Minnesota Subaru Club Task Force

I have to disagree with you on this one. The thread is Minnesota Subaru Club Task Force. Let's keep this train on the idea of how to make the club come to life like the impotent Frankenstein's monster it is right now. The website issues are for different discussion.

Which leads me to this:

I'm going to go with the SCCA model here: SCCA events, website, and forum (I believe) are open to any and all. However, official membership to SCCA rewards you with lower event fees and other melt-in-your-mouth goodies. Bully-winks is bringing up an excellent point here, I think we should all run with it.

 

But Lee, talking about memberships and the cards directly ties to what we do as far as "donations" ect... as well as what we do/dont do for events and things of that sort (in my mind atleast)

 

I know this may not be a huge thing to some but how bout another perk of being a contributing member be you get the added bonus if a animated/picture avatar? This will separate those who personally contribute time or donations to grow this club and those who just come and go and don't say anything. Also can we clean are member data base? I'm sure there are plenty of members that have not signed on for who knows how long.

 

I'm not saying it's not relevant at all, but we're still making baby steps here. Let's try to keep the theme on club organization now and focus on website suggestions for later.

 

i can see what you are saying, but i dont see why we cant get the ball rolling on some things and take it in stride

 

Wow, what the heck is this? Task force?

Justin, you have some great ideas and I applaud your enthusiasm. Did you approach any of the mods/admins before posting this? Now don't take this the wrong way, but when taking on this type of initiative you probably could have discussed your ideas with the people that are currently working on this very thing...before going public.

Again, I know this thread is all about brain storming and gathering interest/input from fellow members, but we have already started working on some of these very issues and we don't really need to re-create or duplicate the work efforts.
http://mnsubaru.com/forums/showthread.php?p=406064#post406064

Seriously, I'm not here to diminish your willingness to help, but let's communicate effectively and work on the same game plan so we don't trip over each others toes.

 

Ok guys, i wanted to go through and quote so many posts but there are just so many great constructive ones to quote. Soo...i'm sick of so many people coming up with great ideas in threads, only to get lost in the shuffle and never talked about again. I will be updating the first post with all the member ideas, member skills that they can help the club with, and members that want to help the task force. I think this will keep everyones ideas from getting lost in the shuffle and will keep us on task.

All of you have great ideas so keep them coming. Bullwinkle's seem to describe my thoughts on club creation as far as being different than the forum.

All of this is going to be fully open for all of you to see, so SPEAK UP and tell us your ideas because they will be used, not shuffled aside like all the other threads.

I dont think we've come together as a group ever like like this before, i'm very proud of you all tonight.

Justin


BTW, here is the newest info i updated in the first post. please let me know if there are ideas, member skills, or people wanting to help that i missed.

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


Ideas
-May 17th Subie Fest sounds like a cool spring event
-Start off as LLC. For the future think about going to an NPO(non profit) when we have more funds.
-Task force must inform the members on all actions so everyone knows what is going on. No hiding anything.
- Take "target market" out of 6 month plan of action
-Getting some sort of member card is a good way to bring in funds.
-Donations are another way to get funds.
-If we had a “donate button†members would help donate.
-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)
-Create an annual movie of all the events together and sell to members to bring in funds.
-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.
-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.
-task force thread has created many ideas and it looks like we are getting somewhere
-martin is a post whore
- some type of membership fee is needed.
-membership perk of animated avatar

 

i just pee'd a bit

 

I am willing to help (my post got kinda lost in the beginning). I would probably fit under skills as "photographer" lol

 

Look, I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you Jason, at no point was I condeming anyones actions so please don't try to frame it any differently.

I simply stated that he should've reached out to us first since we've been working towards these same goals recently. Do you understand?

I personally give crap what happened or what didn't happen two years ago. If it was such a huge deal why is this just now getting organized by someone other than a mod/admin? MNSubaru finally has a group of mods that is actually putting some thoughts together and getting the ball rolling. If you or anyone else wants to help ...then great, we appreciate it and gladly accept your help. However, the first step to any progress is effective communication and a solid game plan....not having the site mods/admins blind sided...it's not a great first step.

 

ok i've updated the "ideas" section again but i have added the person's name next to the idea so each of you can see that your idea is being looked and taken seriously.



This is what was updated on the first post:

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
-martin is a post whore - justin
- some type of membership fee is needed. -few people
-membership perk of animated avatar - Paul Revere

 

SO does this mean you're overriding the IdentiFix meet?????
We've stated before in the thread of things we are working on.

What makes you THINK that this time things are NOT going to get done? We've got HALF of those important things down that you have listed. "Martin is a postwhore" in your ideas is not very professional, may be a joke, but not professional.

Thing is, we're are WHERE we are because of WHAT happend in the past. I know what happend between the club split and what was taken. Still until today there are sides and I can tell by just reading the posts. I don't want to pick sides at all BUT I will put the blame on who is the one to blame.

