Gauging Interest: Moving Forward......

Hello to all members and non-members! I have been involved with MNSubaru myself for about 6 months now. And in those six months I've met some great people, all sharing the same love for Subarus. Events really make owning these cars so much more enjoyable! Getting a chance to see each persons individuality through their cars and also a chance to make new friends. The best event (IMO) was the 2007 Ice Race without a doubt! I unfortunately couldn't make the second one. If you missed out, plan on going next year! Thanks again Rich to you and your family for hosting the event!

The next benefit to being a member of this club is the savings!! You can find almost anything you need here in the forum for your ride! Not only that, but you get a 20% discount on new Subaru parts from the dealerships and 10% off labor costs!:eek3: To some people that is not a big deal, but I've definitely appreciated the savings that ALL dealers and vendors have provided! I'm sure that I've saved hundreds of $'s already in only half a year! <<That=more upgrade moneys!!

**So here is the idea that has been tossed about a few times amongst a few of us to help with the growth of MNSubaru!**

An annual fee of $50 dollars for active members. We believe it is a very small amount of money to those members that enjoy getting out and driving their cars and spending time attending events! I for one would be more than willing to fork up fiddy bucks to increase the size/quality of our future events with the club. If you love saving money through this forum, and enjoy spending time participating in club events...then PLEASE post up your opposition, support, or ideas in this matter to gauge an idea for the forum leaders as to where everyone stands on this topic!

This has only been discussed between other members and myself...but if we are all on board, then I'm sure the Admins. would be willing to really get this thing going! Here's to a great year for MNSubaru in '07!:cheers2: Thanks ahead of time for the comments!----Josh

 

Sorry, this place fails. I'm definately not giving it 50 dollars. Last year we had a few events. Ice Races. Duluth Trip. Fall Fun Runs. That was it. You paid your own way at each. I discussed with Rich about the ice races, and we are working something out for that, but it wont require a yearly 50 dollar donation. I just think with the last 365, you're going to be hard pressed to even get the more senior members to throw down 50 bucks for anything.

 

I think the problem with that is that the guys that go to most of these events are usually content to pay the event fee and have fun, and a good portion of the active members aren't going to want to have to pay 50 dollars to vote for club officers.

 

Well said. And the little donations thing for site bills works great. I do it on t3hw00t and it pays all the hosting fees for the year. Plus, I give out 't3hw00t contributor' avatar badges for members that do donate. That way you can identify who is making the effort to keep the place alive.

 

:eek3: Wow, a simple question. Just an idea that a few of us shared. You know what, delete this thread. I don't want to read any more of this stuff.

 

Agreed.

 

Christian has a very valid point, and I'm in agreement with him as well. I really don't think we have anything right now that merits any sort of annual fee, it doesn't matter if it gives us special election rights or not. There are many of us on here who are here for the social aspect of talking and hanging out, and as much as I love you guys I'm not paying 50 bucks to do the same thing I can do any other Friday/Saturday night by showing up at Firestone. If we have events that need to be paid for, the people who go will be able to foot the bill for it. When I can be shown a valid reason for dropping 20-50 bucks a year, I'll be the first to pay it. I just don't think we're anywhere close to that.

 

Well, my .02 on the whole deal. This is my thoughts/opinions, these are not made on behalf of the site.

I have seen tons of "well if more things would happen" statements, but they are usually never followed up by so good info. What would it take from the site/group/club before you would consider paying some kinda of dues?? I have been around since about Sept of '00, and this group has grown leaps and bounds since then. Yes there has been some tough times and alot of bs that has been slung in every angle. Steps are being made to move forward from that. There is alot of talk that this site isn't worth it. This site/group is made up from all the members. When people say the group isn't worth it, everyone is taking the hit. i can tell you that I have personally set up tons of events, and have had tons of events flop because of the hand raisers. If you want the group to grow and become something alot larger, we need more people to set up and hold events, plan events, get involved, and participate in the events that others are doing. I was the first subaru in Firestone, and it has grown into a good showing of the club. Yes, we can do alot more, but when people put events together other members of the club don't show.

Now from the site of the site/MNSubaru.
Well, some of you probably have seen us getting the cpu error from time to time. Hopefully that has been taken care up. We have upgraded our server since we are getting alot more traffic on the site. There are certain things that we could do to stay on a slower server, but that would entail taking away benifits that we are currently used to having. Saying that, our cost of the site to be up and running has gone up quite a bit. As to this point, the t-shirt/hoodie/sticker sales have covered all the costs of keeping this site up and running. if we continue to grow at the rate we are currently growing, we will need to come up with something else to help ofset the costs of the site. We are always open to accept donations to help keep the site up and running, and if anyone is interested in makeing any donations, please pm me.

As for ads on the site, we like the site clean form all the vendor ads. Could we put up ads and make so more money? yep, but do you the end user want to look at these ads every time you jump onto the site (think nasioc).

