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- The 1997 User Group Academy Awards
User Group members, officers and representatives from all around the globe gathered
on January 7, 1998 to celebrate the winners of the 1997 User Group Academy Awards.
This year's awards were hosted at The Cyberworld Cafe, in San Francisco where delegates
could 'surf' the awards site
while watching the festivities.
The evening opened with a message from Brighid Brady-de Lambert, Director
of Apple Computer's User Group Program who also presented two unannounced
Judges awards. Brighid and Apple also brought Macintosh G-3 computers to join the
surf, and provided scrumptious munchies which circulated the crowd throughout the
evening!
The Judges Awards
Citation of Special Merit for Design in a Small User Group presented to The Savannah
Macintosh Users Group. The excellent 24-page Mac Monitor is produced by Jim Alley
each month for 120 readers. He uses a Power Mac 9500/132 with QuarkXPress and Photoshop.
The Savannah Macintosh Users Group is located in Savannah, Georgia.
The Judges Choice Award in a Small User Group was presented to The Virginia Mac
Users Group, with Brad Gibson accepting the award. Judges cited the 8-page "VMUG
Solutions" as "The most well designed news-style publication in the show."
Editor Brad Gibson produces this monthly for 200 readers using a Macintosh with Pagemaker
6.0 and Microsoft Word 5.1 The Virginia Mac Users Group is located in Arlington,
Virginia.
In another surprise decision, the Judges bestowed "Best Conveyance of Info in
a Small User Group" to the GravenStein Apple Users Group's GravenStein newsletter.
Janet Mobley accepted the award which was cited as having more than twice the value
in content of any other newsletter in the small and medium group categories. This
20-page monthly is produced by Janet along with Paul Smith for 165 members. They
use a Power Macintosh 7200 with Aldus PageMaker 6.5, Adobe Acrobat Distiller 2.0,
and ClarisWorks 4.0.
The GravenStein Apple Users Group is located in Petaluma, California.
The Newsletter Awards
Best Technical Merit Award in a Small User Group was awarded to the Fallbrook
PC Users Group. This 16-page newsletter was noted by judges as the "most
unique and appealing" for its small (5.5 x 8.5) size. Guenter Schott publishes
this monthly to a Fallbrook readership of 500, using a Pentium 166 with Microsoft
Publisher 97, Corel Draw and Print Artist.
The Fallbrook PC Users Group is located in Fallbrook, California.
The Best Cover Award for a Small User Group was awarded to the Mid-Columbia Macintosh
Users Group for The Finder - October 1997 issue. Linda Cameron builds this 20-page,
monthly newsletter for 100 readers. She uses a Macintosh running QuarkXPress, Photoshop,
FreeHand, and Tex-Edit. The Mid-Columbia Macintosh Users Group is located in Richland,
Washington.
Best Overall Newsletter in a Small User Group goes to the Maryland Apple Corps.
This 24-page newsletter, Seeds & Stems is produced by Mical Wilmoth / Elizabeth
Roman, Bi-monthly for 150 readers. It's produced on a PowerMac 7200, using Quark
Xpress and PhotoShop. Delegate Merry Perry accepted the award for The Maryland Apple
Corps, Baltimore, Maryland.
Best In Show for a Small User Group went to The Professional Macintosh User Group
of Northeastern Indiana. The special size and clean design of this 24-page, MacVIEWS
is the handiwork of Bernie Burgette. It's published each month for 180 readers using
a Powerbook 3400/240, Pagemaker 6.5, WordPerfect 3.5 and Photoshop 4.0. The Professional
Macintosh User Group of Northeastern Indiana is located in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Best Technical Newsletter in a Medium User Group is the The MacValley Voice of The
MacValley Users Group. Ken Gruberman and Lynn Lanning publish this 16-pager to
more than 1500 readers each month. They use a Power Tower Pro 225, with PageMaker
6.5, Microsoft Word 5.1, Photoshop 4; and Illustrator 6. The MacValley Users Group
is located in Chatsworth, California.
Best Newsletter Cover Award for a Medium User Group was scooped up by The El Paso
Macintosh User Group. Their 16-page "Border Connection" is produced
each month by Judy Richards for more than 300 readers. She uses a Performa 6300CD
with Pagemaker 6.01, Photoshop 4.01, and Illustrator 5.5. Larry C. Jones accepted
the award on behalf of the El Paso Macintosh User Group, El Paso, Texas.
