Internationally, the BBS scene is dying, in some areas at a very rapid rate, in
others it is gone altogether. Few areas have any form of positive growth in the
BBS industry.

Around April of 1997, 3 people who vaguely knew of each other through echomail
came up with an idea, International BBS Week, a time when SysOp's can work
together to educate the masses about the almost lost art of BBS'ing.

The week is a time when SysOps around the globe work together to bring the BBS
world to the general puclic. Through advertising campaigns, TV/Radio
interviews, newspaper articles, classified ads (listing BBS numbers), and
public demonstration, many thousands of people can be reached and shown what
BBS's have to offer, which is a lot more than some people realise.

To aid discussion and planning of IBW each year, an international echo called
INTBBS_WK has been created. The echo also serves for follow up discussion and
as a means for SysOP's to discuss those things which would help make the BBS
scene as a whole more attractive.

Why should you bother getting off your backside and doing something about this?
Well, with more and more people leaving to other things, the BBS scene in your
area will eventually die down or die out altogether. However, with just one or
two people working in your area, you can reach people who have never heard of
BBSing as well as those to whom it is a distant memory, and get people calling
back in to the systems in your area. You may be the only person in your area to
do something first time round, but as the number of users in the area grows,
the number of SysOp's will also grow, and the number of people in the area
willing and able to help out next year will grow. You will benifit from
supporting IBW as much as you can.


The week is held around the second week of September each year, when the people
in the Southern Hemisphere are just coming out of their winter, and the people
of the Northern Hemisphere are just going into their winter, and most people
are still at their modems.

For more information, contact the author of this package at any of the address
listed in the .DOC file.