BGAMUG wins the Jerry Award / 2nd Place

I'm covering the APCUG annual convention and seminars this week, and after just one day, I've got a lot of happenings to report!

This afternoon after a very moving kickoff speech by the National Cristina Foundation's Yvette Marrin (http://www.cristina.org/), BGAMUG was awarded 2nd place in the New Project category of the Jerry Awards for community service. This annual series of awards go out to the user groups that have most actively supported the credo of helping to bring technology and tech education to those who would otherwise be without.

I was very proud to accept this award and the $1000 check that goes with it. I'm shouting out a big thank you to Jerry Gillette, for applying for the award and also for introducing us to Abel Court's computer lab and their need for a new do-it-yourself approach to building computers. I also want to thank all of the members and friends of BGAMUG that supported this project. I am hoping that this additional attention we garner from this service will bring more civic minded members to bear on the project.

Thanks to Intel, a new APCUG vendor this year, for the wine and h'orderves that were offered at lunch.

After the awards presentation, I elected to attend a talk by Shelly Weiner, an expert in grant-writing from the local county library. I learned some interesting things about writing grants and have long believed that our work with PC placement and community education could benefit from a well written grant (and even more from the awarding of that grant!).

Signing off for now! See you tomorrow, when I will have an even harder time trying to figure out which seminar to attend!

Michael Moore
Program Director

PS: Dinner was the Grand Buffet at the MGM Grand Hotel, which was pretty much every type of food you could imagine. AWESOME doesn't even begin to describe it!