Russ

 

On the subject of advertising. You have a few vendors here, why not have a banner ad at the top of the page? WRXF does it and it isn't intrusive at all. It takes in some revenue and it allows them to make banners custom to MNSubaru. And what vendor is going to give you a better discount because you paid the site some money? I think they would want a cut of that 50 dollars if they are going to be shelling out a better discount.

Technical Resource? I agree with the "go to Nasioc" thing. This is a car club, not a resource site, there is a mods/maint section to ask questions of the locals and show off your mods, but there is a gigantic wealth of knowledge to be had at Nasioc. I hate that place, just like alot of people here, but you don't have to post there to get some good information. A simple search will usually yield the information you are looking for as most questions have been asked dozens of times there.

This site is an extension of the club. It isn't THE club, but it is part of it. MNSubaru should be first and foremost a community based on our love for a particular brand of car that we have in common. This site is a place for people with a common interest to come together and have a community. Some people don't participate in events, but they do come here to discuss their interests in a car that they like, and to see what other Subaru enthusiasts are doing with their cars. To say that you can't base a car club on a forum is nonsense. 90% of the current club members know of the club due to the website. And as for the OT crap that runs rampant, what do you think we talk about when we all get together. You can talk about cars for so long, but I'd like to think the members of this club are a bit more multi-faceted than that. You gotta have something to talk about besides Subarus, how do you expect to make good friends if you talk about the same thing every time you meet up. Car clubs are social by nature. You join car clubs because you want to meet people with a common interest, and hopefully make some good friends that have a common interest.

But I do agree with the thought that "Why should I pay 50 dollars to contribute to events that I may or may not attend?" I don't care much for auto-x and rally-x. It isn't my thing, so why would I pay 50 dollars to the club to help pay for auto-x and rally-x events that I have no intention of attending. Same goes for the hardcore auto-x guys, they often don't go on the fun cruises and club social gatherings, are they going to want to pay 50 dollars to pay for someone's hotdogs or hotel accomodations somewhere? Doubtful. You really tread on eggshells when you start charging people for membership into a car enthusiast club. Because alot of people have different interests and ideas as to what they car club means to them. For me it has always been where I meet new friends that have an interest in Subarus. It's a social gathering for me. For others it is something else. And the range is too broad and vague to be able to allocate funds to each person's interests properly.

 

And I don't know how BlueHost works at all, but I know with my webhost, they have a thing setup that allows your site members to donate via PayPal and all funds collected are used for the site bills at the end of the year. This money is not accessable by the site owner AT ALL, the only thing it can ever be used for is paying hosting fees. It keeps the trust there for t3hw00t, they know that when they send me 20 bucks, it goes to pay for hosting and not lining my pockets. And to date, 75% of the hosting fees have been paid for by the members. T-shirts and hoodies and other schwag also helps alot, I don't make very much on my stuff, usually about $.50 - $1.00 per unit. But that all goes aside to pay for anything the site needs. This year is going to be a bit different in that the cost of goods went way down, so the profit margin will be a lot higher and thus will help pay site hosting fees and hopefully for other site related mayhem.

I don't know what it would take for me to want to pay dues here. There would have to be a very detailed write up and break down for where each dollar of my 50 is spent. I'd want to know where my money is going and why.

 

Most people are stressing the fact that "we don't have enough events!" Obviously! That was the real reason this thread was started. My curiosity is all that's in play here. Nobody is going to charge anyone anything! This is to see if there would be members willing and wanting to get the forum to the "club" status. AutoX, Rally, 1/4 mile days, bbq's,etc. More real events for those that want to be more involved. Sitting in front of the computer is fine. Anyway, make it involuntary donations, I don't care. Just something to generate funds for the forum for the future.

This is ONLY a question to get an IDEA of where people stand. This is not a reality, and you do not need to get so upset and offended by the question.

 

Who is upset or offended? I'm giving my opinions on the deal and am in no way heated. If MNSubaru decides tomorrow to start charging dues, I wont contribute because I see no point to do so. Quit getting all pissy about it, discussion and opinion is a good thing. In fact, a pat on the back for you for bringing up club unity when it should have been brought up back in 2004.

 

Jason, my response was too all. I wasn't finger pointing at you. If so, I would have quoted ya!

 

Haha, fair enough.

 

I agree 100% Justin. 5 decent events a year would be nice!

Hey Mixx...what about a track day at a 1/4 mile track!?

 

That's a ****ty response, especially since he's been here a lot longer than you have. If he feels that the site is going downhill, instead of saying "There's the door" why not actually look at what he's saying? I've been around since this was a Yahoo mailing list, and in some ways I think that things have gotten worse. Some of the older members on here are also very good resources of information on Subarus and just telling them to move on because you don't like that they criticized the site is not a good or constructive attitude.

 

Oh man, this is comedy gold. Hello, and welcome to MNSubaru. Cookies and refreshments are in the OT.

 

You want to talk partnership, shoot me a pm.

Russ