I'm Walt Atwood, and I'm the group moderator and Apple Ambassador for the Allegheny Region Macintosh User Group (ARMUG), located in rural north-western Pennsylvania and south-western New York state. ARMUG has been holding meetings, since we first gathered at the Warren (PA) library in 1995.
We alternate between meeting on even-numbered months in the Warren, PA area, and on odd-numbered months in Jamestown, NY. We have an e-mail YahooGroup, but we're looking at replacing it with a dot-Mac "Groups" setup. This is a rural area, and some locales are still waiting to get access to broadband. Our previous Apple Ambassador, Douglas Cramer, served as IT Dept. head at the FCI at McKean (federal prison south of Bradford, PA) before he took a job at the FPC at Montgomery, AL in Dec. 2005. I took over Doug's role and started experimenting with new meeting places.
We just started meeting at local coffee houses that offer WiFi on broadband, so that's a boost for us.
I have been asked to open a line of inquiry to discover the possibilities of what user groups do and how they work together. To my knowledge, nobody from ARMUG has ever participated in this list before. Here are the group's questions:
1: One of our volunteers has been active in other MUGs. He asked if ARMUG has a User Group number. I know ARMUG is registered with Apple, but I never knew anything about a MUG number. Does anyone on this list know anything about this?
2: ARMUG alternates its meeting locations, so there is no single location. This confounds the Apple web-form we had to fill out to register as a recognized MUG. On even-numbered months, we meet in Warren, PA and on odd-numbered months we meet in Jamestown, NY. Is there any way to clarify this? I sent the question to Apple a couple of weeks ago, but nobody ever replied.
3: Is there any informational web-page up at Apple that instructs MUG leaders on how to use the "Groups" feature of a dot-Mac account to provide MUG participants with "Groups" services? If not, why not? This would seem to be a necessary feature. We have access to a dot-Mac account, and we want to get the most out of it.
4: I also heard that Apple could provide ARMUG with a dot-Mac account. This would be preferable to ARMUG using someone else's dot-Mac account. How do we go about requesting a dot-Mac account?
5: I sent a message to two regional MUG reps listed on Apple's web-site. One of the reps bounced, and I never heard from the other one. Does anyone know what's going on with that list?
Thank you for your time and attention,
--WA
for, the Allegheny Region Macintosh User Group (ARMUG) care of Walt Atwood Atwood & Son 256 Mohawk Ave Warren, PA 16365 (814) 726 - 2774
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