Believe it or not, the mods are working on a spring meet for the general group. This post is part of that meet. We are looking for people with ideas on which direction the club should go. Do we want a membership dues, do we want to just "pay per event"?? What do we want to do for "events"?? Things like that. We are geting alot of new members and we also want to include them in help the group grow. Russ
Security...? What are you trying to hide on hear that you don't want other people (non-members) to see? I am one of those people who hasn't came to any events really and depend heavily on the site. I personally just haven't had much time to make the events. Maybe it would help for some of the major members of the club to promote new members to come to events more often. I think making a good push like that would help. I definitly think that membership dues should be in place to get official club discounts and club swag. I always thought it was crazy that I didn't have to do anything special to get the discount at Morrie's. Membership dues to use the forum...that's taking it too far I think. Second, the whole off-topic threads thing... they do make the site look dirty, but how do you enforce that? Would it be ultra laim to keep the off-topic threads out of the "new posts" link? It would definitly hide those threads from people who didn't want to see them. I will make it to events sooner or later....my car and I need to be ready first ;-) I use the forum primarily for mod advice and mechanic work. It is the BEST tool I have. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
there's nothing to hide but it would help hide the off topic threads don't you think? I'm just suggesting..
what does "being take care of" mean? so you are telling me that we longer have an admin(s)? if yes, please list the current mods of this site(i'm assuming these are the only people that can access "secret" forums...if they arent the only ones, who are the others and why do they have access to it?(only people of "power" should have access to these said secret forums)). last time i checked, elections WERE a popularity contest, that is the whole point. am i wrong? why? why do we need to have seperation, why cant we have a functioning "Club" that has a online forum as part of it? as far as making officers be admins/mods...my point is really just to get elected people in charge of making the site better. however it is implemented i dont care, has long as it gets done. officers being mods or not...lets just at least get to the point of electing some people to run this place and make it better year after year. then maybe we can finally say "wow, look at how much better the club is now that it was in previous years". russ - your comment about the msra was irrelevant..maybe if the msra's main activity was supporting an online community(like mnsubaru), then it would make sense that the leader of the msra was the leadaer of the forum or website(cause right now basically the only thing mnsubaru is is an online community so the leader of the group would inturn be in charge of what we are(a website)). i do see your point that if and when we became more than a website than the pres, vp, etc would be better off handling other activities, but it does take time to form something other than a "forum". again i'll repeat...no matter how it gets implemented, we need some kind of leadership that is elected. on side note...someone said that there is always going to be one guy that owns it all(assuming you meant todd here)...well you are telling me that a mnsubaru club and a mnsubaru forums are two completely different things which means the owner of mnsubaru forums has no ownership rights at all to the actual club(if it were formed). what this means is that we could start a "club" with no ownereship at all..it would be owned by the members and elected officials(never one person). as far as member ship dues...my take on it is if you want to use the discounts you get here you have to pay dues. keep them very small to start with, say $10/year...hell, at $10 a year we will bring in $4k a year(by looking at the active members number), with that type of money all of the events could be completely paid for by the club almost. at that point you start to get a bigger bank roll and can start to do bigger things that bring in new members and make current members happier. Justin
This is my last post here, these are issues above my noob status... Elections are a popularity contest, yes, but I don't feel like people surfing the forum have any idea who people actually are. I know I don't. I don't think you would get very good results from an online election. Maybe each person on the ballot would be required to do a write-up about themselves. That could be kinda cool. You could figure out a little bit about each candidiate and forcing them to create a page about themselves would help weed out the hand-raisers and force some dedication. Back to the main point.... if in 5 years the MNSubaru club didn't change at all from what it is today, I would be happy. I think these talks are more so about how to handle the growth of the club.
we'd definiltey have to do the elections in person...or think of something very creative to do online.
