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.
A Reminder About Ticketing
Kickstart is a pre-ticketed event, as we have a fixed maximum capacity and we need to know numbers for catering etc. All attendees must have their own ticket, regardless of age, no exceptions. Although your ticket might include a table that is big enough for two people, any additional guests coming with you to share the table will need their own no-table ticket per person. If attendees do arrive without their own ticket, they will be asked to pay for a no-table ticket or asked to leave. Thanks.
Getting To The Venue
Driving: Ottershaw Village Hall is located roughly a five minute drive from Junction 11 of the M25, making it easy to reach from most motorways heading towards London.
Public Transport: The nearest train station is Chertsey. It is 2.3 miles from the venue and an inexpensive taxi ride to Ottershaw Village Hall.
No ULEZ Charges: Just a reminder, London’s Communist Mayor Khan hates Amigas and Amiga owners. He was clearly an Atari ST owner as a child. You know the type, the one who always had jam all over their hands and smelled of milk, always muttering about how Populous was such a good game and how TOS was better than Windows 3.11. Despite his best efforts, he won’t be ruining our day with his hateful anti-Amiga ULEZ tax, which is in operation across all of London and forcing motorists to pay £12.50 a day to drive perfectly good cars into or around parts of London that have no air pollution issues.
Ottershaw Village Hall is located OUTSIDE the expanded London ULEZ zone, so if your car is not ULEZ compliant, and you are already outside of the London boundary, you won’t have to pay the ULEZ charge to come to Kickstart by car. The M25 is also outside the ULEZ zone, so it’s safe to use to go around the edge of London and avoid the charge.
Parking: There is a large, free car park directly opposite the hall, called the Murray Road Car Park (see map below). We strongly encourage you to park there.
It is a Sunday so there are minimal parking restrictions, so you can pull up in Brox Road right next to the hall to unload and load up (please do not park there all day, move your car to the car park after you are done). If the car park is full, you can street park on Brox Road (a little further down from the hall, past the shops), or on Shaw Close (first turning off Brox Road opposite the hall’s side door). Please do not park in the car park of the Miller and Carter Pub and Steakhouse, as they use ANPR cameras and operate a car reg check-in system inside the restaurant. If you park there without being a customer (and without logging your car reg on the tablet) you will get a fine. Also, even as a patron they only give you a few hours parking, not enough for our all-day event.
If (as unlikely as it is) the car park fills up, be assured there is lots of street parking on Brox Road and Shaw Close for everyone. The yellow lines end just past the convenience store and the rest of the street is fair game.
What to Bring
If you have a table ticket (which most of you do), there will be a table and a chair for you – all you need to do is bring your Amiga and its associated bits! 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). We provide Black surge protected extension leads that are plugged into the wall sockets, please plug into these and not straight into the wall sockets – thanks.
- A screwdriver (just in case you need to open up your machine)
What’s Happening on the Day?
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.
Gaming: We will be running a Sensible Soccer games tournament on the big projector screen, with a trophy for the winner.
Machine of the Meet: We’ll be giving a trophy to the most interesting, eye catching or compelling trash-to-treasure machine at the meet.
Soldering: If you need advice, Kickstart member, social media moderator, Machine of the Meet winner and all-round good-egg Vinay Dhir is an expert with a soldering iron and has repaired and assembled a variety of computers and accessories over the years, including building the first new Amiga computer of 2024, a compact Denise machine which was powered on for the first time as Big Ben rung in the new year, as well as building the world’s newest Amiga 4000 and has most recently been working on a brand new 4000T.
Food and Drink, Dietary Requirements
We will be providing the following for the day on 2nd February:
- Tea, Coffee, Milk, Sugar, Artificial Sweetener (there’s a hot water urn in the kitchen for instant boiling water for drinks all day)
- Disposable coffee cups and disposable soft drink cups
- Bottled Water
- Canned soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi Max, Tango, 7-Up etc.)
- Assorted Biscuits
- Assorted Crisps
- Assorted Chocolate Bars
- Pizzas at lunchtime (meat and vegetarian)
Unfortunately, we cannot cater for nut allergies.
