The club cannot and will not be changed overnight. Small and seemingly insignifcant changes over time eventually add up, though.
I totally agree with Bing that changes for change’s sake are stupid. People who cry for change but can’t pinpoint what exactly is wrong in the first place aren’t going to help the situation. There must be a solid plan for:
a) what changes should go down
b) why they should go down
c) how will they be implemented and
d) how (or whether) their implementation will adress the problems in the first place.
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Here is my take on SOME of the issues at hand…
- Given the club’s overall demographic, I don’t think reorienting the club towards a strictly motorsport-based affair is the best plan. However, there are a good number of people who take motorsports more seriously and I think the club should accomodate them better than it does now. This means a reorganization of the forum, which (face it) makes up the largest part of this ‘club’, in a way that lets serious people be serious, social people be social, and stupid people be stupid.
Does this mean we should have tiered forum sections? Maybe. (More on this later.) This is one of the issues that have divided club leaders and veterans and addressing it, I think, will go a long way to making the club better for all.
Do we need ‘official’ track days? It would be nice, but I agree with Bing when he says that the track-time opportunities being offered here are plentiful. If the end-goal is to provide opporunity for people to get their car on a road-course, then this goal is being met-- even exceeded I would say. There is no shortage of track-day events. What would be even better, though, would be a club SPONSORED trackday where the club subsidizes some of the cost from its coffers. (Of course… as it is now, there is no club coffer and there is no accountability or transparency with ANY financial matters. Everything is on need-to-know and that is one of the reasons, I believe, for the low confidence levels in the leadership of this club by members or potential members.)
- Bing’s meet is certainly the largest SON meet and, dare I say, the best one by far. But it happens once a year and, as such, cannot makeup for other initiatives that make a club- a club. Right now, SON is an online forum 364 days of the year and a car club 1 day of the year. The reason for this is because nobody else is stepping up to the plate, like Bing has done, to host and organize a similar gathering.
Let’s be realistic though. I don’t expect people to routinely take the time out of their lives to organize an event for hundreds of people and 100+ cars. Bing has proven that he can do it, and do it well, and that is why his meet is the highlight of the SON calendar. But I don’t think one terrific meet excuses lackluster activity throughout the rest of the year and, certainly, I do not believe it excuses the piss-poor organization of club finances nor the weak, childish, immature attitudes on the online-side of the club.
Below are listed some of the more salient points underlining the club’s weaknesses, which I think need to be addressed.
Clearly there is a need to reconcile, on the one hand, the level of retardation taking place on the forums on a daily basis and, on the other hand, the degree of inclusiveness which the club offers.
Related to the above point, there is a need to reorganize the forum, particularly in two ways. The second is easy to change, the first-- not so much. 1) The general attitude and demeanor of posts needs to change-- a lot. 2) The sections themselves could be better organized to facilitate browsing and searching, as well as to induce people to post in the right place.
The amount of asshattery on the boards lately is crazy. I think it would be wise to consider splitting the board into different tiers… one tier where anything goes (within reason)and one where asshattery is absolutely not tolerated. That way, people who come here to troll or “be social” will still have a place to chill, and people who want to talk tech in a civil manner can do so without being interrupted by retards.
Finally,
there is a need to get club finances organized and a need to demonstrably show members where their money is going and what they are paying for. If the club isn’t prepared to give discounts or club cards or stickers or whatever… then the front page SHOULD NOT be making those promises to prospective members. This “trust us we know what’s best” attitude isn’t worth jack shit.
P.S. If you read all this crap, at least it shows you have more than a passing interest in the well-being of this place. Thanks.