Seeing that you started this "Task Force" with SAID members, seems you're rallying up a crowd. The admin/mods have talked this over and we are trying these new things out. I would HATE to see this club go down the same path it did before. IF it has to go down that path for everyone to KNOW wassup, it just might have to. Yes, people CAN change, but we're preventing anything like what happend in the past from happening in the future.

I AM setting up the AGENDA for our next meet. I'll be waiting for an answer from Todd on what DATE it will be in March.

 

carl, thanks for the support. i have updated the OP with your info.

fuji - i have deleted "martin is a post whore". i apologize, just thought it was funny because today he reached 8k posts which is crazy lol.

 

lets really try to keep this on topic and keep forking out ideas, lets make this a CLUB thing

 

yes, please keep this on topic folks. its been so good so far. so many great ideas so far. mods, please keep an eye on this thread and please warn any members that are going off topic.

 

holy hell this thread moved fast!!!


anyway. I will NOT support an LLC until someone comes up with a good reason to. it's a buttload of money to spend on something we are not to a point that we can use yet. Other things need to happen in the club before we can take any advantage of that.

Club dues do not need to happen. DONATIONS DONATIONS DONATIONS. how many thousands of clubs pay for their web dues from member donations. don't MAKE people pay, just make it possible to contribute. besides, AFAIK, profits from shirts, stickers etc. have been paying for it just fine.

AND, even if nobody agrees with me, and an LLC is created. we have to have an elected board of directors (or whatever the technical name is), specifically a treasurer, before we can set up a checking account. So your timeline is a little bassackwards



internet threads are the worst way to make decisions on something like this. If you want to make something happen, come to the meeting. The reason past meetings have been a failure, is that when the few things that were planned to be said had been said, nobody had anything else to offer. This is the PERFECT thing to bring up at the meeting. Let us mods say what we have to say, and then stand up, and say, "can we have a task force to help get this stuff done ASAP? who would like to be in it"


by starting this independent of the work that us mods are already doing is working against us. sure, things haven't been happening quickly (although, again, IMHO there's been zero need to.....), but can we still work together in doing it?!




ALSO. justin, you started this thread 3 minutes after Joel started one with essentially exactly the same purpose. that one was removed to prevent confusion. you're directly butting heads with what's already happening and making everything more difficult. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it's not helping.

 

I may step on my **** here, but it won't be the first time.

As I read this thread I see some grand ideas to evolve MNSubaru into an honest to goodness club. Ideas to bring in money, LLC's and boards of directors. But I ask myself... why? Is there really a need for this? Once the club is formed, are there any true benefits to being a member? Discounts at local dealerships, discounts at local parts suppliers, and the like. But we already get this for free, will it stop unless I have a schanazy membership card? Where are my dues going in the first place? To pay for a meeting hall, so the elected board of directors can vote on how we are going to make more money to pay for meeting halls to hold elections in?

What brought me to this forum is the like minded people, how pissy they may get, to discuss a common thread, our subarus. To get help for simple fixes, or that motor swap you want to start. To dig through the minds of others and network your way to that high quality alignment shop that charges $45. I didn't need to pay for this, nor do I need to worry about if an elected official will make decisions with my dues that are in my best interest. I am a cheap bastard, I will never argue that in a million years. But if there was a "donate" button that I know pays for the server maintenance and domain registration that is fine. I will gladly kick down a few dollars to keep this simple, mostly friendly, and completely free forum up and running I will.

Maybe it's just me, but I would rather see a group of friends pitching in for a BBQ or camp ground then an over inflated hierarchy deciding where to spend my money.

 

Very well said, and the only point I've been trying to make since all these discussions started.

 

Wow, this is bizarre.

From what I can tell, you're under the impression that being in the forum will mean having to pay dues. That's not even an option. The forums in all their chocolaty goodness will remain mostly like it is. If you want to be part of the actual car club and attend events, that's where membership helps but would also not be required (ex: cheaper entrance fees). No one is ever saying that "if you're not a member, you can't come to the clubhouse". But if we want to make this into a large car club and 5 to 10 years down the line be a sponsor at BIR/*insert track name here*, it's going to take some cash. This is all assuming that that's where we want to go with it.

What do you think we're trying to accomplish here? We're trying to make the club and organize. Nothing's happening yet, we're just getting a plan together.

This is wonderful advice, I'd like to see these plans incorporated into the agenda.

Then let's make this more of an agenda to have things to present at the meeting. The club will operate in the real world. Eventually you mods will operate the forum. The idea is to keep the 2 separate, not have overall control by one group of people. This segways to my next ponit:

Yes, we can. That's what I believe the point of this thread was to do. If you mods already have things in motion, then contact the people that have volunteered themselves to helping out. If you guys want to make this happen like this "committee/task force" does, then give them directions to follow through with. This discussion is about getting a club started, if the mod team already has balls in play, then GUIDE the people throwing themselves to help instead of trying to brush them away like you stated above! If we're forming a club that operates independent of the forum leadership, then they will need to operate without your permission in their own dealings.

