You know what? I thought the April meeting was one of the best I've experience with SPACE. Why? It was the way everybody swarmed that odd 520ST system, determined to bring it to life. And it did come to life! I wonder if, along side auctions and talkings about our uncertain future, we can come up with more meetings that end up getting centered around the actual Atari computers. After all, that's what brought us together in the first place!
I'd like to ask for your help in collecting a complete archive of past SPACE club newsletters. I'm looking for: anything before Oct 83, Nov 83-Aug 85, Nov 85-Jan 86, Feb 91, Aug 91-Jun 92, Aug 92, Jan 93-April 94, Sept 94-Dec 94, May 95, Jul-Aug 95. If you have any of these issues, would you be willing to bring them to the next meeting so I can borrow them to duplicate and add to the archive?
Auction this month. (A complete 520ST system will be available!) The final in a long series of auctions designed to clear out the SPACE library of hardware, software, books and magazines. There may be an occasional auction in the future, but if you have extra Atari stuff you'd like to find a good local home for, why not include it in the May SPACE auction?
What will be left in the club's material possession will include the DOM demo system, the SPACE and MAST DOM libraries, and the Dorsett Educational Tapes. We'll have to decide what to do with all these tapes. What level of interest is there?
The MAST software CD-ROM idea seems to be heating up, which is fabulous. Several people are volunteering some time for the club to help determine the feasibility of the plan: to produce one or multiple CD-ROMs of Atari ST software, ready-to-run on the actual Atari ST, made up of content from the MAST DOM library. Some substantial portion of the proceeds to go toward the club. With the auctions petered out, this seems like our next best idea to supplement our income, which may not be sustainable with just membership dues and DOM purchases any more.
But the CD-ROM project isn't the only way to address the financial picture. We can also look at cutting our expenses. Our primary regular expense is the room rental at the Falcon Heights Community Center. If we were able to find a cheaper place to meet, we could save a lot. The trick is to come up with someplace else, in that same area probably, that would be as reliably available at the same time every single month as our current meeting place is. And it would have to be less expensive! One challenge to finding such an alternative meeting place is that none of us live in that immediate area. However, a couple people voiced interest in looking into some options, so I think we have reason to be hopeful in this regard as well.
SPACE will continue on as long as we want it to.
Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday, May 11, 2001.
Well I just got back from Disney World and it was really hard adjusting back to reality. Believe me there is nothing quite like fantasy and we got plenty of it. Anyway, waiting for me in the mail on our return was the first quarter room rental for 2001. This follows right on the heels of our room rental bill from the last quarter of 2000. So our bank balance really got taken to the cleaners with having to pay for six months room rental within the last 30 days. At least we are now caught up and won't have to worry about another bill for the room until sometime in the summer.
Thanks to the members who attended the March meeting and their support in the buying of our Club's DOM's and their support in the auction. There will not be an auction in April but we will discuss the remaining items that we have for a future auction. These items include the Club's ST DOM's and a very large library of Dorsett educational tapes. I think our Club members should have a say on how these are to be auctioned.
Here is the breakdown for the March meeting:
Beginning balance for March 1, 2001: 1,130.69
Receipts:
DOM sales 18.00
Auction sales 25.00
Total Receipts for March 43.00
Expenses:
Room Rental for last qtr. 2000 195.00
Room Rental for first qtr. 2001 195.00
Total Expenses for March 390.00
Ending balance for the month ended March 2001: 783.69
So you can see what effect the room rental has on our treasury and it is now more important than ever that our current members keep up their memberships and help support the Club with DOM purchases. We are looking into more ways to help the Club continue to stay healthy and we will be discussing these issues in the next meeting. Your support at these meeting along with your suggestions are greatly needed and appreciated. See you all in April.
Space meeting opened at 7:45 PM. Michael Current, Space president, welcomed members to the meeting.
Michael asked for a secretary report. Mike Weist, Space club secretary, recapped minutes printed in April Space newsletter.
Michael then asked for a treasurer report. Greg Leitner, club treasurer, reported the club took in $43.00 in March 2001.
Auction $25 DOM sales $18 Total $43
Six months of room rent were paid at $390. Second quarter comes due in July 2001. Club treasury now stands at $783.
Michael asked for a DOM report. Glen Kirschenmann, DOM chair gave a report. Glenn said on side 1 was a program called Hungo and side 2 was a program called Stone Mind. Both from German folder on club CD.
Michael asked for a membership report. Glen Kirschenmann, membership chair, gave a report. Glen stated there are 12 paid up members and 5 members that need to renew. Glen said the club has stop sending Space newsletters to 6 Atari clubs that exchanged. newsletters .
Michael asked for BBS report. Nolan Friedland, BBS sysop, said not much happening on BBS. He also said he is having trouble with BBS. Nolan talked about BBS issues.
OLD BUSINESS:
Mike Weist, a club member, talked about the Midwinter Madness show that was held at the Concordia College arena in St. Paul.
Lance Ringquist gave a ST program CD update. Lance said he doesn't know how much his friend will charge to make CD program disks. Lance suggested sending his friend 3 1/4 disks with programs on them for him to burn on CD disks. Greg Leitner will make 3 1/4 copies to send to Lance's friend. Lance said his friend can make a CD program disk and the club can check it out.
NEW BUSINESS:
Mike Weist, club member, reminded members of up coming TVI parking lot computer show in June 2001.
Michael Current commented on Mike Schmidt's updating of back page of newsletter. No auction tonight. The next and probably last auction will be at the Space meeting in May 2001.
Bill Cotter, club member, brought up the discussion of the club looking for a new meeting site, to save the club some money. Several members will check out possible meeting sites and report back at May 2001 Space meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM.
Michael Weist, Club secretary
**********************************************
Subj: The Grove, Atari BBS
Date: 01-04-12 14:41:05 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 14:22:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeff Mitchell <skeezix@skeleton.org>
Atari ST Telnet BBS? Yes, its true! The worlds only online Atari ST BBS featuring many of the online games you used to love, and even a mini fidonet system! We're starting small, but hope to some day be a great hangout on the Net, and a haven for Atari and Atari ST!
I'm currently seeking users to try and build up an online community; if you want to play games, perfect! If you wish to hang out in message bases or request echomail forums, perfect! If we can get enough people interested, maybe I'll spawn off the technique and get other BBSes up online :)
Just head over to:
http://www.skeleton.org/bbsindex.html
Or TELNET right into:
shadow.skeleton.org (login as "bbs", without the quotes)
Jeff
"It's murder out there. You can't even travel around in your own micro circuits without permission from 'Master Control Program'. I mean, sending *ME* down here to play games.... Who does he calculate he is?" -- Peter Jurasik as Crom, _Tron_
Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI Corporation.