info-mac@uw-beaver.UUCP (10/06/84)
From: Roy_Harvey%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Greetings:
My name is Roy Harvey and I am with the MacTech User's Group. MacTech
[which stands for MACintosh TECHnical] is a group formed by students at
the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. The group at U-M is made up
of students, staff, faculty, and many non-university people.
I am now trying to get in touch with as many of the other Apple University
Consortium schools as possible. Some questions:
1) Are there any other Macintosh user groups in the consortium?
And if so, would they be interested in setting up some type of
consortium-wide (student-based or otherwise) user group?
2) If a school does not yet have a Mac group, would they be interested
in starting one? (ie, Is there enough student interest to get things
going?)
If you can help me or just want to chat - please reply. I look forward
to your suggestions, questions, and comments...
Roy Harvey [Editor of The MacTech Source (group newsletter)]
Roy_Harvey@UMICH-MTS.MAILNETinfo-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (10/11/84)
From: John Mark Agosta <johnmark@whitney>
Roy-
It might help you to know some of the activities we are contemplating
as we set up the "Stanford Macintosh User's Group." We're starting from
scratch, not ever having organized one before, and not very familiar
with the bureaucracy of registering a student group at the university.
After a few organizational meetings, both large public meetings but at
first just among the "founders", we came up with a list of activities
that look like viable sub-groups to serve the needs of as many mac
users as possible. They are:
-A developers subgroup. Now its looks like an "Inside Mac" study group,
composed mainly of graduate students.
-A freeware distribution and Commercial software review group. They have
clearinghouse type functions. Much of this we plan to implement by a
bulletin board on the mainframe(s), separate from Info-Mac. We hope
this serves the general community of students, educators and staff
who are not necessarily interested in writing their own applications.
-A dissertation writer's group. Their unifying problem is to write large
documents according to the Graduate Office's prescibed format. Also
I hope research users will trade ideas here.
-A organizational group. Does typical club functions like invite
speakers, raise money, keep up with corresponding groups, etc.
On the last point, there are several places on campus with consortium
functions, ie selling macs, selling supplies, teaching courses, and
developing applications for various labs. We're trying hard to
dovetail our activities with them.
So far most of the response we've gotten has been from graduate
students, because that's where the idea for the user's group came
from. And the response has been very encouraging! However we want
to keep the direction open so all mac user's can benefit from membership.
I hope you can learn from our experience as limited as it is. Here's a
question: There's a semi- official industry organization called
"Apple-Core" made up of apple users and clubs. Does any info-mac reader
have opinions on the value of joining them?
My opinion on your query (and it is just my own) is that Info-mac
can serve as an inter-university user's group: why splinter off?
Good luck -jma
johnmark@su-whitney.arpa