What do YOU do on the site

Post by **kazbah** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:53 pm

I agree afterburner, I learned so much about my car since joning up, I was lost before this.... Its great that people dont mind answreing questions that must have been asked a 100 times before!!

BuCkEt · Post by **BuCkEt** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:08 pm

We're only three people away from breaking the "Most Users Online" record !!

SilentBob · Post by **SilentBob** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:11 pm

*thinks*
the reason I dont post much is.....
*points up*

what do i do on the forum, read most of it, reply to little of it(if its not worth saying why bother typing philosophy)

SilentBob

Post by **kazbah** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:14 pm

BuCkEt wrote:We're only three people away from breaking the "Most Users Online" record !!

Waaaaaahaaaaa - its working, its working.................................

mxysxy · Post by **mxysxy** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:56 pm

BuCkEt wrote:We're only three people away from breaking the "Most Users Online" record !!

hahaha
I dont think that "Most Users Online" section of the page is working, as I saw few times that 24 people were online, and down the bottom of the page it was still saying 21.

Redboost · Post by **Redboost** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:03 pm

Cruises just don't interest me anymore - there's more to life than just simply driving, and my partner will attest to that. Although there's stuff you can do during a cruise or meetup, it leaves my fiancee feeling out of place as she doesn't share the same love of cars I do. Plus, to be honest, the meetups I attended didn't really yield anything for me. Also I think you'll find that most of the original, regular cruisers (Foulz, D-Train and G1 are primary examples) have now moved onto bigger and better things in their life. And the newbies are just either too intimidated or shy to organise anything, so nothing worthwhile gets organised. But I still check the site once a day just to check up the latest info to read the latest controversy (which based on the amount of activity of late, is one of the few things which keeps me glued to the site for more than 10 minutes!!)

Post by **kazbah** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:11 pm

Redboost wrote:Cruises just don't interest me anymore - there's more to life than just simply driving, and my partner will attest to that. Although there's stuff you can do during a cruise or meetup, it leaves my fiancee feeling out of place as she doesn't share the same love of cars I do. Plus, to be honest, the meetups I attended didn't really yield anything for me. Also I think you'll find that most of the original, regular cruisers (Foulz, D-Train and G1 are primary examples) have now moved onto bigger and better things in their life. And the newbies are just either too intimidated or shy to organise anything, so nothing worthwhile gets organised. But I still check the site once a day just to check up the latest info to read the latest controversy (which based on the amount of activity of late, is one of the few things which keeps me glued to the site for more than 10 minutes!!)

You have some very good points there. I have to say my husband doesnt come to many of the cruises cos he is into motorbikes and is a member of a motorbike club. People do move on but how to encourage the newbies is a bit of a stickler.... We could put a fashing banner on the main page saying "WE DONT BITE"

. but honestly it did take me some time to get involved.

mxysxy · Post by **mxysxy** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:20 pm

I kinda agree with you Redboost,
Like for me, fly-fishing, hunting, camping (at night and during the day) comes first then anything else. I do one of these every weekend and takes much of my every weekend.

I never had a real chance to attend to a cruise, so dont know how much fun it is. But, definately wanna experience an FTO cruise soon.

On the other hand, I dont know the car language very well, neither, I have a desire to learn it well. For eg; we got few guys at work here, they sound like they know a lot about the engines, and cars, etc,... Few times I tried to have chat with them, it was nice, until they started to talk with funny language like rb74, s14, t9 (trying to imitate here

), which I have no understanding of. So, ones they start to talk funny now, I insert some flyfishing fly names into the conversation (like Wooly bugger, or Nimph, or Shaving Brush), so they understand that I dont understand much and they explain it easier for me. Its all good, we have fun talking together.

Boris · Post by **Boris** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:21 pm

This forum will always be a hallway no matter what, because it focuses mainly on one type of car.

It is hard to motivate people to attend to cruises, I know i try and organize many in Canberra. I think some long term members don't attend because they are to busy, or other members that used to be on the forums aren't there anymore.

Also cruises here focus a lot on as much as cars as posible, wherees the small cruises are usually the better ones.

Anyway, I login here, read & post, don't really know why, i guess to learn things, some people don't really want to know everything, they just want to get a solution to their current problem.

Thats all i got to say.

Post by **Supplanter** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 6:31 pm

I have been a member of this club for almost 2 and a half years, and was reading posts here months before that. First I was shy and didn't post anything. Then, after I purchased my baby I slowly became more involved, asking all the newbie questions (OMG! what does that orange light on my dash mean!!!), learning about my car, saving money on group buys, and finally attending my first meeting at Albert Park (22 FTOs

).

