Unlike last year, which saw Mother Nature contributing a surprise winter storm, Saturday dawned cloudy and cold, but no bad weather in site. YDKM started at 11:30 am with a Leadership Summit which saw MUG leaders from around Oregon meeting together to solve "The User Group Crisis", dealing with issues that any user group faces. Chris Kiltz, the Regional Liaison for the Apple User Group Program was on hand to share not only what she has learned by experience in working with JoMacs, but to "squeeze out" the tidbits of advice that she has soaked up in working with other MUG leaders. After a quick lunch, Chris shared resources that are available to ALL MUG leaders. The overall theme of the Summit was to "Get Bit by the MUG-Bug".

By 2:00 pm, the halls were filling up with MUG members eager to enjoy the afternoon. After drooling over the G5 that Connecting Point brought, wishing for an iPod, and buying strips of raffle tickets, the doors were open and the trivia teams took their places.

This year, the four teams were AshMUG (Ashland), CMUG (Corvalis), JARMUG (Tri-Hosts), and SMUG (Salem). During the first two rounds, the audience had the opportunity to answer every 7th question (plus a few that none of the teams knew). Andy was a perfect MC, keeping us entertained with singing, and now and then a true Boston accent. No one really noticed if we hit a slight bump in the road because Andy saw it first, and kept the entertainment going while the bump was smoothed out. (A BIG thank-you Andy!)

Intermission was used not only as a needed stretch break, but it gave all a chance to enjoy the latest & retro ads from Apple. To bring folks back to their seats, Andy pulled questions off the top of his head, and Chris threw stuff (soft stuff) to arms waving in the audience. Once everyone was back, the raffle got underway with a few items whetting the appetite for the grand raffle.

The final round was strictly for the teams, with each question worth 300 points - a big boost if you got it right, but a big "ouch" if you got it wrong.

In the end, it was CMUG that took the Golden Apple home with a total of 6450 points. AshMUG came in second with 3550 points, JARMUG came in with 2900 points, and SMUG 1800 points.

Excitement still ran high because the grand raffle prize (a refurbished iPod) still hadn't found it's new owner. Out of the many feet of raffle tickets sold, Ron Winters from RMMUG was the new owner of the iPod.

As a thank-you to Andy, we gave him a custom designed basket made by a local gift basket company, Baskets Beyond. Filled with Bits & Bytes, chocolate mice and computers, and a few handy travel accessories for any iBook or Powerbook owner.

Each year, since YDKM travels to a different location, the logo takes on a flavor of the MUG(s) it represents. This year with three MUGs hosting, a logo contest was held. In true fashion of the teamwork shown throughout the planning of the event, the logo used was a collaboration between members from all three MUGs. Don Swayze from RMMUG suggested using a JAR (think of the accronyms for each MUG - JoMacs, ABCC, & RMMUG). Becki Cooper from ABCC suggested using feathers since the event was going to be held at Seven Feathers Casino and Hotel Resort. Eric Tyrrell from JoMacs took the hand drawn concepts and turned them into the artwork you see for the logo. We surprised our logo winners with a small thank-you gift at the after event dinner.

If you've put together any event, you know that it happens only with the cooperation of a small army. The Tri-Host teams put together a very smooth running machine, dividing up the responsibilities, and dividing to conquer. This "machine" brought a comment from Charles DeVore, technical guru for the event, "I brought all this equipment, and you only need two cables!". Thank-you Charles, we had fun putting it together! One new thing that also came to this year was a Cocoa based program to run the trivia program instead of HyperCard stacks. This allowed us to use four new flat-panel iMacs for each of the trivia teams. Eric Tyrrell and Mike Sanders are the ones responsible for working the magic to make the new program come into being.

For those of you who weren't able to meet it, you missed the best YDKM event to ever come to Southern Oregon! Enjoy the pictures we've put online in our photo gallery, and make plans now to attend next year.