The Hudson Users Group (THUG)

Who We Are

THUG is a Macintosh user group based in New York State's Mid-Hudson Valley, roughly along the Woodstock/Kingston/Rhinebeck axis (can an axis have three points?). We're a friendly, enthusiastic bunch, and our members range from Mac newcomers to grizzled pros. There are currently over 50 of us. Many THUGs are creative folks -- we've got a lot of graphic artists and musicians among us -- while some members are fairly normal. We accept no dues.

THUG meets semi-monthly. For more information about our next get-together, contact Julian Lines subscribe to our free listserve thugplug or e-mail us.

Contact Info/Officers

Ex President for life: Jerry Berke
Vice President: Chris Borger

Meeting Coordinator: jlines@hvc.rr.com
Outreach Contact: Gerald Berke

E-mail THUG

Our Web site is graciously hosted by
NetStep Access Services, Kingston, NY

Webslave and Ambassador: Walter Earl

The History of THUG -- The Hudson Users Group
by Phil Zimmermann

Sometime in 1991, I was at Steve and Dede Leiber's house, trying to help them with some PageMaker problems they were having. They were attempting to publish the flyer for their Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, NY. Steve introduced me to Tom Brener, who walked in with a hard drive under his arm -- Tom had also been providing Upstate with some tech support. Steve mentioned that he wished there was some sort of local user group where he could call and get help with questions concerning his Mac. Tom and I said maybe we should start one, since we both knew quite a few local Mac enthusiasts, many of whom had been using Macs for years for their art and their professions.

A few months later, I went over to Tom Brener's house and met his wife Sue Sie-Brener. We again started talking about how nice it would be to have a network of people who could help each other out with Mac problems, and where we might learn how others use their Macs. We called Apple's 800 number and found out that the only local user groups were in Albany or Poughkeepsie.

We were sort of amazed that Woodstock, Kingston, Rhinebeck and this particular section of the Mid-Hudson area had no User Group. We figured that this was due to the fact that we were smack-dab in the center of IBM country (IBM had a site in Kingston back then). Albany or Poughkeepsie was farther than we wanted to travel. We called friends and found quite a bit of support for the idea of a local group. A musician friend of mine who lived in Kingston named Richard Henderson was very enthusiastic and said he wanted to participate. We decided to write Apple for the "starter kit" for new User Groups.

At the end of April 1992, on a beautiful Spring evening, we held the first meeting at my studio in Barrytown. Sue, Tom and I were there, and Richard brought another musician friend, Peter Wetzler. We needed a name (we didn't want a cute adorable name like HUG or AppleCider) and Sue thought up the slightly ominous THUG -- The Hudson User Group.

Tom was a filmmaker, Sue an architect. I was a visual artist, and Richard and Peter musicians. We thought it would be great to have the group with an emphasis on the creative arts, although we decided that it should not be exclusively that. However, since our area has an enormous number of people in the arts, we agreed that they should be our primary focus.

We agreed to try, whenever possible, to geographically alternate our monthly meetings: we'd be on the west bank of the Hudson River one month, on the east bank the next.

We also determined at the first meeting that, so long as the group did not get too big, we would hold meetings at members' homes or studios. That way, we could see how each person used their Mac in their discipline or profession. This has been one of the most positive and interesting aspects of meetings of THUG.

We have members who are illustrators, architects, designers, filmakers, builders, artists, musicians, photographers, researchers, Apple dealers and consultants; even aquatic biologists. It has been fascinating to see how the Mac has been used in each of these very different professions. Our first T-shirt was produced that first summer.

Beginning in late summer 1992, we published a paper-based newsletter called Short Circuit. Because of the cost of printing and mailing -- and burnout on the part of the newsletter editors -- in the Fall of 1995, we started thinking of making the switch over to an electronic version of Short Circuit. After reviewing a number of options, we settled on a Web page on the Internet as our communication link with THUG members and the outside world. The THUG Web site was inaugurated in January 1996.