forum

[Sussex Pete]

My only issue is with the new forum, I have to log in everytime, posts take ages to load, cant always reply either which is the most annoying part,

As has been mentioned before, it may be beneficial to clear your browser cache. I had the problem of "always being forgotten" a while ago. Clearing the cache seemed to resolve to need to have to log in everytime. It should also resolve the inability of being able to reply, as you can only do that if you are logged in. Having said that, if you are logged in and still can't reply, than that is a different matter that needs to be looked at specifically.

[Beaker]

So you mean this...

http://maestro.org.uk/forums/forum/g...ber-at-the-nec

I dont remember it and I also looked to check before I posted and I could not find anything either. Clearly I am wrong so i apologise.

[Mikey v8]

Still the same. Just tried to post a reply on another thread and can't! Odd that I can on this one though!

[E_T_V]

Thanks for your reply E_T_V. With reference to the Service Bulletin, please can you PM me with your name and address and we can look into what's gone wrong, There have been two Service Bulletins since we have started them earlier this year.

PM on its way shortly but all the details are in my user profile which was supposed to be the purpose of the forum upgrade to integrate forum and club memberships. Member number 95.

And another bug to report you can't update any of the info in the user profiles anymore.

While I really don't wish to drag up what appears to a difficult period for the club, not all see it your way. I don't feel that everyone would view beaker's tenure as successful, but I guess that depends of how you define success.

I thought I listed above how I defined success above but for the sake of people not wanting to scroll miles up the thread through all the white-space see the list below. I wouldn't regard it as a difficult time for the club, I'd regard it as very sucessful in terms of supporting people to enjoy our cars. I'm sure neither I nor Beaker were loved by all, but our jobs weren't to be loved, they were to promote our cars, enthuse people about them, and keep them on the road. And that I feel we did reasonably well along with the other committee members and active club members.

Lots of press coverage
Lots of shows
Lots of social events
Secured spare parts for members
Secured discounts and group-buys for members
Gained a lot of new members both paid ones and forum members
Started attending proper "classic" shows like the NEC (when the car was only just starting to be accepted as a classic).
Got to a point where our cars were generally accepted as a proper classic car - what an uphill battle that was at times!
Expanded the website
Created memorabilia and useful products that people could buy to help keep their cars on the road
Had a technical e-mail response service
Had a very active forum both socially and technical responses
Had an increasing and healthy bank balance allowing us to develop our offerings further and secure the clubs future.

While we no longer have a Spares Service (I think this has been covered several time for for clarity I will explain again) we do have members with spares and there is now eBay.

Ebay has been there longer than the club has! Nothing has changed there.

The spares were sold as the person who was running the Spares Service no longer had the time to do so and needed their double garage back. I think it was remarkable that they gave as many years to the Spares Service as they did and provided the service and storage free of charge. It was no great surprise to the club that no other member wished to take the spares on - it is a huge undertaking. Without either storage for the spares or someone to run the service, it was in the best interest of the club to sell them. I feel the club did well to sell them for more than they paid for them and the stock has been depleted over the years.

I don't think anyone would dream of criticising Chris or Marias dedication to the cause or fault their generosity devoting space to host the stock. I certainly wouldn't. The club did fail to dispose of them to members in the best way though and that is one thing I'm happy to admit we didn't do that right after we bought them and the issue was allowed to fester far too long.

As and when we have the human resource, we will look into re manufacturing parts, However, should the club wish to do this we need to look into becoming a company limited by guarantee as there are liabilities attached to selling parts. I did attend a spares training session on how to set up and run a spares service including re-manufacturer, but it was of little use as the club running it had 12 people manning the service! What I thought might be interesting and helpful turned into demoralizing. However, it did help with legislation and some other matters.

So what you are really saying it that it'll never happen as active membership is in decline. The club will never want to take on such liabilities, no-one is there to drive it and so it'll be left to owners like me to do it instead. Oh and you'll not support the owners doing that either. That really is a sad sad state of affairs.

... the necessary outsourcing of Monstro is going to be expensive, hence Monstro becoming annual accompanied by the inexpensive to produce Service Bulletins. This system of club magazines and newsletter is more sustainable than trying (and sometimes failing) to produce three Monstros a year. Monstro in its previous form was unsustainable. It also allows for more regular communications from the club.

