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Melbourne LEGO User Group (MUGs)
| Fan Club | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Melbourne Lego User Group (MUGs) |
| Dates: | October 2000 - |
| Founder(s): | Sue Ann Barber and many others |
| Leadership: | |
| Country based in: | Melbourne |
| Focus: | AFOL (adult fans of LEGO) |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Melbourne LEGO User Group (MUGs) is a group for enthusiastic LEGO fans, designers and friends within Melbourne and the greater Victoria area. MUGs is well established as a Lego User Group and frequently displays at community events around Australia and the world.[1]
MUGs caters for the AFOL community (adult fans of LEGO).
The story of how MUGs came about actually starts in the 1990s. Back in the days when most people hadn’t heard of the Internet, there was Usenet. Usenet consisted of text-based online newsgroups that are somewhat akin to modern Facebook groups but without all of the graphics and the pretty pictures. In LEGO fan terms, the most popular of these was rec.toys.lego. Many of the long term AFOLs started out on rec.toys.lego and the term “AFOL” was actually first used in the group. At some point, the group became too large, too diverse and too challenging to be a usable meeting place and, as an alternative, LUGNET was born. LUGNET was a web-based/email forum that provided a platform for AFOLs to meet other AFOLs based on interests and location.[2]
MUGs held its first meeting on 8 October 2000[2] and they usually meet monthly on the second Sunday in Preston, a northern suburb of Melbourne.
An auspice of the not for profit Brickventures Inc, MUGs provides an easily accessible space for LEGO fans to meet, discuss, play and learn about LEGO techniques and skills, as well as providing a safe and welcoming baseplate for all fans of LEGO. All members of the public are welcome to attend MUGs meetings.[1]
While MUGs focuses primarily upon AFOL (adult fans of LEGO) in Melbourne, it is connected to MUGs Junior group (for LEGO fans between 5 - 13 years old), the Melbourne South East LEGO Fans group (MSELF), and the annual Brickvention.[3] It also has connections to other AFOL:
...BUGs (Brisbane LEGO User Group), TasLUGs (Tasmanian LUG), AdeLUGs (Adelaide LUG), PLUGs (Perth LEGO User Group) and STUDS/SLUGs (Sydney LUG). MUGs is the only group that has had continuous use of its name since 2000. We could have chosen VicLUG but there was already an existing group in Canada using the name and that would have caused confusion.[2]
References
- ^ Jump up to: a b "About MUGs", Brickventures.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Sue Ann Barber, MUGs 20th Birthday: 8 October 2020, Brickventures.
- ^ Auspices, Brickventures.