Please read this

The thing is, it's alright blaming the admin but nobody seems interested in doing shows, no matter how much you persist and ask and ask, people want to go put their names down and then at the last minute they don't go. If I organise a stand and pay £200 to secure a stand for 20 cars I want to know I will get that money back and not be out of pocket. If we can't get people to commit to coming to a show then we can't book a stand. Personally I need to know that the stand will be full, paid for, and I am not out of pocket, then I have to travel 160 miles to get to Stafford before even going to the show. Rising Sun being an example, I travel nearly 260 miles in 4 hours non stop to get to the show on Friday afternoon/evening traffic. When I got there we had a handful of people.

I know we are a localish kind of club but I think we need to spread our wings a bit to find some more members to enable us to fill stands and encourage everyone to come to the shows.

I have spent quite a few hours now working (My whole weekend last weekend) on things in the background which will most likely go unoticed but I have tremendous commitment to make things better but, I can't do everything myself. If I am not at work I am at home working on the forum or website or ideas i have for the club.

I am still waiting for the site graphics so I can get the flyers, tshirts and fleeces sorted and apply some them to some other things I want to do.

I pay £150 per year for webhosting plus the £60 it costs for the jap-n-crazy hosting package. To save the club money the site was moved onto my hosting account, yes it has caused some software issues and I thank Dave for helping me sort through them. Instead of me paying £210 per year for hosting I am now only paying £150. And the club saves some money or I am not out of pocket as we don't charge for membership.

The new frontend of the website was implemented last weekend to allow a fresher approach to the club, i can post news updates easily, review cars, shows and upload videos etc. I can't review every car or news story myself and I had offers from some members to contribute to stories on japanesemodifiedcars.com but never happened.

I have just been promoted at work which requires some more dedication as I am resposible for running a business unit, but I still come home in the evenin and sit infront of this computer looking for ways to improve the site, if we had a full stand at a show I would be at every one of them.

It would be nice to have some input from people to:

a. understand where everybody has gone as we have in the region of 500 members - mostly non active
b. where we would like the club to go - because if we stay the way we are we will never have enough people to go to shows as a club stand
c. what other improvements do you think we need?
d. is it worth me working 8-12 hours on the site/club ideas every week?

I know this is a rant, and it is not directed at anybody but I think we need to make some positive decisions to plan ahead for the future of the club, if I have to come up to stafford for a weekend to sit with everyone to discuss this then I will. I would say we could do this at JAE but I am not sure if we are all going to it or not!

So please let me know your feelings, ideas and suggestions!

And before anyone says we need fleeces and tshirts, as I already said, if I get the new designs from Tony I will get them sorted but until then I can't!

Thanks

Pabz

I agree with all your points 100% mate.......i have tried to drum up inerest in the shows .....but you know how it is.......
Think we should all contribute to the hosting fees mate....you shouldn't be out of pocket ......
I personally think you have done a great job of taking over the site and i appreciate the hours of hard work and dedication you have put into the club over the years and also with the recentforum changes......
Think the scene as a whole is suffering a bit at the moment......but we could do with more membersand more effort by us all to coomit to shows /meets etc.....

I agree and see where you're coming from. I won't make excuses for not attending meets or shows, but I will say that if I change my mind at the last minute I will pay any money due so that no one is out of pocket.

It may be an idea to ask for a deposit before booking the stand, that way there won't be anyone out of pocket. Just a thought. Please let me know if, and how much I owe for my place at JAE as I won't be able to attend this unfortunately.

Mr. G wrote: I agree with all your points 100% mate.......i have tried to drum up inerest in the shows .....but you know how it is.......
Think we should all contribute to the hosting fees mate....you shouldn't be out of pocket ......
I personally think you have done a great job of taking over the site and i appreciate the hours of hard work and dedication you have put into the club over the years and also with the recentforum changes......
Think the scene as a whole is suffering a bit at the moment......but we could do with more membersand more effort by us all to coomit to shows /meets etc.....

all i'm gonna say is...

x2

As in my other post i'm dropping out of organising, simply because i've lost heart. Truth be known its been a frustrating process from day one with trying to make sure ive booked a big enough stand as i never have a true idea of numbers. To be honest i havent a clue if ive got enough for JAE. Aside from that ive lost a lot of interest in the scene. Santa Pod turned into an over-expensive chav fest and everything else bar JAE was lacking in things to keep you occupied.