Best Overall Newsletter Award for a Medium User Group was awarded to The San Diego
Macintosh Users Group. Their 28-page monthly newsletter, Macintouch, is published
by A. Victor Goodpasture to 420 readers. He uses a Macintosh 9500 QuarkXPress, Microsoft
Word, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Claris. The San Diego Macintosh Users Group
is located in Carlsbad, California, with A. Victor Goodpasture present to accept
the award.
Best In Show Award for a Medium User Group goes to The NorthWest of Us for
their 28-page newsletter: NorthWest PASSAGES. Waynne Warren publishes this Monthly
newsletter to more than 650 readers. She uses a Quadra 650 with Quark XPress, Photoshop
4.0, PageMaker 6.5, Freehand 7.0, Illustrator 5.5 and Painter 4.0. The NorthWest
of Us is located in Itasca, Illinois, and President Sanford D. White accepted the
award.
Best Overall Newsletter Award in a Large User Group goes to The Sarasota Personal
Computer Users Group. Their 44-page Sarasota PC Monitor is produced by Gary Schweinshaupt
each month for 950 readers. He uses a Pentium MMX with Adobe PageMaker 6.5, Microsoft
Word 95, Adobe Photoshop 4.0. Holly Bridenbach accepted the award on behalf of the
Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Sarasota, Florida.
User Group Web Awards
Stepping forward to present the Awards in User Group Web Sites was author, speaker,
and computer software expert Maria Langer. Maria is currently riding the best
seller wave with her Mac OS/8 book from Peachpit Press. Her works on the web, along
with two best-selling books Claris Homepage Companion, and the PageMill 2 Quick Start
Guide made her an excellent presenter for the Web awards.
A Citation of Special Merit for User Group Website was bestowed upon The Macintosh
Permian User Group. This user group has excelled as the "Most Improved"
user group of all based on last year's awards. Their Macpug.org, at http://www.macpug.org
is produced by Eric Siegmund, Paul Nabors and Cerise Welter using a Power Tower Pro
180, Web Weaver Lite, Adobe Pagemill, Claris Home Page 2.0. The The Macintosh Permian
User Group is located in Midland Texas.
Best Technical Merit Award in a User Group Web Site goes went to The Hershey Apple
Core at: http://www.microserve.net/hac.
This website is produced on a Macintosh using BBEdit, DeBabelizer and PageSpinner.
Hershey was cited as "the best user group directory page." With a big grin,
Chuck Joiner accepted the award for the The Hershey Apple Core, Hershey, PA.
BEST Use of Medium AWARD in a User Group Web Site went to the Sarasota Personal
Computer Users Group for their Sarasota PC Web at: http://www.spcug.org.
Gary Schweinshaupt is webmaster with his Pentium MMX. Software used includes HoTMetal
4.0, Adobe Photoshop 4.0, WS_FTP95. Holly Bridenbach accepted the award for The Sarasota
Personal Computer Users Group.
Best Purveyance of Content Award for User Group Web Sites goes to the Huntsville
Macintosh Users Group. The HMUG Web Page - http://www.caos.aamu.edu/HMUG
is produced by webmaster Marius Schamshula, using a POWERPC 7100/80 AV with APACHE
and Custom UNIX applications. Marius Schamshula, was present to accept the award.
The Huntsville Macintosh Users Group is located in Huntsville, AL 35803
Best In Show AWARD for a User Group Website this year goes to The Savannah Mac
Users Group from Atlanta, Georgia. Mobius, at: http://zeppelinmedia.com/smug/mobius/mobius.html
is the handiwork of webmaster Robert J. Rockefeller using a SuperMac S900L and CyberStudio.
The User Group "Nice Ice" awards were presented by none other than David
Pogue, author, Macworld columnist, and long standing user group community personality.
Top "Nice Ice" Awards
Then special guest, noted author, Macworld columnist and user group celebrity David
Pogue stepped forward to present the Nice Ice awards.
David presented the award for the Best Cover for a User Group Newsletter to Robert
Sanders of the Los Angeles Macintosh Group (LAMG) for the stunning cover
of the October 1997 Issue of the LAMG Digest. The LAMG Digest is a
Monthly magazine newsletter with more than 6000 readers. It's created on a PPC 8100/110
using Photoshop, XPress, Illustrator, Word, Streamline, Bryce, KPT, Eye Candy, Strata
3D, OmniPage Pro, Dimensions, TypeStyler. William Nettles accepted the award on behalf
of Robert Sanders of The Los Angeles Macintosh Group, Simi Valley, CA.
