Let me elaborate on this a little...
The predecessor of this forum (and of course the group which spun out of the forum) was a similar forum that was created by Rodd Masteller on the Yahoo! forum site. Yahoo provided a template for groups of people to form ad-hoc "chat groups" by way of forums, and Rodd, who has a 230SL thought it might be a good idea to attract like owners to share their knowledge.
This was maybe 1999 or 2000. There were a few members and pretty much everyone was a bit anonymous, not only in name but in location too. When some of us came out so to speak, and it was revealed that many of us were MBCA members, AND we were in this upper midwest area (Ohio/Michigan) of Detroit, Cleveland and Columbus. Well, Rodd (rwmastel) and Joe Alexander (JA17) were in Columbus, Pete Lesler (W113SL) in Cleveland and I in Detroit, so I suggested we drive to Findlay, Ohio and have a GTG (get together). Well, Rodd's car wasn't that drivable, so he suggested Columbus. That's when Joe Alexander offered to host at his home and shop in Blacklick, just E of Columbus. I missed the first meetup which was in 2002 I believe. There was a second one a year later in 2003, and almost every other year after that. 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, all in Blacklick. For some reason I think we may have skipped one year but I'm not certain. For 2017 an organizing committee was put together and the event moved to Tom Sargeant's Ramsay farm in Virginia. I believe that 2007 or 2009 was when someone coined the name PUB for Pagoda University Blacklick.