ABUG South
I am pleased to announce that booking is now open for the next ABUG South.
Venue
The event will take place from Friday 24th to Sunday 26th January 2020 at The Ely, London Road, Blackwater, CAMBERLEY, Hampshire, GU17 9LJ.
It is a combined hotel and pub/restaurant. We have been there a number of times now and to another hotel in the same chain in Leicestershire. The feedback for this venue has been very positive. The meeting room is just off the bar. They have a great selection of food which they will happily bring to us in the meeting room. They have a spiffing carvery for Sunday lunch which is very popular with fans of over-indulgence.
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 previous ABUG South events, we have been comfortably able to accommodate everyone who attended with a full table each and plenty of room to pass between tables. This is, however, somewhat contingent on people being kind enough to bring a few extra tables, as the hotel has a limited number of rectangular tables and round tables do not work very well for our setup.
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.
Travel
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 are nearby stations at Blackwater and Fleet which are less than 10 minutes by car (and, as usual, I am sure that there will be volunteers to do pick-ups). They are just branch line stations but are easily accessible from Reading, London Paddington and London Waterloo. It is about a half hour drive from Heathrow Airport.
How to book a place
Places will be subject to a reduced charge of £10 per head (although I am not planning on taking any money until much closer to the time). The £10 charge covers the cost of the meeting room together with as much tea, coffee, fizzy pop and unhealthy snacks as you can consume.
If you wish to reserve a place, please post in the thread below or send me a PM, either through the forum or via Facebook. (I can be found in the Acorn Computer and BBC Micro Enthusiasts section as 'Justin Nathan')
If you do not take one of the above steps, you will not have a place. In particular, it is not sufficient to click 'going' in the Facebook event page.
How to book a hotel room
As at 23 January 2020, the hotel has 1 room available for the Friday night and 1 (different) room for the Saturday night.
If you wish to stay at the hotel, you can book direct through the hotel website or by phone on 0345 608 6040.
Make sure that you quote the discount code TWIXMAS WIN19SALE. With the code, the cost of a room on a single or double occupancy basis with breakfast is £58 £70. (To be clear, that is £58 £70 in total for the whole weekend - i.e. £29 £35 per night).
In the run up to the last event, as the hotel reached capacity, the discount code stopped working. You are therefore strongly advised to book as early as possible. At present, we have not yet been able to negotiate a more permanent arrangement with the hotel.
What happens at ABUG
Acorn & BBC Micro User Group (ABUG) events 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 events 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!
Rules
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 are to be consumed at the venue other than that which is purchased from the bar/restaurant
- see below regarding children
- the hotel is a snake-free venue; please do not bring any snakes to the event
ABUG meetings are not child friendly events 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
If, however, children become a risk to themselves or others, they will have to leave.
New members
We are particularly keen for new members of the forum to attend these events. You do not need to be working on developing a Cray 1 second processor for the Beeb or porting Crysis to the Acorn Atom. You just need to be interested in Acorn computers. People often come just to enjoy a beer and a chat. Indeed, you don't necessarily have to be specifically interested in Acorn computers. We have certainly seen Dragons, Apples, Sinclairs and Commodores (and other more obscure machines) making an appearance.
We are a friendly bunch and we will make sure you feel welcome. If you have any questions or uncertainty about the event, please feel free to PM me (either on this forum or using Facebook Messenger - I can be found in the Acorn Computer and BBC Micro Enthusiasts section as 'Justin Nathan').
Confirmed
Reserve list
- JudgeBeeb (Robert) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- Zarchos (Xavier) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- MattH (Matt) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- mattyj (Matt) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- kieranhj (Kieran) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- flibble (Peter) - arriving Saturday (or maybe Friday afternoon), leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- tom_seddon (Tom) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- markdryan (Mark) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- sbadger (Stewart) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- cmorley (Chris) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- Dave Footitt (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- VectorEyes (Adrian) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- Prime (Phill) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- chrisn (Chris) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- hoglet (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- 1024MAK (Mark) - arriving Friday (possibly quite late), leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- Arcadian (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- tricky (Richard) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- BigEd (Ed) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- helpful (Bryan) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- BeebMaster (Ian) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- IanS (Ian) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- z0m8ied0g (Stephen) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- gidandridge (Gavin) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- daveejhitchins (Dave) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- loudscotsbloke (Roy) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- oss003 (Kees) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- SimonSideburns (Simon) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- trevorg (Trevor) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- 0xC0DE (Kelvin) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- sPhilMainwaring (Phil) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- flynnjs (Jason) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- Paul (Paul) - arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening - Paid
- j6wbs (Jeremy) - Saturday afternoon only - Paid
- sixxdog_uk (Alex) - Ariving Friday afternoon, leaving Saturday afternoon - Paid
- VMSZealot () -
