Minnesota Subaru Club Task Force

CURRENT TASK ""

I'll start out by saying that everyone of you that has been talking, arguing, flaming, etc about where you want the forum/club to be all have one in thing in common... a true love for this group of people and the almighty Subarus we drive. We all want what we think is best for this group that is for sure.

What we have been lacking is a set plan and initiative. We are starting a "task force" to get things done. There is a need for an official Minnesota Subaru Club with officers; this is what we are starting. Once elected officials are put into office, the people in this task force group have no governing authority over Minnesota Subaru Club/MNSubaru Forums, but we are here to help get things started on the right path. Again, we are not dictating what the Minnesota Subaru Club is going to do, we are setting things set up to get the ball rolling.

Each person on this initial Task Force will be someone that has done things in this club to make it a better place, be it planning events, giving discounts, making logos, etc. We are working on putting this group together right now.

"But you guys are just doing this to because you want to secretly take over everything". This is absolutely not true. I personally have so many other responsibilities in my life right now it wouldn’t even be possible, I’m merely lending myself to the club right now to use my work-a-holic lifestyle to get things accomplished and other things in motion.

So, onto the juicy things that need to be accomplished. This list is a starting point, not set in stone. I'm always open to constructive opinion.

Minnesota Subaru Club LLC
Task Force Plan - draft
2/4/08


1 MONTH OUT TASK LIST
-Become a legal entity (LLC)(COMPLETED) - changing name, need to create new legal entityt
-Create “board of directors” positions with each position we feel will bring value to the club(ie president, vp, treasurer, secretary, event planner, etc). Not filling these roles, but just creating the roles. (COMPLETED)
-How to bring in funds. Be it member cards, yearly membership fee, etc. Funds are needed to grow. (COMPLETED)
-Elections. Create a plan to hold elections for above roles. (COMPLETED)


4-6 MONTHS OUT TASK LIST
-Create checking account
-Hold general elections (COMPLETED)
-Create a spring event to start off the year on the right foot. May 17th is the Midwest Subaru Shoot out which is in northern Illinois…this is an option.
-Create swag. T-shirts, cups, hats, stickers, bottle openers, etc.



The Task Force is here to serve the members so any of your ideas please speak out. No one has a bad idea so please speak up. Any drama that occurs we will ask the moderators to immediately delete. There is no reason for this to become uncivilized.

Now lets make some progress so next year we can look back on how much we have done in the previous year. If you are interested in joining this 'task force' please post up in this thread.


Task Force Team
Justin
Tangledupinblu
Readymix
AWDImprezaL
pksublime
boomer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

members that want to help
Paul Revere
1<3mefing
RichWRX
curly2k3


member skills and/or member connections
Bielke55 – can get cheap banquet rooms for meetings.
Aegis – good at making pictures
Fondune – create flyers and websites
Urabusvids – video creator
I<3mefing friend – video creator
carl - photographer
pksublime - banking background(sounds like a good treasuer to me )
I<3wrsex - making cakes for events. mmm
MNTom -specializing in marketing research and marketing development. I do almost all of my work on the internet. I have the capabilities and experience of creating questionnaires, data collection, tabulation, statistical analysis and reporting.

Ideas
-May 17th Subie Fest sounds like a cool spring event - Paul Revere
-Start off as LLC. For the future think about going to an NPO(non profit) when we have more funds. - Aegis
-Task force must inform the members on all actions so everyone knows what is going on. No hiding anything. -prezawagon
- Take "target market" out of 6 month plan of action - Dynapar
-Getting some sort of member card is a good way to bring in funds. -multiple posters
-Donations are another way to get funds. - tangledupinblu
-If we had a “donate button” members would help donate. - Aegis
-Task force is to lead up the creation of the “Club” which is different than the forums(Bullwinkles post #66 and #71 explains this nicely) - Bullwinkle
-Create an annual movie of all the events together and sell to members to bring in funds. - i<3mefing
-Task force needs to meet and organize all the ideas that people and organize the members that have connections and/or unique talents that can help the club. - (cant find poster of this..)
-big meeting where a lot can attend, simple agenda, hear from the members, let the Task Force speak, eliminate time waster ideas. Attendees must remain civilized. - wrxboy2003
-task force thread has created many ideas and it looks like we are getting somewhere - Dynapar
- some type of membership fee is needed. -few people
-membership perk of animated avatar - Paul Revere
-Create donation tally list that is available for public viewing - wrxboy20003
-Volunteer to Adopt-a-Highway to help the community. Have get together after volunteer work. - EJ22Tim

 

Count me in and the Midwest Subie Fest sounds sweet, exactly what I wanted to do this summer.