As I became a veteran of the club I started passing on my knowledge onto newbies and generally getting more involved in the club.

I have seen people come and go

and I think at the moment this club has become a bit stagnant.

I attended the Mallacoota cruise (it was

) and recieved a club charter, listing all that was planned, and I was eager to be a card carrying member of the FTO Club of Australia.

It has been almost a year since then, and I have yet to see any progress in us becoming an official club.

I know smorrison and Co. are very busy and I think this is part of the problem. Flame me if you want but I believe we need people in charge of our club who have more time to devote to it.

I check the monthly meeting's minutes (one of the few, I know

) and haven't seen any news of the club for the last few months.

I think we need to know where this club is headed before we can more actively participate in it.

I think I have prattled on enough for now... better let others have their say

Boris · Post by **Boris** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 6:45 pm

Can't agree more, Isn't this going oftopic again? I'm confused, i know i contributed to this thread going off topic, but aren't we meant to be talking about what we do when we are online?

Post by **Supplanter** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 6:47 pm

Boris wrote:Can't agree more, Isn't this going oftopic again? I'm confused, i know i contributed to this thread going off topic, but aren't we meant to be talking about what we do when we are online?

We are Moderators... we should know better

Slither · Post by **Slither** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:11 am

Totally off topic maybe but why when a thread is generating a decent disscusion and good feedback, either positive or negative it is locked or quarantined?? ok maybe it mite make a bit of a mess but simply split the thread and KEEP IT GOING!

i read, i post, i attend events. thats an answer that stays on topic but it aint really that great a thread is it?

I have to agree with James here too, i realise that the people running this site are busy beyond all belief but whats the point in having a "club" with organisers that are too busy for it?? I also attended the malacoota cruise where i read the overview of us becoming a club and it hasn't really gone anywhere, all the projects have stopped and i havent seen smorrison post in quite some time, nor the other comittee members. The only time i see any activity is when posts are locked or moved for some reason.

Oh and i fail to see how us explaining why we don't post or attend cruises is off topic. The thread asks what we do on this site and people have simply said why they do what they do.

Post by **kazbah** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:03 am

I think the thread would be very boring if all the answers were "I read and post" or "I read only". My intention with this thead was to achieve exactly what you have said, to open up discussion as to why things have gone very quiet and for everyone to have a chance to express satisfaction or dis-satisfaction. No one is bagging anyone here just expressing opinions.

mrx · Post by **mrx** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:38 am

OK, my 2c worth......

This has developed into a very interesting post indeed. It is interesting to hear peoples thoughts on what they get out of it etc, but it is also a bit dishearetening to only have the "same" people posting on this topic too.

Firstly, I understand what has been said regarding Malacoota and what was going to be happening with the club etc. It was all very exciting and interest was high. Since then, it appears that little has happened, but I know that Steve, Tanya, Rob etc have been busy behind the scenes to trry and make things happen. Steve is also very busy away from this, so has not been posting as much as he would definitely like too.

It would also be hard to maintain enthusiasm and put in the extra effort given the general arguing and fighting that has been going on here in recent times. For no good reason people have been attacked personally and this has had a large effect on the participation on the forum.

Having said that, nothing is irrepairable, and it would be nice to see things come good again. We all want it to be better than it is, and it has been a bit stagnant of late, but in case everyone has forgottern, we are the club. it is really everyone who visits the forums, comes to the cruises etc that are the club, not Steve etc. It cannot be anything more than we make it.

It would be really great to hear from the people who don't post, and especially those that don't come to cruises as to why, and what (if anything) could be done to gain their attendance.

My first ever cruise was Malacoota, and have been regular since then. They are genuinely heaps of fun and not intimidating at all. It is not like we stand around talking about cars all day. In fact, the topic of cars anf FTO's rarely seems to come up (believe it or not). We are people first, we just all happen to own FTO's. We all have more to our lives than this.

Tanya's resignation is a worrying sign to me, and I hope that it doesn't spark a general collapse because it would be a great pity, and undo all the god work that was done over the years.

Anyhow, it is time to go to work so I will end this sermon now. Two final thoughts - to those who want to cause trouble and flame people, do it elsewhere, or go and get a life.

To those who don't involve themselves (in coming to events) can you please indicate why, and what if anything would help get you involved. If you don't want to post it here, then feel free to PM me and we can keep it
out of general circulation.

Thats all - really running late now. CMON PEOPLE - WE CAN MAKE THIS ANYTHING WE WANT IT TO BE.

