The rest of the year mapped out by ROUGOL

Well, in the context of ROUGOL, anyway.

If you regularly attend the RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meetings – whether in person or online – you’ll know when the meetings will take place each month; it’s easy enough to remember, being – unless circumstances force a change – the third Monday of each month, with December often being an exception because of the proximity to Christmas. What you usually won’t know until much closer to each meeting day, though, it’s what the meeting subject will be.

Well, for the remainder of 2025, there are two exceptions – the guest speakers and their respective subject matters are known for the rest of the year and there is a meeting planned for December. Here is the list of meeting dates you’ll already know, along with the topics:

  • Monday, 18th August – Networking Elite
    Back in November 2022, Mark Moxon gave a presentation to the group in which he talked about Elite, looking at the work he has done to update and improve it from the Braben/Bell original. In August, he will come once again to the pub at which ROUGOL meets firstly with more Elite improvements – this time how he has added network support to ArcElite – and secondly how he has increased the size of the landscape in another Braben title, Lander.
  • Monday, 15th September – Publishing with Ovation Pro
    Having published many books using Ovation Pro, Gavin Crawford will be delivering the September talk on that very subject, explaining how he goes about the task, which includes using many add-on applets that he has produced along the way to help with the job.
  • Monday, 20th October – RISCOSbits’ pre-show teaser
    As this is the last meeting before the London Show (which takes place on Saturday, 25th October, but see below for more details), Andy Marks of RISCOSbits will be showing off whatever exciting new products he’s planning on bringing along on the Saturday – though at this stage, that could be anything from a stylish new case design with a witty name (which is entirely possible) or a new 64-bit RISC OS computer (which at this stage is just about impossible). Expect any actual new toys to sit somewhere between those two extremes.
  • Monday, 17th November – Pyromaniac update
    Pyromaniac is described by Gerph, its developer, as “an alternative implementation of RISC OS for non-ARM systems” which is written in Python. In November he will be talking the group through the updates and changes he’s made to the system.
  • Monday, 15th December – Acorn biography
    When working for the Acorn division of a company called Barston Computers, Rob Napier introduced the BBC Micro to Australia, and went on to write the definitive guide to Econet – and he is currently writing something else; an authorised biography of Acorn, and as part of that he has been interviewing people from Acorn back in the day. Rob will be joining the group to talk about all of that. (And as he will obviously be joining remotely, via Zoom, might very will be the most distant speaker the group has ever had?)

The group meets on the third Monday of each month, as noted above, at:

The Duke of Sussex
(Upstairs in the Chichester or Petworth Room)
23 Baylis Road,
London,
SE1 7AY.

The meetings are also available to join remotely via Zoom – which is how most of the talks listed above will be given, with the guest speakers joining that way.

Full details of both can be found on the group’s website, and in the announcements that get sent out close to each meeting date – in which there may also be more details about the individual talks where more information is known (or revealed by the guest speaker) closer to the date.

And there is, of course, one other ROUGOL-organised event to bring up, which was mentioned briefly above:

Saturday, 25th October – The RISC OS London Show

Returning to the location as last year, the London Show will take place at:

The Harrow District Masonic Centre
Northwick Circle,
Kenton,
Harrow,
HA3 0EL.

The doors will be open from 11am until 4pm, and you can expect to be able to speak to a good range people and organisations covering all aspects of the RISC OS world, from user groups, through smaller developers, all the way up to hardware vendors. A list of confirmed exhibitors has yet to be published, so keep an eye out for news in the near future – after all, it’s now only two and a half months away.

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