This is what I've been trying to get across. Money to the club=Money spent on club activities.:biggrin: Hosting the La Crosse cruise last year was a scary thing for me. One, I had no experience doing something like that. Second, putting your name on a written contract/contracts with businesses. Hand raisers could do some damage to your pockets and reputation. Also, I wanted to do a huge banner for the shelter, but without tacking on more money to the individual cost(which already felt like it was too expensive for just brats and burgers!), there was no way of financing a banner. I for one would like to have a fund for these sorts of things. And maybe a "MNSubaru members only" club for the enthusiasts that want to be involved in events and receive discounts on parts and services should be talked about a bit more. It might be the only way to seperate the "club" from the "forum" in terms of financing of course.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Today (the club exactly as it is) I can: Ask questions and get answers that I need about my car. Buy cheap, used car parts for local pickup. Sell cheap, used car parts for local pickup. Share random/funny/informative car stories. Find quality mechanics that I can PAY for installs. Get free help for installs. Offer free help for installs. Get discounts on subaru parts. What more does anyone want? In terms of paying dues to get discounts on parts. Are we planning on putting some of that money into Morries pocket? Because if we can't use the discount generously given by individual Morries guys (thanks by the way) unless we pay in, they better get some of that back. In terms of racing events... there are plenty of places to do this. How about we try having some people actually sign up for some MAC autocrosses before we go whining about how we don't offer sanctioned events? I guess, long story short, how about we talk about what the club/site has to offer first before complaining about what it doesn't have to offer, and then once we have a good understanding of that, then we can build off of it.
well, from the last two 'club meeting' there was talk about a 'card' these 'cards' aren't free, and some of the members dues would pay for these. IIRC
I would like to see a few smaller scale events that don't need 6 months of planning. like the mods & rods car show a few years back, that was the first group event I attended and it was pretty cool. or a spring and fall meet at one of the local parks. I'd like to get a couple softball/kickball teams together and challenge some of the other local groups (mnsrt4,tcstangs,evomn....)
Agreed with all of your points. However, I don't think enough advertising has been done to promote other club's events in the past. Vector has done a pretty good job in the past of cross-posting up rallycross event info for this past season; much thanks should go his way for doing this. There have been very little postings with regards to events such as the MOWOG series. Increase awareness (ie, new threads for each race and/or registration opening) and you'll see a number of new faces next summer.
Yeah, I remember that too. But the money has got to go to something other than buying cards, you know what I mean? I'm just saying that we shouldn't be arguing that only paying members should get the club discount unless the business that is giving the discount is actually getting a portion of the dues. With money there needs to be transperency. As of today, the money spent here is going solely to the hosting fees and, from the sound of it, is paid out of one persons personal bank account. If we're going to start paying in, that system wont work anymore: we'll have to create an mnsubaru entity with attached bank account, create transperency, and a myriad of other stuff. It would be a pain in the butt, and it would all be for??? A BBQ once a year? A discount that we already get (can I say thanks for that anymore?)? Banners and stickers (that we already have and sell and helps pay for hosting)? Do you get my drift? Until we have something worth spending the money on, I don't think we should be talking about making people pay.
ok bummpy...so we will just never increase the bank account and continue to not be able to do anything cool with that extra money that we would have had.
Everyone is saying "we need money," and nobody is saying what for. What's all the cool stuff we're missing out on due to lack of finances? BBQ's? Meets? Drunken house parties? I believe all those things happen right now under the current club layout. Racing? Rally the troops to sign up for an autocross or drag and use this site to setup a meetup and take over a grid area with subarus. I'm not seeing anyone point out things that don't happen already, or things that don't happen due to lack of fundage yet.
So mods, admins, whomever. What would it take to split the forum so that there was a 'paid members only section?' This would be for those of us that want events that are lame to others, such as bbq's. And would allow the members that pay to have a slush fund for future events? Maybe a sub-forum of some sort?
