Florida G Club Reorganization
That looks good but im not shure if the directors are going to want a forum based website or just a normal website. I believe we should go ahead and get management established first which will be determined by Friday 5/6 and we can go ahead and debate on from there but to me it looks legit.
Good thinking. If that works go ahead and ask any shop or whatever if they would also be interested in a club sponsorship basically offering the same thing. 10% or whatever off of goods or services for any PAYING FGC members (with proof of membership). Once we have eough sponsors that will make the nominal amount for FGC membership worth it. Heck IMO the 10% off at Lokey alone should make the $50 or so worth paying. And yes I know EVERYONE takes advantage of the discount even though they are not paid members but that will not be the case in the not so distant future.
Yes, this was how it was in the past, if anyone clicked the link to the bylaws, it's all in there.
All good ideas and brainstorming by everyone, keep it up and maybe the club will finally get back up to par
Also, i would like to approach some shops to see about sponsorships... do some research into it. Are there any legal documents i can bring with me to show that im not some punk kid, and that this is a club recognized by the state of florida? Would the shop have to sign any legal documents to be recognized as a sponsor, or is it just their word?
That's an interesting idea.
On the note of a site-based forum:
I know some are going to have the opinion of "We've already got G35Driver, and we're on sooo many forums already... etc..."
But, remember it's a LOT easier to customize in every way, not just look/layout, but also to have different levels of access.
For example, right now the ability to have special access to private forums for FGC members only, or for directors to have their own board, etc... all that is entirely dependent on an IB owned forum that isn't in any way managed or owned by the FGC.
And if Driver is down, the FGC forum is down.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way suggesting that the FGC should discontinue use of this site. It's a great way to get the word out.
It's also plenty easy to put a list of links on the home-page of the FGC site, on it's own forum, or both that read something like "FGC @ G35Driver.com" "FGC @ OurVQ.com" etc... that link to the FGC area on each forum.
I know some are going to have the opinion of "We've already got G35Driver, and we're on sooo many forums already... etc..."
But, remember it's a LOT easier to customize in every way, not just look/layout, but also to have different levels of access.
For example, right now the ability to have special access to private forums for FGC members only, or for directors to have their own board, etc... all that is entirely dependent on an IB owned forum that isn't in any way managed or owned by the FGC.
And if Driver is down, the FGC forum is down.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way suggesting that the FGC should discontinue use of this site. It's a great way to get the word out.
It's also plenty easy to put a list of links on the home-page of the FGC site, on it's own forum, or both that read something like "FGC @ G35Driver.com" "FGC @ OurVQ.com" etc... that link to the FGC area on each forum.
And on the topic of perks for being a member...
Discounts on food and beverage may be something to work on. Like discounts at certain restaurants whether we have a meet there or not. I'm sure Quaker Steak and Lube would appreciate the repeat customers as the club grows (or regenerates).
Discounts on food and beverage may be something to work on. Like discounts at certain restaurants whether we have a meet there or not. I'm sure Quaker Steak and Lube would appreciate the repeat customers as the club grows (or regenerates).
Also of note... we may want to seek other discounts for the club that aren't so geographically limited.
For example: I don't really care about powdercoating discounts from a place that's over two hours away, unless they cut such steep discounts that I can get stuff done AND SHIPPED significantly cheaper than locally... and I seriously doubt that.
(I'm not "bad-mouthing" anyone at all, I think any and all discounts are great, I'm just using a that as an example)
But I do know of at least a couple of vendors that would probably be willing to give a club discount even though they're not local at all.
Another thought I had would be using funds gathered from dues to give prizes on a monthly/yearly/bi-monthly/whatever basis.
Doesn't have to be a huge prize, maybe just a $10 paypal giftcard, or $20 outback card, or something like that, just to give people motivation to be members.
Obviously all active members would automatically be entered for the drawing.
For example: I don't really care about powdercoating discounts from a place that's over two hours away, unless they cut such steep discounts that I can get stuff done AND SHIPPED significantly cheaper than locally... and I seriously doubt that.
(I'm not "bad-mouthing" anyone at all, I think any and all discounts are great, I'm just using a that as an example)
But I do know of at least a couple of vendors that would probably be willing to give a club discount even though they're not local at all.
Another thought I had would be using funds gathered from dues to give prizes on a monthly/yearly/bi-monthly/whatever basis.
Doesn't have to be a huge prize, maybe just a $10 paypal giftcard, or $20 outback card, or something like that, just to give people motivation to be members.
Obviously all active members would automatically be entered for the drawing.
k just trying to respond to all of the ideas posted:
meets - for the guys who organize meets, dont stress with getting official sponsors yet. start as simply as possible then we'll worry about that later. calling ahead to a restaurant and talking to the manager or even better, going up and seeing them can help a lot. let them know you plan on bringing a large group and would be interested in parking and possibly a small discount.
id cards - we had membership cards from the old club setup. again, keep it simple. these will have to be printed up on an individual basis so going through a shop would be a pain. honestly the best bet would be to have someone print them out at home and laminate them. as far as info, you just need their name/nick/club # really to show as proof to sponsors. i dont think we need to get fancy to worry about people counterfeiting them. if we really want, then maybe a pic of the person and/or their car would work. but remember people change cars.