Post by **kazbah** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:34 am

Ok I've got a theory. After reading what people have written, a number of posts relate to Mallacoota. Now is the dis-satisfaction with the club related to the expections that were offered at Mallacoota and not met? I'm not really convinced that is has to do with Steve not posting, and I'll explain my reason for this. My husband is a member of the Hayabusa Suzuki Club of Aust. This club, like ours, has members from all states and they have a web site and discussion board practically identical to our setup. The thing is, their president has gone overseas for a year and their club is ticking along nicely. No problems with posts, you always get a few dopes who try to upset things, but overall their club is still functioning well. This brings me back to my theory. There are no expectations in their club, no promises made and not delivered upon for various ligetimate reasons, so the guys just organise themselves. Does anyone think I'm on the right track here?

Anyway my hypothesis!!
Cheers

Boris · Post by **Boris** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:38 pm

Kazbah, there is a lot to be learnt by reading old posts. It's a pity everything was deleted before october 2003. there were some great topics, there has been many topics about what you are trying to discuss.

I refer you to these threads:

http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... c&start=20

Note how we were excited, and actually how many members were excited and posted.

IMO, I think once a club is established as an official club then it may run smoothly, and an established normal forum can run without a president, how ever a club will not run smoothly when it's had a share of arguments, people bringing up the past, and the club being in limbo without anyone knowing a definite timeline and future for the club with the main commeetee members being to busy.

FTO338 · Post by **FTO338** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:58 pm

Just to clear few things up for the post Boris had refered to, back then Steve & Mikey were the only moderator/organizer. And please read from page 1, so you get the full picture.

Post by **kazbah** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:11 pm

Boris wrote:Kazbah, there is a lot to be learnt by reading old posts. It's a pity everything was deleted before october 2003. there were some great topics, there has been many topics about what you are trying to discuss.

I refer you to these threads:

http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... c&start=20

Note how we were excited, and actually how many members were excited and posted.

IMO, I think once a club is established as an official club then it may run smoothly, and an established normal forum can run without a president, how ever a club will not run smoothly when it's had a share of arguments, people bringing up the past, and the club being in limbo without anyone knowing a definite timeline and future for the club with the main commeetee members being to busy.

Yeah, but unfortunately the timeline was extended for a number of reasons and without a definate set timetable I think that is when people get dispondent and lose interest. But I agree, the excitement was very high and I used to love reading the threads and going back to my other half and saying "guess what were going to get CAMS licences, going to become an official club, etc" But if people can just hold it together for a while more maybe things will sort themselves out...

GPXXX · Post by **GPXXX** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 5:28 pm

Speaking of Mallacoota, geez we sure had some great times back then didn't we... (reminisces the Vodka bottle filled with H2O lolol)

I agree with suggestions that this club cannot function if the supporting committee cannot devote the sufficient time that it requires to run things properly. What the club is trying to achieve is too ambitious for its own good at this stage, and I also sense that morale is extremely low amongst many members here at the moment... as such I only have one comment on this matter:

Unfortunately, whether you want to face it or not, a majority of it IS all about the past... As I have once mentioned to Tanya, none of this crap would have happened today if the committee hadn't started taking sides publicly with scumfcuks whom they don't even know... I know many have since lost their respect for the committee and its credibility because of this - until today I'm more than convinced than ever that I did the right thing by quitting the committee in the first place... Anyway I've learnt to move on since, and I've also learnt where I stand in this club as far as being a "member" is concerned.

My suggestion to fix this problem? Let's get back to basics and re-establish a close-knit community for everyone, just like the good ol' Mallacoota days... it's easier to forgive than to forget, but what's done is done. Let's get past the conflicts and work towards restoring a community we were once happy to be a part of... Let's get things done without the superiority complex and mindless politics - there are simpler alternatives. Lets forget about the quantity of turnouts and start to appreciate more about quality of companionship at cruises/events. Let's not be so damn uptight about what gets posted on these forums every now and then - sometimes ppl need to vent and when they do, they usually have a very good reason. And seeing how the committee is struggling to maintain its commitment to the club, maybe it's an opportune time for its members to have a say in terms of who would be far more suitable to take the lead? All it takes is a poll afterall...

As I have mentioned before, member's morale is extremely low at the moment. I have always firmly believed that members are more important than sponsorship money/discounts, official recognition, exposure etc... without members, there is no club - so FFS, forget about the club's ambitions for a moment and look towards re-establishing rapport with your fellow members, even if it means you'd have to lose 1hr sleep or shout 10x rounds of beer to do so (ok maybe not beer.... vodka perhaps??

)

/end rant

FTO AUSTRALIA

What do YOU do on the site

What do You do on the site?