Dont forget, While most people simply turn up at Catch Corner and go to the show, Myself, Jim, Dave and Minty (rising sun) had to put in a lot of hours around usual business into getting stands sorted and ordering tickets. Not to mention Pablo who has taken on the mammoth task of transferring everything onto the japanesemodifiedcars hosting and now running JNC so you all continually have somewhere to discuss our prized possesions.

I hold my hands up and admit i was going to contribute to japanesemodifiedcars but let Pablo down, not through ignorance but through simply being uninspired. So i apologise for that mate.

So Pablo, your work is appreciated greatly by myself and i hope everyone else will see your frustrations and help you along the way.

Ill help where i can but until i get a bit of a relief from being treated like a fucking prick at work then im taking a back seat.

I started writing a response but it was long and by the time I pressed post it told me my session had expired so I lost my whole response so I will re write it and post it later

I have a reseller 25 account which means I can sell 25 hosting accounts. So I could have my own mini webhosting company and charge people for webhosting. It was I choice I made a while back to venture in to. Jap n crazy now has one of those accounts so it removes the £60 hosting fee you were paying. If people wish to contribute towards £60 of hosting for the club then thats fine, if not I won't lose any sleep over it.

My previous post.............

Thanks to Tommo for your years of dedication mate. It is a lot of hassle to organise the stands and shows and if I knew we could fill a stand every show I would od them all. Yes, santa pod has become over priced and quite chavvy!

This post was not meant to point fingers or cause issues, my intention was to highlight the issues we have and look for ways to improve. I can't do everything myself all of the time and as much as I try to I find myself spending all of my time trying to reinvent things! I need some input and ideas from our regular members to suggest what they would like to see on the site, where we want the club to go etc etc, if i do not get any input I will have to make all of the decisions based on where I think we need to go.

We have over 500 members most of which are inactive! In my opinion we need to recruit new members so we can fill stands at shows. I know we would probably want to remain small but if we do that we will not have enough people to keep the club alive.

I know i haven't been at all the shows, but as i said, if i have to travel 200-300 miles to come to a show i want to know we have a good turn out!

Tommo, I wasn't pointing fingers when I mentioned japanesemodifiedcars, I had about six people, not all from here that said they wanted to contribute! I know how you feel, when you are uninspired by the state of the current jap car seen its hard to write something worth reading. Don't worry about it mate!

I just need some input from people - in my opinion we need to reinvent the wheel and perhaps take the club in a different direction. I have refreshed the front end page an there will be more changes coming, dave is working on the forum (thank you dave) and we are getting to a slightly better place but I really think some other changes need to happen.

I am quite prepared to come up to Stafford and sit down with everyone and discuss things if needed because the club needs to have input from it's members!

I am not prepared to let the club die!

Please give me some input no matter what it is!

Oh and if anyone sees Tony please ask him to send me the artwork for the flyers and the Ninja Dude so I can get the fleeces/tshirts done etc

Pabz

Once again i agree with you mate.........think it's up to us core members to put a bit more effort in........

As previously said I think its the scene in general thats suffering. Im sure you all know what happened to the Japmids club, it would be a shame to see it happen to another local Jap car club!!

At the moment me and Add are saving money in a major way (or trying at least!) as we're getting married next July hence we've not been to any meets or anything, but as soon as we've got our finances sorted we'll be there!

I think maybe a few more weekend meets might be an idea as we're busy in the week to get to the thursday night one.

Think thats the way we are heading Alison.........we will have a decent turnout for JAE this weekend,but we need to really concentrate on improving club events etc.......we have been talking about organising camping weekends in Wales for next year.....
Any idea's like Go-Karting,Bowling nights etc,would be welcome......

or ALTON TOWERS FOR FIREWORKS!!!!

i like the pic on aoc

3gdean wrote: or ALTON TOWERS FOR FIREWORKS!!!!

Sounds good to me........