 

i know i am new but i work with this kind of stuff a bit at work and would be happy to help if i could in any way just let me know

 

I can help out if needed.

 

i'll help out all i can, alot of people doing small things = a bigger whole

 

Wonderful. Seeing as how he started this in 2006, it will be great when this gets done in 2010.

 

I would be more than willing to help out, you all know this

 

We've been waiting on Todd for 2 years now to get it done. I've taken responsibility for it getting the LLC stuff taken care of. We can add whoever's name on the paperwork when it gets sent back to us it really doesnt matter to me.

Russ i know we really have had our differences but i'm 100% willing to put it behind us and just move forward. I hope you feel the same way.

Justin

 

please guys, todd's activity level isnt the point of this thread. please lets work together here and get the ball rolling.

 

like i said, let me know what i can do

 

I am glad to see this put out here. It was the next logical step after the 5 yrs brainstorm thread. I have some questions though.

Is 1 month a realistic timeline to become a LLC? From what I have gathered it is a tedious process. There are potentially alot of unforeseen problem which we will run into. for example we will need a different name, I am almost 100% sure that if we try to form a legal entity with Subaru in the name we are asking for copyright/trademark/lawsuit issues. Heck Subaru sued Ravensblade Impreza for the use of the word impreza in his URL. Everything he ever did only helped Subaru but they still went after him.

I still do see eye to eye in the funds arena. To date we have been a pay to play club, the only thing the club has paid for is the tip for the LAX cruise, and possibly the pizza at the identifix club meets. For all of the other events everyone pays their own way, and it hasnt been an issue. It seems like the meager fund which we bring in now (tshirts/sticker) go to pay for server space or host maintenance for the forums. With such little overhead cost why do we need to generate funds? the club seems to be growing at a very steady pace (every event is bigger then the previous). I guess I dont see whats wrong with a pay your own way setup.

I am curious about what you mean be "target market". We are a club, what do we need a target market for? Isnt our target market people who own/drive/enjoy subarus?

 

who is todd is a legitimate question for noobs like myself. who is todd? and I'd be happy to help out with whatever (especially if it involves a camera lol)

 

I think he means what types of events will have the greatest chance for success. It's pretty obvious that something like a MNSubaru underwater basket weaving event would probably flop due to lack of interest and high overhead costs.

 

i would attend that event. lol, but seriously, are we aiming to do this mainly for events to mark this as a true club? or is there a different reason behind this?

 

yeah i think it would be an absolute blast!! It woud be a chance for us MNSubaru'rs to get to meet some other midwest subaru addicts just like us. We'll also be able to get to watch some nationally known shop cars racing down the track. anyone can race too and its pretty cheap.

awesome! you're newness means nothing to us..as long as you are willing to help out the cause we're all ears.

thanks rich. you've been a great assest to the club. thanks for all the hard work you have put into it so far.

awesome, tonka subaru is only the most awesomest subaru dealership around. you guys have given us so many discounts its insane! we'd love to have a rep on the committee.

heck yeah! you know you are the man curls.


The list at the top of the page is who we started with before the post. we're going to create a list below that of all the people that want to be part of it. i'm going to tell you know though, we really need motivated people that will get things done....we need big walkers, not big talkers.


I personally wanted to state that at the end of the club needing the task for I will be completely out of the leadership group and will not be running for any type of leadership board member spot. I will still put on events though if the elected officials would like me to do that.

Justin

 

this has been the hardest thing to do, why not get it done now?

 

i got alot of time and this is by FAR the best way i can spend my time. lol, like i said many a times before, whatever i can do to help.

 

man, i'm so happy you guys are taken this well and not getting angry etc. to be frank i was quite nervous about starting this because of all the history of everything...but i really just want to help out the group.

you guys are the best subaru pals a guy could have :wiggle:

 

so touching, group hug guys.