Again, this is early. Don't shut him or anyone else trying to help down, guide them with what you're already working with and delegate out. Or, just let them know what's already handled. If there's going to be a meeting for this discussion, it's good to have a plan of attack.

 

I do agree with this statement.

 

I will just say that we thank you for you concerns but you aren't going to derail this project, there has been sooo many great ideas in this thread so far we will absolutely make sure peoples ideas get played out. The Task Force is 100% willing to work with any person or group of people(read: admin/mods) to get things accomplished. Just post up your ideas of what you think needs to be done and i'll continue to update the first post.

Chux - the reason my post was 30 seconds after Joel's is because i sent the entire post to Joel before i posted it so it didnt look like we were just trying to take over. within a couple minutes of PM'ing him the entire first post of this thread, joel's thread popped up. I didnt want to post this so soon by i was forced.

Getting past the negativity....members, any ideas as to what type of leadership positions you'd like to see leading this club? ie, president, vp, sec, treasurer, event planner, etc. I know its early for this obviously but its a good conversation piece.


EDIT: Again, any of the rules/procedures/ideas set up for the Club will not effect the forums at all, they are different entities. When we agree on a way to collect some sort of dues, it will not have an impact on your ability to post on this forum.

 

Really, I'm stating this again because I see the little bastard spark flying around that might blow this all apart:

EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK TOGETHER!!! If a mod has already got things in motion, just let someone on the "task force" know! Delegate! Instruct! Hell, just straight up pawn something off to someone that's volunteering! If you mods already have the LLC thing started for example, then let Justin know and get him INVOLVED!!!

 

Yeah, sorry for trying to make a thread that would give you and anyone else an opportunity to step up and volunteer. ugh... I figured you guys along with anyone else who wanted to volunteer to help with things could post up in that thread, but I removed it after you posted yours because I didn't want it to look like I was trying to fight with you.

 

oh, i know. No hard feelings Joel, honestly. Some of the moderators/admins in this forum are trying to imply other things and i couldnt let that continue. In my eyes its not even an issue so lets just move on.

 

Yeah, that's the route we were trying to go down, bit I guess a bit too slowly.

It seems like the mods and Justin's task force have done the same thing. Have some private meetings, come up with an agenda, make the agenda public, ask for participation and plan a future meeting.

We are all trying to work for the same goals here, and really, we're doing it in a very similar way. It's frustrating to see it starting to split along the same old lines again. I DO NOT want to go back to square one on all of this when we've been making some progress this year.

So, we need to combine efforts and be willing to make compromises.

To the task force, be willing to include the moderators in your planning and probably be willing to adjust the schedule a bit.

To the moderators, we will be willing to get more participation from other members and make things more open, that's what's been happening so far I think.

 

I love you.

 

I just wanted to note that the Task Force has had no private meetings. Everything that the task Force has talked about has only been what you see in this thread.

Absolutely and positively we will include anyone that is a member of this forum. I personally do wish we could add a few moderators/admins to the list on the first post. The Task Force is ready to move on from any seperation, we only see the group of people as a whole.


Justin

EDIT: blackozone, i agree, Joel seems to be acting 100% to help the group which i'm very thankful for and everyone in this group should be thankful for. Thank you Joel for that, and not attacking this whole thing like others have.

 

I would be interested in helping in any way I can.
I offer general computer skills and 5 years of banking experience.

 

^^ Yes, I'd be glad to help. Went to school for graphic design/we design.

 

that is awesome pksublime, banking experience will definitley be needed. you should run for treasurer when the time comes

its really cool seeing all of the great skills the members have...we really do have an awesome group of people.


updated the OP with your info.

 

we can adds a donation tally list for people who donates?? seen em on other sites...

i would raise my hand to help but I have a lot of other commitments outside a wife, 3 kids, building a house, a full-time job and commitments with my Youth Group... so... I will try to help when I can

 

sounds like a good idea. i'll update the ideas section in the OP with:

"Create donation tally list that is available for public viewing - wrxboy20003"

 

i think it would be a generally good idea to get the moderators to post their "agenda" for the site, we can compare notes and see where we can find common grounds that way, not to mention its a better way to brainstorm problems, ideas and solutions.

 

definitely. post up all ideas everyone has, regular members, mods, admins, whoever..post them up and i'll update the first post with the new information.

Any ideas that relate to creating the club will be posted. If your "ideas" are that this is a stupid idea/we dont need a club/etc, please just keep those out because those are off topic to this thread.

 

i would love to help out...I can make cakes for events and such...with our logo on it.

 

we should addopt a highway and make a monthly "meet" where we all clean it up and go somewhere local to eat afterwards, I think it would be fun and that would get our name out as a responsible car club.
just an idea.

im down for doing whatever I can to help mnsubaru. im in FTW

 

i can't believe i am saying this, but i think tim is on to an idea there

 

True that curly..

I was thinking the same thing.

I am working with Joel, and russ to attack and concur the ID card thing.

 

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/adopt/

they provide everything we need and we only have to do it 2-3 times a year.

could be accompanied by a cookout in the summer if its by a park......