We are a little over a week away from Kickstart 6 – the Royal Amiga BBQ – taking place on Saturday 21st June 2025 at our regular venue of Ottershaw Village Hall in Ottershaw, Surrey.
We sold out of table places at the beginning of the year, but have a couple of non-table places still available if you would like to join us. Details on our tickets page.
Doors open at 9am. We have the hall until 9pm, which means we will start breaking down at 8pm at the very latest (but often this happens a bit earlier as many people people decide to wrap up and pop to the Miller and Carter pub and restaurant across the road).
What’s Happening?
This will be an all-day user group meet up. It’s a chance for us to do all things Amiga – fix them, play games, show how to use different pieces of software and hardware, use them, show them off, talk about them – whatever you want to do.
As we are getting ready for Kickstart 6, our summer BBQ, it’s about time we did a little recap of our last meet, which took place back during a surprisingly nice sunday in early February 2025. You may have already read the great article in Amiga Addict covering this meet, but here’s an extra look at what went on. A big thank you to Mark White, who’s excellent photography is being used here. You can see all of Mark’s photos from the meet over on our Facebook group.
As always, our home venue of Ottershaw Village Hall was absolutely banged out for our first meet of the year.
It’s just a couple more days until we all descend on Ottershaw Village Hall once again for Kickstart 5 – Our fifth user group all-day meet of the new era.
Kickstart 5 takes place on Sunday, 2nd February 2025. Doors open at 9am, and close at 9pm (or sooner if everyone decides to wind down a bit early and go to the pub, as can happen). We are looking forward to yet another brilliant day of Amiga fun. 2025 is also the 40th year of the Amiga, so we are starting a year of celebrations with this meet.
Ian Griffiths, editor of Amiga Addict will be joining us at Kickstart 5 on Sunday.
The essential read for all Amiga owners and fans, Amiga Addict is a fantastic magazine and a great supporter of the user group community. Ian will be bringing a range of back issues and Amiga Addict merch with him, but again, do get in touch with him ahead of the meet if there’s anything in particular you are after.
Jakub Kosiec from Retro Lemon will be joining us once again at Kickstart 5 this Sunday.
Retro Lemon sells a wide range of upgrades and accessories for the Amiga, as well as other systems such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, various Atari systems and more. If there are products you are interested in, it’s worth contacting Jakub ahead of the meet.
Table tickets are sold out, but we still have a handful of non-table tickets available. If you missed out on a table, you can still join us for the day and participate in all the fun.
Emails will be going out this week, along with a post here, detailing everything you need to know for the big day. If you have any questions in the meantime, do get in touch.
We’ve already confirmed our first date for 2025, so please mark it down now. Tickets are on sale now. Kickstart 5 will be a regular all-day meet, with guests, traders, contests, and hopefully our first attendee raffle. It’s also a very special year – 2025 marks 40 years of our beloved Amiga computer platform and we will be marking 40 years of the Amiga at all of our 2025 events! So, get ready for special events and surprises.
Five Tables Left
At the time of writing, there are just five table tickets left, so please don’t delay if you plan to attend with your Amiga.
A Look Back at Kickstart 4
There are loads of photos over on our Facebook group, please do visit if you have not already.
Attendee Leigh Malpas put together this walkabout video on the day:
Also, Chris Thomas, AKA Retronaut, put together another of his excellent videos covering the meet, take a look here:
After a very long absence, we brought back the most celebrated day of the year, the annual Kickstart BBQ, and what a day it was. We were very fortunate that the weather was perfect, so we were able to make full use of the outdoor space at Ottershaw Village Hall to make some memories over good food, the odd beer and a lot of technology chatter.
We are all ready here at Kickstart HQ to welcome you to our annual BBQ meet tomorrow. Ticket sales are closing at 2pm today for non-table spaces if you want to join us, but table places are all sold out.
What To Bring
If you have a table ticket (which most people will), there will be a table and a chair for you – all you need to do is bring your Amiga! This list will help ensure you don’t forget the essentials:
Your Amiga
A monitor
Mouse, Mouse Mat and Joystick
Power Cables and Power Supplies for your Amiga, Monitor and other peripherals
Any games or software you need
Speakers (if not built into your monitor)
Mains extension lead (the more sockets the better)
A screwdriver (just in case you need to open up your machine)
Other than that – we can’t wait to see everyone tomorrow at Ottershaw Village Hall in Surrey.
Saturday 22nd June 2024, 9am-9pm, Ottershaw in Surrey.
It’s the final week, with our BBQ meet happening this Saturday, 22nd June 2024. Doors open at 9am, and close at 9pm (or a little sooner if everyone decides to go to the pub). We are looking forward to a brilliant day of Amiga fun. Even the weather is threatening to behave itself once again!
Key Information
When: Saturday 22nd June 2024
Where: Ottershaw Village Hall, Brox Road, Ottershaw, Surrey, KT16 0HG
Time: 9am-9pm
Cost: £14-16 per person (price includes BBQ lunch, the famous Kickstart cake, snacks and soft drinks throughout the day)