Plan for the Day
- 9am – Doors Open
- 11am – Games High Score Contest begins – Sensible Soccer
- 1.30pm – Lunch Arrives
- 2.30pm – Unveiling the Kickstart Cake
- 3pm – Games Contest Winner Announced + Trophy
- 3pm – Machine of the Meet Winner Announced + Trophy
- 5pm – Documentaries and Demos on the Big Screen
- 9pm – Doors Close – Across The Road to the Pub
Can I Sell Stuff at a Kickstart Meet?
The good news is yes – you absolutely can!
As an attendee, you are also welcome to bring along any bits you would like to sell to other attendees. We will be providing three red “Bring ‘n’ Buy” tables which will be directly in front of the stage. These are marked out on the floor plan attached. There will be a pile of For Sale notes for you to use, that look like this:
Please fill one out and put it on the table along with the item you are selling. That way the potential buyer will know exactly what they are getting, for how much, and who to find to settle up with. Please note, Kickstart takes no responsibility for any attendee sales that take place. It’s down to you and the buyer to work it out. We provide the tables and forms as a courtesy. That’s the limit of our involvement.
Kickstart Merchandise
Kickstart merchandise is now available. We have partnered with Ace Embroidery, who are producing a wide range of logo clothing for us made-to-order, featuring a choice of either embroidered logos or screen printed, depending on the option you go for. Our clothing web site is live and is already populated with T-shirts, Polo Shirts, Sweatshirts, Hoodies, Jackets, Caps and more. More items are being added all the time.
Every purchase supports the club, so please take a look and hopefully snap up an item or two.
https://kickstart.ace-online.co.uk/catalogue
Q&A
Q: is there a final table plan?
A: The final table plan will be sent to attendees 48 hours before the event.
Q: I’ve not been before, what is the venue like?
A: The venue is great, and a nice size. Ottershaw Village Hall (or Brox Hall as it used to be known) is Kickstart’s original venue from the 1990s and we are so pleased to be back home for this and our future meets.
The venue blueprint is below and we have the entire venue for the day. The table plan is in the main Brook Hall and the stage. We will be using the Runnymede Room as the staging point for lunch and for snacks to keep the food away from the computers as much as possible, plus it will be a nice space to just go and have a break. There will be seating in the room as well.
We have a fully equipped kitchen with hot water urn, so there will be tea and coffee available on-demand all day. We will also fill up the fridge with soft drinks and bottled water. You will also see there are plenty of toilets and storage space to put boxes, bags etc. during the day.
Q: Do I need to bring extension leads?
A: Yes – please bring lots of extension leads. There are lots of wall sockets and we will have extensions leads to expand those wall sockets, but you still need to bring your own extension leads to plug onto ours.
Q: Will there be name badges?
A: Yes, there will be name badges. Please wear them.
Q: Will everything be ready at 9am?
A: Doors open at the venue at 9am. Expect the first 15-20 mins to be a little bit chaotic as we get the tables and chairs out. Any help with that would be greatly appreciated. Last meet we had this done in less than 10 minutes. Similarly, we need to be out by 9pm sharp, so the last 15-20 mins of the day will involve putting the chairs and tables away again and cleaning up, if we don’t wrap up a bit sooner.
Q: Somebody mentioned the pub?
A: Yes, its not uncommon for activities to wrap up a little early and for some of us to head across the road to Miller and Carter for a celebratory ale and a bite to eat. Kickstart is a casual day, and it’s your day. We try to let it be as ad-hoc and relaxed as possible.
A Date for Your Diary – Kickstart 6 BBQ
Did you know that Commodore UK had a Royal Warrant, as a supplier of computing products to the Royal Family. We believe that Queen. Elizabeth II had an A3000T and was very adept with Octamed!
In recognition of 40 years of the Amiga, we’ve decided to make our 2025 Kickstart BBQ a Royal Amiga BBQ. We are not entirely sure what that means yet either, but it will almost certainly involve a lot of people wearing crowns, lots of Amigas, gaming contests, special guests, great food on the grill and great company.
- When: Saturday, 21st June 2025
- Where: Ottershaw Village Hall, Brox Road, Ottershaw, Surrey, KT16 0HG – https://maps.app.goo.gl/31UwXywBMcwKs7FW9
- Time: 9am-9pm
- Tickets: https://kickstartamigagroup.sumupstore.com/
That’s everything for now.
Thanks – any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.