Notes from the new guy

[dbwilldo]

I know I'm the total new guy here. I have noticed a few things.

#1. The newsletter page on the website hasn't been updated since '08
#2. The links page on the website is full of dead links. The 3 DMC members that are linked up no longer have sites at those addresses, for example.
#3. Almost every section of the forum has at least 1 sticky topic that is more than a year old, no longer relevant or both.
#4. From what I can tell, the gallery hasn't been updated since 2008.
#5. The Facebook Group is hidden
#6. The entire membership capture process appears to be broken. I almost thought I was going to have to use morse code to communicate with the club and pay with chickens and goats.
#7. Not logged in to the message board, I have access to the complete message board memberlist, but not to all of the sections of the board.
#8. I haven't been able to find out who the club officers are or find a copy of the by-laws.
#9. BBCode doesn't work on this message board correctly and it appears this version of phpbb is outdated by almost 7 years.
#10. Finding out about new events is horrible. Usually it's because I've been lucky enough to stumble across someone else's mention of an event that I find out about it.

These are just observations. I'm guessing none of it is a very big deal since there appears to only be a dozen active members (in the Phoenix area) and I haven't seen anything happening to recruit new members or retain the current members.

Again, this is all just notes from the 'new' guy.

If I'm honest, this is one of the most user-unfriendly and unenthusiastic clubs I have ever run across. It's difficult to join. It's difficult to get on the message board. Facebook screwed up the group feature so that doesn't work very well any more, not that it matters because it's a hidden group anyway.

Some of you know that I'm a little more enthusiastic than most and my involvement with the MINI Community started back in '02 when I helped to start . I like being part of the MINI Community and I like my parts of the MINI Community to be kick ass!

I don't want to take over the club. I don't even want to sit on the board. I DO want to help out where ever I can. I can help with the website. I can help with the message board. I can help with suggestions. I can help with marketing and member retention. I can help out anywhere help is needed. Hell, I'd even suggest a run if I knew who to suggest it too.

I want to help. Who can I talk to about that?

[SilverNewt]

[danjmcs]

[dbwilldo]

[SilverNewt]

[66Cooper]

[dbwilldo]

[66Cooper]

[Gottoon]

[Gottoon]