Justin, you are just not getting it, or we have completely different views on how this will work out. First off, there is no admin, just the mods. I am doing the admin work for now (vbulletin updates, new user activations, ect). What we should have is a president, a vp, a treasurer, officers, a site crew, and what evr else we need from there. The crew that takes care of the site should not also have to worry about also getting the club to do something. Likewise, the last thing we need is to vote in a pres and expect him to know how to make the changes is vbulletin to keep the site up and running. What I am trying to get accross to you, is we need a crew that takes care of the site things and that is their job. period. not trying to get a meet organized, not trying to get t-shirts made, just mod the threads and keep the site running. Phil, you are correct. I brought up the club cards a while ago and it was a hot topic for about 3 days and died off like everything else. The original plan was to get the cards for a fee and then in turn would use the card to get the discounts at the dealerships and other vendors that give us deals. Again, money is not currently the issue, member participation is the issue. We need to get more members involved on this site and at events. Ultimately it is up to the members to do more than complain about the club not doing anything. Russ
Glad to hear it Dave! People just don't understand the cost of doing things like larger events. I'm not saying that I need to be paid to host an event, but I had to give money out of my pocket to place a deposit on stuff. Also had a couple of trips to see the best locations, routes, etc. I'd say that I easily spent over $100 of my own to throw an event together for everyone last year. I do plan on doing it again this summer, it would be nice if we had some finances to 'begin' to set these events up with...maybe then more people would be willing to host also?
i think it sounds like we are saying about the same thing in two different ways. in my previous post i already stated that i dont care who takes care of what...as long as we actually have some legitment elections for officer positions. again, having elections is my main concern....the who does what is not, yet. i believe we are wanting the same thing ..its sometimes just hard to see over the intraweb. bummpy- i guess i shouldnt expect you to understand until you actually step up and plan an event. i'd absolutely love to have some extra funds to spend on the duluth cruise..maybe have a big barbecue during the day instead of going out to eat....funds for tshirts, etc. there are plenty of things us event planners could use money for. tom- its not about fixing something thats broke. its about taking something to the next level and maturing. the reason you see tangledupinblu and i speaking out about getting some funds is because we plan events...we see first hand that some extra funding would be nice for planning these events.
Josh, Justin...you guys did great work organizing the duluth trip(s) and the La-Crosse cruise. Both deserve some sort or recognition at least. I for one, on the Dealership side, would like to see membership cards of those that were in the club. That would mean that some people are actually participating in the site/events and not just showing up to buy parts when sh*t breaks...and expecting to get the parts cheaper because they clicked a mouse a few times and joined a site. I know the cards wouldn't be free, and therefore...membership/dues may have to be used to create the cash to make the cards. It would obviously have to be a majority vote on the "Clubs" behalf, because I would see it very unfair if some people on here got the discount and others didn't because they didn't have the money to pay for a membership. Either way, the site is doing alright from my view. And the "Club", well it's growing. Where it ends up, is all on the members.
The cards have been talked about before and are a very doable thing. The cost on the cards is pretty cheap (under $2 each with our own artwork). So we could do something as simple as a $10 membership and the club makes $8 per card. Get a couple of hundred people to pick up the cards and that is a large influx of cash for the group. As for monies for events, the club did pay for a couple of the tings for the lax cruise. Nobody said or asked about the Duluth cruise or the ice races. For lax, MNSubaru paid for the shelter and covered the tip on the food. The club made less than $1 per person on the difference in what we charged vs what we were charged for the food. Driftin240, you are correct, the "club" is only as good as the members, and if the members don't want to step up and go to events and help make our own events happen, the club will never grow. Russ
+ = terrible club. there's a big difference between officers and moderators. electing moderators with this crowd will just turn it into the MN-specific chapter of t3hw00t...not a car club (if you can even call it that anymore). turning it into a real car club, with regular meetings, a president, VP, membership coordinator, by-laws, etc. is another. for a great example of a "car club" (not specific to a certain kind of cars....but to offroading) that has a club and a website, I encourage you to check out www.nsw4x4.com we've got elected officials, regular meetings (got one this Saturday...), we attend many large events as a group (MN-jeep summer run, crawl 4 the cure, etc.) as well as hosting our own (spring open house, Lake county fair booth/demo). but the officers of the club are different than the moderators. and we haven't collected dues (although, we will probably start this year, so we can get our own insurance policy for some of the events we host). and as of last year, we're even an incorporated non-profit organization! The forums are tasteful, on topic, and informative, and we still have our fun (couple of the threads in the humor section make me laugh just thinking about them). this club doesn't need money. it doesn't need officers. Before it could ever really make use of either of those things, it needs people to step up, and do something for the betterment of the club. we're making good progress with the success of the ice races, Duluth trip and LaCrosse cruise. what needs to happen in the short term, is more club participation in already-existing events. maybe make a couple banners, set up a little tent where we, as a club, can hang out at AutoX and other similar events, bring a grill, etc.