Which many of your club members don't seem to be receiving. And as there is no announcement of them on the forum most members would never know they'd missed them! Probably a good idea to announce when they are sent so people look to see if they are receiving it. This is the second time someone has had to look into it.

Club's like ours are in a different place to 10 years ago and we need to work with where we are today. It is perfectly normal that people will disagree on what is the best way forward, but this committee is doing what it feels is its best to move the club forward while making it sustainable.

Yes things need to move on. No-one is disagreeing with that. But not to listen to what the members are telling you and not living by the clubs constitution is a sad and sorry state of affairs. I didn't talk to everyone at the BL/BMC show but it was striking how many people (That don't really know me well) lambasted the new forum and the clubs apparent direction. I tried to remain neutral but I'm starting to agree with them more and more.

I know just what a poison chalice being on the committee can be and I know many are making great efforts to help secure a future for our cars, but you really need to listen to your members who are the future of the club rather than plow on regardless.

For the general reader who hasn't read the constitution this is what it says is the clubs reason for being:

C. Aims & Objectives

1. To recruit and bring together owners and enthusiasts of the Austin/MG/Vanden Plas/Rover Maestro & Montego.
2. To promote and encourage further interest in the Austin/MG/Vanden Plas/Rover Maestro & Montego models both within and outside the membership of the club.
3. To provide members with information, advice and assistance on matters connected with their cars.
4. To arrange events, tours and social meetings.
5. To afford members such benefits and privileges as it may be possible to arrange.
6. To take every possible action within its power to ensure the long term preservation of as many examples of the Austin/MG/Vanden Plas/Rover Maestro & Montego as possible, including, where necessary, action against government legislation affecting these cars.

I would be interested to see how much the website "modernisation" is costing and also what the outsourcing the publication of Monstro is going to cost too to see if members would regard it as good value for their money.

[Jeanius!]

You can change your details by clicking on 'User Settings' in the drop down under your username in the top right. If you want to change your email address, you can do so in there too, it's just under the 'account' tab.

[E_T_V]

You can change your details by clicking on 'User Settings' in the drop down under your username in the top right. If you want to change your email address, you can do so in there too, it's just under the 'account' tab.

Like I said it doesn't work.

"Cannot change the custom field" is the error message I get when I try to save the user settings page. The same thing happens even if no changes are made!

I can sucessfully change my "status" under the my profile bit but cannot change any other details under the user settings part.

[Jeanius!]

Ok, odd - Thanks! I'll try to replicate and look into it.

[Jeff Turbo]

This started off as a new forum problem but has progressed to, let's bash the club on everything I don't like about it. There will be teething problems that are slowly being sorted out as people inform what problems they have. It's now faster and improving as the bugs issues I assume will be sorted. Unfortunately there are quite a few teething problems

[Tanya]

E_T_V, I'm not going to go through each and every point again, however I disagree with most of what you have said, but not all.

I'll send the Service Bulletins over shortly.

Re-building the website and forum and linking it to the membership database cost £2500, which I feel is very good value for the work involved. While Jeanius! wasn't chosen purely on price, I think it was the cheapest or at least close to another quote. The work required was significant and some of this the members won't see as it's the backend. However, it's one step forward to making the club sustainable.

I won't be commenting of any further 'it awful' etc comments on the website and forum. It is here to stay but of course we want to work through the various teething troubles so we need to know specific issues which we can work on.

While I don't have the costs for outsourcing Monstro with me now, they were discussed at the AGM. From memory, I think it is going to roughly double the cost as producing Monstro is time consuming, time that committee sadly doesn't have.

The members who comment on this thread and you speak to are not the only members of the club, there are countless more who understand the position the club is in and are grateful for the time the committee give in running the club. While I'm not after gratitude, a bit of realism is essential. This club has a small committee the majority of who work so their club duties come alongside work, family lives and other commitments.

Fundamentally the position of the club hasn't changes in the last two or three years and this current committee was voted in at the AGM with the members aware of the general plans of the committee.

Many small clubs like ours are in the same predicament as us and while there is always room for improvement, as a whole we are making steady progress and moving forward. I know that several BL/ARG clubs are having exactly the same issues as we are, so it would be helpful to work with them to find a way forward that is sustainable and can built resilience into the clubs.