The Best In Show Award was then presented (again!) to the Los Angeles Macintosh
Group for their 48 page LAMG Digest. John Reed edits this monthly publication
for more than 6000 readers. His tool box includes a PPC 8100/110, Photoshop, XPress,
Illustrator, Word, Streamline, Bryce, KPT, Eye Candy, Strata 3D, OmniPage Pro, Dimensions,
and TypeStyler. Once again, William Nettles accepted the award on behalf of John
Reed.
User Group World Award for User Groups Overall was awarded to the Houston Area
League of PC Users for reflecting just about everything good in a user group.
Their newsletter, The HAL-PC Magazine is produced by Charles W. Evans and
Meredith Foster each month for more than 16000 readers. They use a Clone Pentium
II/266MHz with Quark Express, Corel Draw, Photoshop and Ray Dream Designer. The Houston
Area League of PC Users is located in Houston, TX
User Group MVP Awards
Guy Kawasaki came forward to present the two top 'people' awards for 1997
in the user group community. Guy is an icon in the Mac arena, having been an original
Macintosh team member, Apple Fellow, and well known Macintosh Evangelist. With a
backdrop of camera flashes and applause he presented...
- The 1997 User Group Member of the Year Award
Janet Mobley
GravenStein Apple Users Group
Wayne Till, GSAUG's President tells us that this 123-member user group in Petaluma,
California, couldn't get along without Janet.
William comments:
__ "Janet Mobley has been a mainstay in the GravenStein
Apple Users Group for many years, serving as the newsletter editor for four years,
and helping the club out in numerous ways such as establishing and hosting the Macintosh
SIG, obtaining guest speakers for meetings and software for evaluation and raffles,
recruiting new members, etc."
__ These sentiments were echoed by Janice Crook, Vice
President; Joan O'Brien, Secretary; Peggy Johnson, Treasurer; and Paul Smith, member
at large. GSAUG has been in operation for six years supporting Apple II, Macintosh
and their clones. Their website "In-Site" is located at http://www.iscweb.com/gsaug.
__ We were nearly blinded by Janet's wide smile as she
accepted this award, being presented by Guy Kawasaki! Let's hear it for Janet Mobley,
and The GravenStein Apple Users Group!
- 1997 User Group Leader of the Year
Sanford D. White
The NorthWest of Us
- Numerous user groups applied for the President's Award, and when all was said
and done, Sanford White stands alone in the field.
__ Sandy (as his colleagues fondly call him) has been
President of our TNWoU User group for 4 years, during which their membership increased
from just 50 over members to the recent 600th member. He has made TNWoU monthly meetings
the largest attended MAC User Group meetings in the US! His leadership provides members
w/discounts at local computer stores, bulk sales of hardware/software at each meetings
and monthly raffles which have grown the treasury. Sandy is responsible for the vision
of renting office space for TNWoU to hold its' monthly Special Interest Groups (SIG)
meetings (13 of them).
__ Officers Lu Auer, 3rd VP; Dave Lankin, 1st VP; John
Clark, Treasurer; and Pete Occhipinti, Member Chair, all agree that... "He's
the best!"
__ Sandy was present to accept his award, presented
by Guy Kawasaki. The seven-year-old North West of Us Macintosh User Group is located
in Buffalo Grove Illinois, and hosts the TNWoU website at http://www2.nwou.org/nwou/
Send a big round of applause to Sanford D. White, our UG Leader of the Year!
The evening was enjoyed by all, and many were heard to say "...can't wait
until next year!"
Special thanks goes out to all who helped with the event:
Dan Sailers, co-founder of The User Group Academy (who could not be present
due to a family emergency), Lynn Wegley (Tulsa Mac Users Society), Robert
C. Platt, visionary of the President's Award (Virginia Mac User Group), George
Carbonell (HUGE) our TalkCity Chat Leader, Raines Cohen (BMug) our Cyberworld
Chat correspondant, Len Kaufman (North Florida Mac User Group), Doug Plumley
(Mac UG of London, Ontario), Janet Mobley, Joan O'Brien and Wayne
Till of the Gravenstein Mac User Group, Michael Dee of the Mugsie- MAC
UG, Stuart Parker (Apple Mac UG, Sydney) who traveled the greatest distance
to attend, and others who pitched in to help make the event a most memorable evening.
A special thanks and round of applause goes to two special sponsors of the event:
Brighid Brady-de Lambert and Apple Computer for sponsoring the evening's
bounty, and WebPads for donating a personalized WebPad for each of our certificate
winners.
The Awards Magazine will be available soon with photos and details. All user groups
are invited and encouraged to become active in the UG Academy, and participate in
the 1998 User Group Academy Awards.
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