not meant as a negative comment towards t3hw00t or anybody there.....only that this site is turning more and more off-topic and random, and less about the cars.
I don't think you or justin are getting my point. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have bbq's, meets, cruises, or ice races. I'm saying that all these things happen already, and that the current structure of the club doesn't prevent them from happening. If expenses look like they're going to be high, make people pay-pal a deposit. That takes care of two birds with one stone-> money and hand raisers. I'm not seeing a need for dues. That's all I'm saying.
I can't believe how much of what happens on this site and what is talked about is based on what people are complaining about always. Yes, i am going to name drop this time... Chux complains up a storm about the Ice Races this year, now every single time an event is discussed we need to talk about keeping things under control and basically to someone's standards that had to complain about it all in the first place? My thoughts on it are this, you attend events you pay for like the Ice Races then you should know whats going on and realize others paid to enjoy it too. If you paid and went to do Ice Racing itself...heres a thought, GET OUT ON THE ICE and out of the cabin! All the talk about more events will go no where. People will attend the events and then someone will come back butt hurt and complain yet again. With some of you there is NO happy mean, really. So my question is this, if i donate money (which i have no problem with) where exactly is it going to go? Towards events where i can enjoy myself at, but then return to the site and see some prick complaining because he is a sour puss and woke up on the wrong side of the bed? no thanks. If we are forking out cash as well i wouldn't mind getting a subforum like i have said before, or some other perk. the money for parts is nice, i cant even tell you how much Bieke and 3rik have saved me the past few years. As far as more moderators, i know its being talked about and i know who a few of the canidates are. all i can say is this, pick someone like Joel. We need more people who are neutral, fair and honest with it all; if someone is elected who will be a tool moderator i am out of this site. As far as attending events, i think this is a novelty discussion to be honest with you, i think the only moderator i saw down at Firestone almost every week even was Joel... so i dont know where this crap about participating is coming from with the mods. also, how many mods attend the events even? isnt this kind of the pot calling the kettle black? One last thought on this, the thread is MNsubaru in 5 Years, need i stress that a tad more, 5 years from now. why can highlight where we want to improve and talk about HOW we want to make it happen, but so far some of the bantering about it seems worthess to me. MNsubaru is one club, RS25 is another, NSW4X4 is another different club...all different, so here is a thought...STOP COMPARING THEM, if you dislike something here so bad, go to the other site. seems simple and logical to me.
I have a twin brother, he _looks_ like me, is that close enough? Anyway, yeah, this thread was about what we want the club to turn into. I think we have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for growing, but no clear focus. So if we can decide what we want to focus on, maybe we can get past some of this bickering. But, there are some good ideas and points brought up so far. I'm going to have to reread the thread and pull some of them out and see what we can do with them. Hopefully we can plan for a club meeting sometime this spring and actually have a good agenda to discuss.
