History of SWOUGAS

Prior to the existence of SWOUGAS, as such, there was a users group that covered all of Southern Ontario West of Toronto. It met 4 times per year in Kitchener. It was a good group but the numbers of users were only a small percentage of those using the systems. In part, this was a factor of geography and people's travel times were perceived to be too long to attend the meetings.

Approximately 10 years ago, Paul Dodgson of Dodgson & Schaufelberger Insurance Brokers Ltd. and Carol Coolman of May McConville Insurance Brokers, proposed that a new users group be formed in a more central location - London - for those in South-western Ontario west of Highway 19. The Great Lakes Users group continued to operate in the Kitchener-Waterloo area for a couple of years after that, but it had difficulty attracting leadership and subsequently folded and this area was then assigned to SWOUGAS.

At the same time it was recognized that brokers in the areas of Hamilton and the Niagara Escarpment were under-represented at the meetings so recruiting was initiated on a joint basis with the Toronto Users Group giving people an option of which group they wished to join ( travel time from Hamilton is 1h15m to the meeting site in London).

The structure has remained in this form for about 8 years.