Become an Affiliated Virtual FoxPro User Group

The Virtual FoxPro User Group (VFUG) is an idea that is long overdue. The FoxPro community has always been an "open" community filled with people who like to share their ideas, experience, and knowledge with other FoxPro developers. VFUG has simply combined this philosophy with WWW technology. No longer are we restricted by borders in order to share knowledge and information.

We're Always Open! VFUG is set up as a world wide gathering point of both FoxPro enthusiasts, UGs, Third Party Vendors and others. It is a central spot that can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from any place around the globe! Right now, our member base represents over 60 different countries and growing.

Not Enough Hours In a Day! We know that it is not easy to try and make a living, run a UG and have something resembling a 'life'! UG's require a fair amount of your time and involvement for them to operate. Trying to find new material and new speakers for each meeting is a real task.

Enter VFUG! VFUG is constantly posting articles, lectures, case studies and more that can help you keep your presentations & newsletters 'fresh'. We want to work out an even and fair swap arrangement with you. For every item used we would like you (your UG) to contribute a similar item. VFUG may then use the item ourselves and/or pass it along to other UGs in the same fashion.

Become 'Officially Affiliated!' We are looking at having 'official affiliated' UGs working with VFUG and VFUG working with you. By being officially affiliated you can directly link your Web Page to VFUG and we will in return link back to your Web page. You can also have access to 'Tips & Tricks', FAQs and other features for your newsletters and Web pages. It is basically a 'share & share alike' type of an arrangement. The term 'Officially Affiliated' is just our way of saying we have a recognized and understood way of sharing information between us.

Hey, It's Free! VFUG is an open & free medium for those interested in FoxPro. Our goal is to be able to support UGs and users alike. We would also like to be able to help you to present your UG to the rest of the world. Especially for those people relocating or unhappy with other existing FoxPro resources. The only cost involved is your Internet connection!

Want to Check Us Out? Please pay a visit to VFUG and take a free tour of what we have to offer at http://www.vfug.org

And Growing Fast! VFUG went on-line Monday, August 5th & already have over 4000 members worldwide! But more then that, 'pardon our dust' as we organize and build VFUG into what we all want it to be. Keep an eye on the VFUG web site because we are growing rapidly and changes occur on an almost daily basis.

OK, I'm interested; How about some details? The details are simple. We arrange a swap. The numbers really aren't even important. We just ask that you give approximately what you take, and that you provide us with some content other than what we supplied you. This means, that since we post your newsletters on-line, we don't want the content of your newsletter to be sourced exclusively from VFUG. If you take 12 articles and only give us 10, we won't notice (who has time to tabulate that stuff? <s>). The other thing we ask is that you respect the original authors copyright, and give VFUG some credit as well. Putting the following statement at the bottom of what ever material you take from us is fine:

This article is © copyright, 1997, Joe Shmucky and is reprinted with the permission of the Virtual FoxPro User Group (http://www.vfug.org -- make this a hyperlink to VFUG if you are posting online). It may not be re-printed in any format, electronic or otherwise, without the consent of the author and/or the Virtual FoxPro User Group.

Simple huh? Remember, we don't just want your articles. You can submit a few FAQ's or Tips and Tricks in exchange for articles or other FAQ's and Tips and Tricks as well. And, if you want to submit the transcript of a lecture, we can use that as well. Anything that would be of value to FoxPro developers is of interest to us.

Anything else? Just a few minor things. We also "advertise" our affilate User Groups from a special VFUG page. You can check out the Affiliate page to see exactly what I mean. Basically, we want to keep this page consistant. All we need is to have the main contact of your User Group make him/her self a member of the Universal Thread. The main reason we want this is to provide a common bio. This information holds e-mail addresses, member profiles, country, etc. In order to this, it will cost you nothing (the Universal Thread also has a "premier membership", but that is not needed for this purpose). Then, just send our webmaster, Michel Fournier, some info about your UG. This includes the UG name, Address, telephone/fax, number of members, URL(s), logo, and a paragraph or two about your UG (you can see some examples at the VFUG site). This paragraph usually contains general info about your UG, time and place of meetings, dues if any, etc. Also, if you want to be really nice, you can put the logo below on your website:

<A HREF="http://www.vfug.org">
<CENTER><IMG SRC="http://www.transformation.com/vfug/affiliat.gif" BORDER=0></CENTER>
</A>

What else can VFUG do for my UG? We have many future things planned for VFUG members and it's affiliated UGs. The first advantage is the shared resources. Another advantage is the exposure to your UG. We can give additional exposure to your web pages, help inform people about your UG, and maybe even let someone know your UG existed if they didn't already know. We are also planning some special perks for affiliated UG members, stay tuned for details!

Questions? Any questions you may have we will be glad to answer. Just drop us a line at any of the addresses below and we will be back in touch just as soon as we can.

Technical Questions:

Arnon Gal-Oz (Technical Editor) ArnonG1@ontime.co.il

Web Questions:

Michel Fournier (WebMaster) mfournier@transformation.com

General Questions:

Tom O'Hare (Operations Manager) tom@redtile.com
Scot Becker (Director of Marketing and Public Relations) scotb@vitus.com