(Thanks to Michael Monagan.)
The Maple retreats were held from 1982 to 1994 every year in June at Sparrow Lake in Southern Ontario, Canada. This was a quiet setting where people would relax in a pleasant away from work atmosphere. The meetings were attended by Maple developers, local Maple usrs, and typically 4 invited guests, some of whom gave a presentation. The original purpose of the meetings was to have a small group get together for brain storming sessions which would be uninterrupted over the course of 3 days. Later, as the meetings became larger, and more popular, and people from the Maple company also took part, the Maple retreats became more like a scientific workshop meething with prepared presentations from many speakers, and large group discussions. These were useful for finding out what people were doing and what needed to be done, but they did not provide a good atmosphere where people would work on the design of Maple. The Maple retreat meetings were stopped in 1994. Since then a smaller group of typically 6 to 10 people have met for 2 day and 1 day meetings to focus on design issues.