forums - i understand how easy it would be to start a new forums but do you really want to pull away activity? now we have people from other forums who post on here because its attached to driver. as soon as you move it, you will see a drop in activity and i dont think that outweighs the other benefits. what we want on our new site: club info, how to join, members list, pic section, calendar. everything should be easy to do and if the calendar is a pain, then why dont we simply list events in chronological order? if you want to submit an event, just email our webmaster (ashley?) with info/date/link/etc.
meets - for the guys who organize meets, dont stress with getting official sponsors yet. start as simply as possible then we'll worry about that later. calling ahead to a restaurant and talking to the manager or even better, going up and seeing them can help a lot. let them know you plan on bringing a large group and would be interested in parking and possibly a small discount.
id cards - we had membership cards from the old club setup. again, keep it simple. these will have to be printed up on an individual basis so going through a shop would be a pain. honestly the best bet would be to have someone print them out at home and laminate them. as far as info, you just need their name/nick/club # really to show as proof to sponsors. i dont think we need to get fancy to worry about people counterfeiting them. if we really want, then maybe a pic of the person and/or their car would work. but remember people change cars.
forums - i understand how easy it would be to start a new forums but do you really want to pull away activity? now we have people from other forums who post on here because its attached to driver. as soon as you move it, you will see a drop in activity and i dont think that outweighs the other benefits. what we want on our new site: club info, how to join, members list, pic section, calendar. everything should be easy to do and if the calendar is a pain, then why dont we simply list events in chronological order? if you want to submit an event, just email our webmaster (ashley?) with info/date/link/etc.
some ideas from the voting thread:
putting someone down for multiple roles is useless. a pres/vp role is higher than director and they can easily do the same responsibilities like organize meets. also, i think we want to have at least a couple officers in the more active cities to help out. and because of distance, you still want someone to be there in all active areas. something like:
orlando - 2-3 officers?
tampa/clearwater - 2 officers? all the meets are usually joint right?
jax - 2 officers?
nw fl - 1 officer
putting someone down for multiple roles is useless. a pres/vp role is higher than director and they can easily do the same responsibilities like organize meets. also, i think we want to have at least a couple officers in the more active cities to help out. and because of distance, you still want someone to be there in all active areas. something like:
orlando - 2-3 officers?
tampa/clearwater - 2 officers? all the meets are usually joint right?
jax - 2 officers?
nw fl - 1 officer
id cards - we had membership cards from the old club setup. again, keep it simple. these will have to be printed up on an individual basis so going through a shop would be a pain. honestly the best bet would be to have someone print them out at home and laminate them. as far as info, you just need their name/nick/club # really to show as proof to sponsors. i dont think we need to get fancy to worry about people counterfeiting them. if we really want, then maybe a pic of the person and/or their car would work. but remember people change cars.
Anyone with a Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android phone, or iPhone has easy access to free barcode/QR reader apps.
Basically, all you have to do is pull out the phone, point the camera at the barcode (or QR) and it will direct the phone to whatever website URL is encoded into the barcode. (I'm thinking something like "floridag35club.com/members/123456")
That page would show, not only all the info about that member, but also show whether that member was currently active or not. (and therefore entitled to whatever club discount, for example)
Also, I think it would be cool (and I can design the interface to do this) to have the member cards printable from the site.
In other words, once a member is added, they can log onto the site with a username and password and print their own card if they want or if they lose their card at any time... or some of the officers in the club (using the same on-site interface) can print out a member card for anyone.
forums - i understand how easy it would be to start a new forums but do you really want to pull away activity? now we have people from other forums who post on here because its attached to driver. as soon as you move it, you will see a drop in activity and i dont think that outweighs the other benefits.
I think the FGC section of G35Driver would remain largely the same.
For example, threads on events and whatnot would definitely need to remain here, even if there was a similar/identical thread on the site forum.
Just like when there's a meet like The Run, threads get posted both here and on My350Z.
Also, I personally think if there was a forum on the FGC site, it should only be FGC members. Not open for just anyone to join. That would allow the FGC's public relation kinda stuff to remain on other forums like this, and also keep moderation easy.
But even if we didn't do a forum for all the members, there should at the very least be a forum for the officers. One that isn't visible to anyone except those officers, not the public, not general FGC members, etc...
Reason being simple... I KNOW that almost every single person in this thread is holding out some of the things they would like to say.
I know I've personally held out a lot.
And it's information that would be relevant and valuable to the other people in this thread, however it's not for the rest of the world to read out in the wide open.
Granted, that type of private communication could be accomplished with in-person meetings, private/conference calls, email, PM, etc... but none of those are quite as easy/flexible/elegant as the simple forum/thread format.
I also don't want anyone getting the idea that I'm jockeying for this, or that I'm arguing with Lyndon. Just a discussion.
what we want on our new site: club info, how to join, members list, pic section, calendar. everything should be easy to do and if the calendar is a pain, then why dont we simply list events in chronological order? if you want to submit an event, just email our webmaster (ashley?) with info/date/link/etc.
If we had an on-site forum, even if it was only for the officers, it would make the addition and management of a calendar of events super easy, and it would also allow each regional director to manage the calendar and add/organize events, not just one person.
Also needed to ask, who is the current webmaster, and did you guys need my help in that department?
Last edited by NFSP G35; May 3, 2011 at 02:56 PM.