Workbench 2024 Details

Following the success of our first Exeter meet back in May, we return to our regular haunt of Dodington Parish Hall, Chipping Sodbury for our final event of the year, which takes place this October.

To bring SWAG’s 2024 calendar to a close, we’re pulling out all the stops and finishing off with one of our special “Workbench” mini events. Those of you who’ve attended any of our previous Workbench dates will know that we work to make these extra special.

Image courtesy of Keith Elcombe
Tickets go on sale at 8pm on Sunday 15th September, and will be available to order from the SWAG web site at www.southwestamiga.org.uk.

Please note that all adults MUST have a ticket to attend the event. Your ticket price helps cover the room hire, your drinks and snacks plus a lunchtime buffet. Tickets must be purchased before the date of the event and are not on sale on the door. Under 18’s accompanied by a ticket holding adult are free. We just need to know how many you’re bringing so we can cater accordingly. Tickets will be priced at £15.

The Venue and Parking
The event runs from 10:00am – 10:00pm and is held at Dodington Parish Hall, Finch Road, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol, BS37 6JZ.

We have masses of on-site parking and will be the only people using the grounds during the event.

What Does Your Ticket Price Cover?
Your ticket prices covers your contribution to the hire of the venue, (thank you!) plus tea, coffee, soft drinks, crisps and biscuits. Please help yourselves!

The ticket also covers your buffet lunch.

Table / Visitor Tickets
We want you to bring your Amiga hardware along to set up, show off or troubleshoot on the day. Our Chipping Sodbury events are packed full of Amiga kit with users spending their time upgrading, repairing, tweaking, coding, creating music, graphics or playing games and demos.

If you are planning to bring your Amiga then please select a table on the order page (not yet live). Be aware that the table tickets do sell quickly!

“Visitor” tickets are for those people who are planning to attend but aren’t bringing any equipment to set up.

Should you wish to bring an Amiga set up but the table tickets have all gone, please order a “Visitor” ticket anyway as we may be able to accommodate your kit on the day should someone who’s booked a table fail to attend.

Our Special Guests
It wouldn’t be a Workbench event without special guests, and our October meet is no exception.

The following companies or individuals have kindly agreed to give up their Saturday to attend:

Amiga Kit
The Amiga Kit team will be on hand to demonstrate their recently released A600GS system, and will be giving a talk during the afternoon discussing the new hardware in detail.

Rob Smith
Amiga programmer and hardware developer Rob Smith will be bringing his Disk Backup Station and his Disk Cleaning Machine. Rob will also be giving a talk about how he got the FloppyBridge plugin working with WinUAE (real disks in the emulator), will cover physical floppy disk protection and how he overcame that with his plugin and the limitations of his Drawbridge device.

Nick Veitch
Amiga Format’s Nick Veitch has volunteered his time to attend Workbench. He’ll do a Q&A so come armed with your questions to find out about his reflections and experiences as he worked his way to top dog at the legendary Amiga magazine.

Amiga Addict
It wouldn’t be a SWAG event without our good friends at Amiga Addict coming along for the ride. Meet some of the team, pick up back issues, folders, and various AA goodies. You don’t event need to bring cash as they’ll have a card reader with them!

What About You?
Do you have a project you’d like to share at the event? Do let us know!

Free Amiga Re-Capping Service
Zeb and Scott will be offering a free Amiga re-capping service which will be running throughout the day. We recommend you purchase caps prior to the event and bring them along with you, though Scott may have a small quantity you can purchase on the day.

Stockists of capacitors we recommend are RetroPassion (search for “capacitor kit” once on the site) and Amiga Spirit (once on the site detail what machine you need a cap kit for via the contact form)

Please note that Zeb and Scott will ONLY work on your Amiga motherboards if they have been completely removed from their cases. You will need to do this before you hand your motherboard over to them for repair.

As the re-capping service is free, there will be a tip jar at the event where you can drop in cash and notes as a little thank you for Zeb and Scott’s efforts.

The Raffle
Thanks to several generous individuals donating hardware to our group we have some amazing prizes for our Workbench 2024 raffle. 100% of the proceeds from the raffle will go back into SWAG funds and will be used to either purchase kit for use at SWAG events or to subsidise the cost of running the events in an effort to keep ticket prices down.

So, what’s up for grabs? We have…A working Amiga A500. This is the machine only.A working boxed Amiga Impact Series II A500 hard drive from GVP which plugs on to the side of an Amiga.A working boxed A500 HD8+ Amiga hard drive from GVP which plugs on to the side of an AmigaThe GVP hard drives are now very collectable pieces of kit, and would make fantastic additions to your collection, while the A500 is crying out for a Gotek and a Pi2HDMI mod.

Note that the above hardware is 30+ years old and as such we offer no warranties or refunds on these items should they develop faults once you have collected your prize.

Buy and Sell Area
If you have Amiga or general retro kit you want to sell then please bring it along to the event and put it in the Buy and Sell area.

We’ll have a pile of sales forms available. All you need to do is take one, detail what it is you’re selling, the price you’re asking for and your name. Put this form on your item and if anyone attending the event wants to buy what you’re selling they can track you down, so don’t forget to wear your name badge! You can pick up some absolute bargains this way.

All we ask is that, if at the end of the day you have unsold kit, please take it home with you. We don’t have the space to take home unwanted items. Thank you!

The Games Tournament
SWAG’s resident Gil is busy planning October’s games tournament, which this time features Hudsonsoft’s Dynablaster Bomberman! Expect a lot of noise from the tournament area when this kicks off!

Image from the wonderful lemonamiga.com web site
As always, we’ll have prizes for those ranked in the top three once all matches have been completed.

Get practicing!

Keeping the Venue Tidy
Please do your best at keeping the venue tidy. We have to not only ensure the venue floor and kitchen are clean before we leave, but we also have to take all our rubbish and recycling home with us.

To make this task easier, please use the recycling bins laid out in the kitchen and ensure your cardboard, cans, plastic etc. are placed in the correct containers.

If you can also ensure the kitchen is kept tidy, this would be a massive help.

Thank you!

We Look Forward to Seeing You!
Thank you for taking the time to read all this. We look forward to welcoming you on the 12th of October! Don’t forget to ask for your name badge when you come in through the doors so fellow attendees will know who they’re speaking to!

In the meantime, should you have any questions please respond to this email and we’ll do our best to answer them.

The SWAG committee (Dave, Steve, Derek, Gil, Zeb, Scott, Dan and Rob)