And like i have said before and told Josh, if you need a hand with planning i am more than willing to help out too, then i can feel like i gave something back to the club... i have met a good number of good people on this site and abuse the piss out of the discount. lol
I guess I'd like to put in my $.04 (I'm generous that way) at this point, as I also have some experience with organizing events and car clubs and whatnot. I think what curly is trying to say so tactfully is that down the road planning is the main focus of this thread. Planning for this site, to be specific. We can look at the other forum/clubs and use that as a guideline, but ultimately we need to look at what we want to accomplish with ourselves. Let's try to keep on with the idea of looking forward, not at what we're doing now. People will be butthurt at or after every event, 60+ people can't all be happy at once. Everyone get over it. I like the idea of a club with dues/membership forming. I would sincerely like to see this happen. I don't expect that it will happen anytime soon, but within 5 years would be good. If we tried, we could probably have it working sooner. Admins aren't needed for this site because vbulletin takes care of the technical aspect of site maintenance/running. Mods will be required for the site, but should be put into that responsibility based on neutrality and capability to do the job. Officials of the club should be elected, but would be separate from site maintenance and function. Look at Mods like your contract IT department, and the club officials as your management. Clubs can function without websites, and this should be kept separate from website responsibility. As for the maturity level of the club, of course we're immature. This doesn't mean that we can't organize and get things done as a club. Pre-paying for events is certainly a good way to do it, but occasionally someone is going to have something come up. Deposits would be stellar for this case, as people will know what they're getting into. Claiming that immaturity is going to hold us back is a worthless point to make. Nearly every other car club I've heard of has a bunch of jackasses in it with the mentality of a 13-year-old. They're still car guys though, and can organize events to get together and run things. The event organizers just need to cover themselves as best they can from the irresponsible people that hand-raise and leave someone else with their bill. This can be done. We have the technology. We can make this better, faster, stronger than ever before.
I'm not even going to comment on the ice races stuff. other than the fact that it's completely incorrect, and taken completely out of context. go back and read my posts.....I was not complaining up a storm. obviously they're different, but that doesn't mean we can't look at what works elsewhere and use it here to make this a better club. but, once again, I'm told to go to hell because I would like to see a couple things change. and once again, I spend less and less time caring what happens here. so thanks to you for that. the NSW guys keep giving me crap because I go to them for subaru advice......none of them own subarus, and yet I get better information from them than I've ever gotten here.
FOR WHAT!?!?!?!?!?! everyone keeps bringing up money. nobody has a reason. so I'm picking out you. something other than "having club dues sounds official"
Because it assists with: -Compensating for someone to keep a roster. -Helps reduce deposit costs with official club events (Duluth Cruise having a compensated meal, for instance) -Could be used to "buy" discounts from other vendors. -It sounds official Money opens lots of doorways, especially when you have many people pitching forward. Don't get snarky with me.
this is my point. none of those things require regular dues. and one of the main reasons I linked NSW.....we've done soooo much without collecting them. to the point of trademarking the logo (because some guy in Superior downloaded the logo, and had his own decals made.....). when something needs money, those of us that want to see it happen pitch in what we can spare. -keeping a roster isn't that difficult. just need a volunteer. or an elected secretary. -if an event needs money, collect a fee for attending. the LaCrosse cruise is/was a perfect example of that -I've never heard of a club literally buying discounts from vendors. seems to me it would defeat it's own purpose, or unnecessarily drive up the cost. we could set up a donation system. so those that have some extra cash can donate to help pay for the site, etc. but I see zero reason for anything beyond that.
IMHO, if you are going to introduce club dues, two things need to happen: 1. Give people a reason to pay for dues, ie, parts discounts and a discount on club events. Make the discount on the events great enough where attending 2 or 3 events will recoup your yearly due. 2. Keep the dues optional. Making somebody pay dues in order to view the website or attend "official" events is just going to drive away people and hamper any growth. However, before any of this is done a tax ID (LLC, non-profit, etc) is going to be needed. I would guess that this would need to be the #1 priority of the leadership group that is put in place.
That could work too. These are all just suggestions, and no club absolutely needs dues. I think $5 from each member can help cover something down the line. This is merely suggestion. You've never heard the phrase "save it for a rainy day"? I call it an "incase****" fund. You don't know what you might need it for, but it's good to have when the idea strikes you.
This sounds like how SCCA does it and is a great idea. This is what dues would be good for. You don't have to sign up, but it saves you $10 at every event.
