BB&C is a club of computer enthusiasts located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Brief History
In March 1982, the IBM PC-1 started selling in Victoria, and, by May, a club that was to evolve into Big Blue and Cousins was formed. We elected our first executive in 1983 and selected a provisional name of "The Victoria Personal Computer Users Group". See "Our very Beginning" in our June 1990 newsletter.
In 1984 we produced our first newsletter, BBS, and Special Interest Group (SIG). See Early History, part 2 Then, in 1985, we applied to be incorporated under the British Columbia Society Act as "The Greater Victoria IBM-PC Users Group". Unfortunately that wasn't to be. Geoff Mitchell's "Origin of our Name" explains why we settled on "Big Blue and Cousins: The Greater Victoria Personal Computer Users' Association". 
That name stuck and, by 1987, Bert Mar had designed the BB&C keys logo. It was published for the first time on our July 1987 newsletter and is still used in a slightly modified version.
Our first web page was published in 1994 (December 1996 archive). We suffered a temporary challenge when, in December 1999, the British Broadcasting Corporation complained about our use of "BBC" in our domain name. However, we had a strong case and ultimately prevailed. The BBC just dropped their request. "Our Domain Name"
More club history from our newsletter:
Membership
We had a relatively slow start with only 12 members by our third year, but, membership increased as home computers became more popular. We peaked in 1995 with over 1815 paid members (but over 3000 members including unpaid associate members.) 1994 Survey of Members With the rise of the internet, membership had decreased by 2002 to about 250 members where it currently remains. Membership Statistics.
Clubhouse
We have had a number of clubhouses, in various locations, since 1987. Our clubhouse serves many purposes, but one of its most important uses is to allow our members to meet each other and to share their enthusiasm for computers.
Our socials, currently on Tuesday, Saturday, and Sundays attract members who drop in for help or just to chat. (See our Calendar for hours we are open.)
The clubhouse also offers facilities for members who wish to explore specialized areas of interest. Members organize Special Interest Groups using the resources of the clubhouse. The clubhouse also hosts our computer lab and contains an extensive lending library of computer books and CDs.
Systems Services and Maintenance
We offer the wide range of services to our members thanks to the participation of our systems volunteers. Apache and Windows XP Professional servers support our club email, on-line MySQL database, our club newsgroups, and our training computers.
This complex system offers an excellent opportunity for our more technically inclined members to participate and practice setting up, configuring, and maintaining firewalls, servers, and networks.
Newsletter
Our newsletter acts as a forum for our members to express their opinions, as a tool to help computer enthusiasts learn about computing and our club, and as a method to publicize our activities. Members review programs and express their opinions on a wide range of computer subjects.
Read what they have to say in our on-line edition then join BB&C to express yourself and have our newsletter delivered to you each month.
Our newsletter staff have been using DeskTop Publishing programs since 1987. See our March 1987 Special DeskTop Publishing issue. We now use Adobe InDesign, Acrobat and Photoshop to produce our current newsletter. Our newsletter volunteers learn state-of-the art DTP tools by participating in its production.
Web Page
Our webpage is also produced by volunteer club members and includes on-line HTML and PDF editions of our club newsletter in colour.
Courses
Knowledgeable members participate as instructors in the wide range of courses we offer. Courses range from beginner to expert and are offered to both members and non-members. They are presented depending on volunteer instructor and student availability.
