Club Database

Regional user groups (Non-UK)

 AAUG

Club name RISCOS.be
Contact John Tytgat (Co-ordinator) RISCOS.be logo
Address ACC (Algemene Computer Club)
V.Z.W. De Kaars
Herentalsebaan 212
B-2100 Deurne
Belgium
Telephone +32 (0)3 366 50 80
Email info@riscos.be
Web site http://www.riscos.be/
Meeting place ACC (Algemene Computer Club)
Herentalsebaan 212
B-2100 Deurne
Belgium 		Map to ACCMap also available as a Draw file
Meeting dates Every 2nd and 4th Friday of the month, 8:00pm
Members Around 10 per meeting
Subscription EUR 37 for one year's ACC membership, which allows unlimited participation in all ACC user groups (you can join the user groups on a trial basis for a couple of occasions without membership)
Coverage Belgium

Further information

The club was started in around 1988 by Philip Stroobandt. It was part of the HCC (Hobby Computer Club), which was a large organisation comprised of several computer clubs, of which the Belgian Acorn User Group was one. (In fact, the club's original name was Belgian Archimedes User Group, and we changed our name to RISCOS.be in January 2000.) Other computer groups included Apple, IBM PC, MIDI, Linux, WordPerfect etc. We had, and still have, two meetings per month, on every second and fourth Friday. There are no exceptions to that rule except when a meeting coincides with the Friday of an important Acorn show (e.g. the London, Wakefield and Big Ben shows), or the day before one begins. Our club organises trips to visit the major Acorn/RISC OS events in England and The Netherlands for our members.

The Belgian HCC organisation, unfortunately, had to close down a couple of years ago, but luckily a new one was formed: ACC (Algemene Computer Club). So it's still business as usual on the second and fourth Friday each month!

Like HCC, ACC is comprised of several computer clubs: RISCOS.be, Linux, PC and even a Tandy group. With ACC membership, you can visit every user group meeting, so it's not really clear how many dedicated RISCOS.be members there are but at each meeting we have about 10 people present.

My guess is that the number of RISC OS users in Belgium is low (around 50?) but stable (we regularly see the same faces). We would like to increase the number of RISC OS users, and now that ACC has become a dealer for RiscStation, MicroDigital and Castle products, so that looks promising. To fund the ACC activities, and things like the rent of the current building, PCs and peripherals are also sold. This might sound a bit unfortunate, but on he other hand it is a good occasion to show RISC OS alternatives to "the great unwashed."

This PC dealership also allows us to have a free stand on one of the major Belgian PC events: the Hobby & MicroComputer Dagen, which takes place each year in around February (in fact, this event used to be organised by HCC, and was taken over by another organisation when HCC closed down).

The meetings are usually slightly disorganised as we don't have any dedicated agenda or guest speakers and, surprisingly enough, even with our frequent meetings, there is not enough time to handle everything. Our group is known to have meetings which go on until very late... or should I say early?!