About Us

SWACKS began in 1982 at the home of Sandy Prickett, with about 10 members. It revolved around the early Apple products, Apple ll+ and Apple lls, llEs llCs and llGSs. The by-laws were set up and the club was registered with Apple.

As the club grew other locations were used to accommodate the group. These included mostly locations in North Fort Myers: Bayshore Elementary School, a computer store that featured Apples ][s, a Recreation Center and later McGregor Baptist Church.

When the early Mac was introduced, those with Apple ][s and those with Mac’s met together but in separate rooms. The newsletter had been a 24 page bulletin but went to 48 pages to accommodate the Mac group. During this time membership went over 400 in number. After about a year the Mac group decided to split off on their own and about 4 years later the ones still in the Apple 2 group (about 7-8) rejoined SWACKS and no longer meet as a Apple ll group. When Sandy decided to live in Georgia for 6 months of each year., the club was in danger of folding, Brenda Hess volunteered to reorganized the club, set up a board to help run the club, as Sandy had done everything himself. Then a quest to find affordable meeting places in a more central location. These included The Renaissance building, St Hillary’s Church and then Zion Lutheran Church.

The club celebrated its 25th year with a party complete with TV coverage, cake, gift’s etc. at St. Hillary’s Church in 2007. In 2017, the 35th year of the Club was also celebrated.a party.

The last 5 years has seen a wide range of new technology with the introduction of the iPhone and the iPad. Workshops are now geared to accommodate this and the many new Mac users and switchers to Mac.