Tag Archives: User Groups

Kickstart Events and Activities

Just Two More Weeks Until Kickstart 9

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We are nearly there, just two more weeks until the hottest Amiga gathering of the year!

Key Information

A Kickstart tradition that dates back to 1997, we’ve had a BBQ at our home base in Ottershaw every year we’ve been doing in-person meetups. Unlike our regular meets that take place on a Sunday, we move this meet to a Saturday to make it easier for people to stay over for the night, have a drink etc. and we have some top-notch food lined up for the grill.

Kickstart 9 will still be a regular all-day Kickstart meet-up, with all the usual fun and games (we might finally get one of those gaming competitions going on the big projector screen, you never know). The BBQ will be serving up in the garden outside the Runnymede Room from lunchtime until everyone is full or we run out of food, whichever comes first. There will also be the usual high-score contest as well as Machine of the Meet and the Kickstart Cake!

We are also very excited to confirm that we will have Amiga Addict, Retro Lemon, Monster Joysticks and Digital Retro Bay attending, all bringing a selection of their products for sale.

We will also have some new branded merch on sale at the BBQ meet – the long awaited Kickstart mugs and Kickstart stickers, along with Kickstart keyrings. We’ll have a great bundle on offer for £10 with all three.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on the 18th. If you don’t already have a ticket, grab one now.

Kickstart Events and Activities

Kickstart at Zzap Live

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This past weekend Kickstart took part in Zzap Live in Coventry. An annual show organized by Fusion Retro Books (publisher of the revivied Zzap 64 and Zzap Amiga magazines), this is a great hands-on event, with loads of Amigas and Commodore 64s, as well as other systems and arcade machines out to play with, an excellent talks programme, as well as a variety of traders selling hardware, software and themed merchandise.

Since its inception in 2023, Zzap Live has always encouraged the user group community to get involved, and once again we were excited to take part. Chris Green, Sam Byford and Paul Dean took part to fly the Kickstart flag, as well as support other groups such as ANT and SWAG. A big thanks to Dave Boswell and our friends at SWAG for coordinating the Amiga user group participation again this year, helping us on the day with PAT testing (Zeb Elwood – thanks again for your help there) and for ensuring we had a good variety of machines on display.

Here are a few pics of the Kickstart corner from the day, along with a link to an early video that provides a good walkaround of everything that was on show, along with a video from Kickstart’s own Leigh Malpas.

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Kickstart Events and Activities, News

Kickstart 7 Wraps Up Our 40 Years of the Amiga Celebration

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A huge thank you to everyone who attended Sunday’s Kickstart meet. I hope everyone had a fantastic day. Please do post any pics you have from the meet over in our Facebook group.

Congrats to our three trophy winners and thanks to David Pleasance for attending and for sharing his insights about the new Commodore buisness.

A few pics at the end of this post are from the awards and cake cutting.

Tickets for the 1st February 2026 Kickstart Amiga Group Meet are now on sale, so please grab them while you can (and thanks to everyone who already did on Sunday. Also, if you want to come to our Kickstart Christmas dinner on December 7th, please follow the link and pay your £5 deposit, which will come off your bill on the night.

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Kickstart Events and Activities

Last Few Spaces for Kickstart 6 – Will You Be There?

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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. 

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Kickstart Events and Activities, News

Looking Back at Kickstart 5

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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.

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Kickstart Events and Activities

It’s Nearly Time for Kickstart 5 – Are You Ready?

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Happy New Year everyone!

We hope you had a fun and relaxing Christmas break, perhaps picking up a few new things for your Amiga along the way.

We are just a month away from Kickstart 5, our first event of 2025 and our first opportunity to mark 40 years of the Amiga computer:

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.

Kickstart Events and Activities

Kickstart 5 is Coming – Are You Going?

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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:

Kickstart Events and Activities

Kickstart 3 – The Amiga BBQ Meet – What a Day!

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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.

Here are just a few pics from the amazing day we had at the hall. You can find many more and some videos over on our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/kickstartamiga/media.

YouTube creator Retronaut was back with us for the BBQ meet and produced another video of his visit.

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Kickstart Events and Activities

Kickstart 3 is Tomorrow – Are You Ready?

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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.

Kickstart Events and Activities, News

Kickstart 2 Confirmed for Sunday 18th February 2024 – Tickets On Sale Now!

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Hot on the heels of the success of our first meet, we are pleased to announce the date and details for our second meetup. Following a survey of members coming to our first event, we have confirmed Sunday 18th February 2024 for the meet. Tickets are on sale now, so please be quick as we did sell out of table spaces for our first meet.

Key Information

  • When: Sunday 18th February 2024
  • Where: Ottershaw Village Hall, Brox Road,
    Ottershaw, Surrey, KT16 0HG
  • Time: 9am-9pm
  • Cost: £14-16 per person
    (price includes lunch, snacks and soft drinks throughout the day)
  • Ticket Link: https://kickstartamigagroup.sumupstore.com/

For our second meet, we are once again holding it where it all began – Ottershaw Village Hall. This is where the Kickstart Amiga Group originally held its monthly meetings back in the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the first three Kickstart Amiga Shows. Back then, it was called Brook Hall. Not only has the name changed, but the venue has had a substantial makeover and is a wonderful place to hold our meets. You can see some pics from our October meet here, as well as on our Facebook Group.

Kickstart is a non-profit event. The price we are charging is purely to cover the cost of renting the hall for the day and for the cost of the refreshments. If by some miracle, we have money left over, 100% of it will be put towards the cost of booking the hall for the next meet.

Continue reading Kickstart 2 Confirmed for Sunday 18th February 2024 – Tickets On Sale Now! →