 

If this is done out in the open where everyone can review what's going on I think it could work. I know there's some mis-trust between different parties on this site, but to make things work we have to get beyond it.

 

1. yes, i can get it done. as long as we dont make profit(aka, fully use our incoming cash flow each year we will be fine with a regular llc). it will be completed very soon actually. like russ stated, getting an actual non-profit is insanely costly and we just cant do that at this time. i will have to pay $160+ a stupid 10 fee out of pocket to get it done..but i dont need to be repaid until we start actually having some funds to use. once this is done we will setup a bank account and then once a treasurer is elected he/she will have complete control over this account(note: elect a treasurer you all trust lol)


2. yeah i dont know about that either. that was one of the pieces i went back and forth on whether or not to keep it in. i can definitely take that out for the time being if you guys think that it should.

 

I see what you are saying. but that is the beauty of allowing (encouraging) members to create their own events. there is virtually no limit to what can be done. someone could plan a track day at BIR (lot of work) or someone could plan a family get together/BBQ to introduce all of their suby loving children to each other.

choosing a specific target (type) of event seems like it would alienate part of the club. We are all hear because of our cars. Subarus allow us to do virtually any motorsport we want. We can off road (Gilbert off road park), race (BIR, MAM, Rockfalls), Rally (ojibwe forests, LSPR), RallyX (league), AutoX( league), Ice Race (IIRA), and I am sure there are more. But choosing one point to focus the events on (ie track days at BIR) would remove alot of incentive for other people (rallyxers) to be in the club, especially if they have to pay a membership.

 

I say take it out. it doesnt make sense, unless we are trying to sell the club to someone.

 

absolutely agree with you on this. we all need to get back to just being friends and trusting eachother. we will want everyone on the task force to be completely open with whatever is going on. we would really really like people from all sides of the spectrum to be on this committee, so please speak up!!


side note: russ, there needs to be an LLC so we can officially have a pres, vp, treasurer, etc. There are official records that are kept from year to year that document this. Right off the bat this is the main reason for starting the LLC. For example, when you elect a President you will be electing the new official owner/runner/whatever of the club....so pick wisely haha.

 

I think that one of the most productive things we can do to figure all of this out is a cage match. j/k. lol

No honestly I do think that the best way to figure out alot of this stuff is to get together in person and hash out the details. public meeting everyone invited, get some sort of whiteboard/chalkboard and brainstorm. It seems more effective to me than a big thread thats 1000000 pages long and everyone must spend 3 weeks catching up on. plus our productive threads have a history of degenerating into goo (hopefully this is behind us).

 

I do not think becoming a NPO is in our best interests right now. We're not big enough. Sorry guys ... but an LLC is a good way to start and build up the interest until there is enough money to make it non-profit.

 

Todd is one of the original founding members. He has hosted the big get togethers at identifix. hes a great guy. He doesnt get to spend much time on the site.

 

And another thing, if you're running out of server space (with so few "active" members), it's time to find a different hosting company. Or better yet, weed through all the fake users and free up some of that space!

 

i'd like to get some ideas from you guys of things to add to the "1 month out task list" and the "4-6 month out task list"

Justin

 

Then what about banning some of those bots from even having access to the site? You don't need googlebot, or yahoo search, or webspider, this place grew and will continue to grow by word of mouth. Less "guests" = less traffic.

On the forum it says that there were once 121 users on. Not all of them were real users, most of them were bots. I think that should be a priority, get rid of the spammers. They aren't helping your search results at all (no matter what google says their bots are doing) and they are wasting valuable bandwidth.

 

Thats crazy. Once we start getting funds in, this sounds like its a top priority. see people, if we dont get some form of membership dues you wont even be able to post anymore :eek4:

 

that would not be good at all, i would have no way to spend my monday, wednesday and friday mornings...and all my afternoons after 3pm. :laugh:

 

ok, so should i put "get a new server/hosting stuff" on a task list for a year out and put "get rid of the website bots" on the task list for 1 month out?

 

i would say a few months out, we need funds first

 

oh definitely..at least a year out for the hosting/server stuff. the bot stuff i believe steveo could take care of that pretty quickly.