[Sussex Pete]

So what you are really saying it that it'll never happen as active membership is in decline.

This is one point I need to dispel E_T_V, When I took over the role of membership secretary in the middle of last year, the membership was in the 230's. I don't know if this was a low point or not, but considering the low number of our cars that are about and with other social media contact areas being available, I felt that this was a fair number. Today however, our membership is in the 280's. So, far from being in decline, it has grown by over 20% in just over a year. Hopefully that is recognition by most, that the club is moving in the right direction and want to be on board.

Unless of course, by active membership, you are trying to use the number of people using the forum as your indicator. In which case I would treat that as misleading, considering your overall view.

[Beaker]

Re-building the website and forum and linking it to the membership database cost £2500, which I feel is very good value for the work involved. While Jeanius! wasn't chosen purely on price, I think it was the cheapest or at least close to another quote. The work required was significant and some of this the members won't see as it's the backend. However, it's one step forward to making the club sustainable.

How many companies quoted? It seems an awful lot of money (and I am speaking from experience as I have just been involved in a tender for a new corporate website) for a service that has not been entirely delivered correctly. Can you please explain what has been done to the backend? What was significant? Why was a server move yet again required?

My quick sums come to around £700 (see below) excluding any backend work of which I don't know what it is.

New CMS/Template - £0 - £40 depending on if you decide to purchase a more professional one.
Time to install/move content 1-2 days Est £2-300
VB5 license - £160 - There are cheaper/better/alternatives
Forum upgrade 1/2 day, 1/2 day testing/seamless integration with CMS template. Est £100-£200

[Sussex Pete]

Ok, odd - Thanks! I'll try to replicate and look into it.

I tried to update my phone number and got the same error message

[Jeanius!]

I tried to update my phone number and got the same error message

Thanks. I've been told it is fixed in 5.2.3 along with lots of other fixes. I will apply that at a convenient point next week.

[Jeff Turbo]

Forum is much quicker and seems to be working ok for me now. Hopefully the teething troubles are reducing

[Tanya]

How many companies quoted? It seems an awful lot of money (and I am speaking from experience as I have just been involved in a tender for a new corporate website) for a service that has not been entirely delivered correctly. Can you please explain what has been done to the backend? What was significant? Why was a server move yet again required?

My quick sums come to around £700 (see below) excluding any backend work of which I don't know what it is.

New CMS/Template - £0 - £40 depending on if you decide to purchase a more professional one.
Time to install/move content 1-2 days Est £2-300
VB5 license - £160 - There are cheaper/better/alternatives
Forum upgrade 1/2 day, 1/2 day testing/seamless integration with CMS template. Est £100-£200

I disagree with your pricing and in my opinion you are very significantly out. This, coupled with your apparent lack of knowledge around security leads me to question your depth knowledge around websites, forums etc.

Whilst my knowledge on how websites, forums etc work is poor, I have had to procure one for my business and also a charity which I chair. I know the needs of my business and likewise for the charity so the quotations are built on that.

The M&MOC's committee recieved three quotes and spoke to each company in detail. We had specific requirements which the committee had agreed. You were not part of the committee meetings or the tendering process so will not be privy to the details which are important when tendering.

The committee is accountable to its members which is the basis on which we work. However, we are elected by the members to do the job and it is unreasonable and unworkable to have each and every decision and part of the decisions questioned at each point. The AGM is an opportunity for the members to review the committee and its decisions and elect a different committee should they see fit to.

I will not be answering any further questions around the website's procurement or any other decision to do with the website. In my opinion I have given more than adequate responses. However, any member unhappy about this decision or any other the committee makes has the right to call an EGM and the details about how to do this can be found in the constitution - http://maestro.org.uk/about-us/constitution/

I am committed to listening to the quiet majority not just the vocal minority. As I have commented before it is natural to mainly hear from those who are unhappy; those who are happy with the club and website etc are just getting on with it. That said, I am frequently thanked by members for the effort and way the committee run the club and often complimented by those working in the classic car world who can appreciate the vision the committee has for the club.

Of course we want to continue to hear about glitches with the website and we work through teething difficulties so specific problems accompanied by details are welcome and needed. For example 'too much white space' wouldn't be one, but 'I can't upload photos to x thread' would be. I will start a new thread just for this being clear that the purpose of the thread is for reporting on glitches.