular limit on when the booking needs to be made. Also, note that the discounted booking is, perhaps unsurprisingly, non-refundable. A (much) more expensive refundable rate is available.) They have twin rooms available so two people could share, albeit at the slightly increased cost of £87.80. As at 16.1.2019, the hotel has only one room left.
As usual, here is the standard information about the meetups.
Acorn & BBC Micro User Group (ABUG) meetups are open to enthusiasts of the BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Atom and Archimedes/RISC OS machines. Attendees will typically stay for two if not all three days. The meets are always very informal and can involve:
- members bringing their own hardware to set up and show off**
- time spent working on hardware and programming/games projects
- exchange of ideas/knowledge
- upgrade and repair of poorly Acorn machines
- collaborative work on community projects, such as software preservation, preparation/planning for displays at other events etc.
- sale of items by members (not guaranteed, but there are often opportunities to buy bits)
- general socialising, food/drink and the odd hi-score competition!
** = Important! Ensure that any hardware you bring that features the RIFA/paper-type capacitors with a tendency to go POP (e.g. Beebs) have had the caps changed! We can't risk setting any smoke alarms off as that may incur charges!
The £15 charge covers the cost of the meeting room together with as much tea, coffee, fizzy pop and unhealthy snacks as you can consume.
There are very few rules:
- no hot food is to be consumed at the venue other than that which is purchased from the bar/restaurant
- no alcoholic drinks to be consumed at the venue other than that which is purchased from the bar/restaurant
- see below regarding children
Children
ABUG meetings are not child friendly venues because of the following:
- there is not often a lot to engage the interest of very young children
- people working with hot soldering stations
- people working with potential toxic substances (lead, IPA)
- people working with exposed mains voltages
- large amounts of electrical cabling representing potential trip hazards
- lots of fragile, expensive and sometimes rare equipment
Having said that, we do encourage well behaved/adequately supervised children who may be interested in an insight into computers (and, obviously, computer games) of days gone-by. In particular, there will almost certainly, be opportunities for gaming.
If, however, children become a risk to themselves or others, they will have to leave.
Please post in this thread or send me a PM (either on the forum or via Facebook) to let me know if you want to come and what days you are likely to attend.
CONFIRMED
- JudgeBeeb (Robert) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- sixxdog_uk (Alex) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- z0m8ied0g (Stephen) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- markdryan (Mark) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- kieranhj (Kieran) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- 1024MAK (Mark) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- sbadger (Stew) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon PAID
- cmorley (Chris) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- VectorEyes (Adrian) - arriving Friday very late or Saturday morning, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- chrisn (Chris) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- RobC (Rob) - Saturday only PAID
- hoglet (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- flibble (Peter) - Saturday and Sunday (maybe Friday) PAID
- Prime (Phil) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- BigEd (Ed) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- mattyj (Matt) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- BeebMaster (Ian) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- tom_seddon (Tom) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- IanS (Ian) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- tricky (Richard) PAID
- jbnbeeb (Jason) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- jubber (Robin) - Saturday and Sunday PAID
- MattH (Matt) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- helpful (Bryan) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- oss003 (Kees) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening PAID
- daveejhitchins (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon PAID
- thearttrooper (Chris) - Saturday only
- jgharston (Jonathan) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon PAID
- Arcadian (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon PAID
- Hinotori (Alex) - Saturday only PAID
