New site and forum going well

Just wanted to say how pleased I am at the way the new forum has taken off and is being visited and used.
Lots of posts and new and old forum users joining in and good feel for the club again. We needed to move with the times and I think now we have caught up with where we needed to be.

Some forums have very few new posts or turnover of information, where as this has started off really well. I know some don't like the members only area but if the club is to survive it needs this. Having the open areas too gives everyone chance to contribiute and discuss things as they wish to

Long may it continue and well done again captain Slug for all your efforts.

Bobster

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Originally Posted by Sando

Long may it continue and well done again captain Slug for all your efforts.
Bobster

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Without Ian's quick action the momentum could have been lost.

Rob,
It amazes me how little 'traffic' there is on other forums. You're right about that.
I suppose it says something about the SEC members and other regular Stratos forum users?

Guys you only have to look at the site details I posted the other night to see that we are getting lots of page visits. Now the forum is working ok, and when I have a bit more time I will start to work back on the main site, I could do with some nice pics please.......

I would like to add a translate button on the site as we have so many people other than English speaking who look at us, (93 countries last month) so I'm looking into it. Also I want to add some movement onto the main site as well, a slide show of pics etc, nothing worse than visiting after 3-4 weeks and see the same old info......

And the Regailia site needs to be sorted, so will members please start giving ideas as to what Regalia they would like, and what they think will sell, also a price point you would buy at?
No point having say coats at £50 if people only want to spend £30 as an example.......

Will have some more news in the next newsletter if we get any replies....

I have to say you lot are really bad at suppling any material to be published....so far for the next eddition we have 1 item. Still wont take long to send that out..!

Ian I have a couple of articles ongoing which I'd like to keep working on until the deadline. Can you let me know your 'ideal closing date' for sending in.
Cheers,
Mick

Hi there,

Really nice, I was having a look to the forum trying to learn with your experiences with the different replica kits, I hope have the necessary permissions in order to follow closely your builds!! :)


Thanks!
Cheers, Deltona

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Originally Posted by catswhiskers

Ian I have a couple of articles ongoing which I'd like to keep working on until the deadline. Can you let me know your 'ideal closing date' for sending in.
Cheers,
Mick

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Thanks Mick 8th Dec please. thank you..

I always use the 'What's New' button to follow the chat. I suppose this approach means that active threads get longer, but doesn't start new ones. When I get more time on the car, I hope to help trigger new threads.
Ian, I'm amazed at what you have achieved in getting the new website up and running ; this has saved the community from disintegration - thank you and well done! It really is appreciated.

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Originally Posted by ChrisCar6

Ian, I'm amazed at what you have achieved in getting the new website up and running ; this has saved the community from disintegration -

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I only put the tools in place, its you folks that use them, without participation it would be worthless..,,

Thats why I would like to find out why the newsletter is so badly supported, maybe members dont want a newsletter?
Myself I think its a very valuable asset for the club to have, I wish we could just get some opinion's fed back to us.

Ian - Do not be so modest........................without you I think we would all now be lost and scattered to the four corners of the universe trying to find some direction. It is great now that this belongs to the club, I know that a lot more people will be prepared to make more technical information available.

As for the news letter it is great and I think it still should be produced......................

Ian........... I would just like to echo all the comments made by the guy's above

well done and thank you !!

Phil

I thank you all for your comments........

Andy I like the "As for the news letter it is great and I think it still should be produced......................"

This is not a moan just trying to find out where we are going wrong.....
What I'm trying to say or get at is that very few members take part in the newsletter, we have only the same few who send in articles, only 1 person took part in the compertitions, no one has replied to the photo caption questions, and we have yet to receive any articles for the next one. (Mick is doing some I know, thank you). We have asked for Photos and lets face it most of us have a photo and a story that goes with it, but even that request has failed to deliver a picture.

How can you continue to produce an item that you receive no content for? (Getting content has always been hard I know.)


As A club we have made a commitment to produce 4 a year, maybe the content needs to change, I dont know.... but in its the present form it does not appear to be hitting the mark, it's just not getting a responce from people, folk are just not engaging with it.

Lets have a discussion on what the members want from a news letter, and are they prepared to commit to support it with content, as we have said before it does not need to always be about the car's..... those that build and drive them are just as intresting as the car's.

Hi Ian,
Having been a previous editor, I fully understand your feelings of frustration. It was always a moan of mine that too many people were prepared to sit back and let others do the work. But then, I also came to the realisation that maybe other factors played a part in the reluctance to contribute. Many people are very modest about their goals and acheivements and don't like 'bragging' about them. Others simply seem to think that they cannot write anything that would be of interest to anyone else. We need to break down this misconception. Everyones experiences can be of interest to the members whether it be comical, serious, despair or anything else. This is, or ought to be, a shared community where we can all learn from others experiences, mistakes, innovations etc.
I can't remember a time when there were as many builds being undertaken at the same time so surely, the pages should be bursting with stories.
I shall certainly keep atricles flowing in regarding my build experiences and whether I do it right or wrong, I'm willing to share that for the benefit of others.
Remember we need to learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.
Rant over, thanks again Ian.

Mick

Hi Ian

This is just my 2 penny worth on the newsletters.

I am a very new member here (appear to have found the club just as the new website/forum went live). The Forum is invaluable in getting dialogues going and being able to contact folk who can help etc. The newsletter should be viewed as something different, for me something to take 15 mins or so out away from a screen and read an interesting article.

I have also now been a member now of the LMC for a couple of years and receive their newsletter which regularly has reprints of articles from years ago. So as an idea for future issues, maybe there are some articles in old publications that folk know of which could be included? (I know copyright issues will have to be sorted, but worth looking at). One I remember from the 70s in CCC was a drivers impression in a UK rally, not technical, but at the time made you wish you were there. I realise long time members will not be exactly excited about this prospect and if I am in a small minority as a newmember, then maybe not appropriate.

I also assume that I am not the only new member who is unsure of the full history/evolution of the Strat replica market and the companies/characters involved in it. Also what different parts were used and what folk use now as the older ones cease to be available. There are afterall a fair few books charting the evolution of the original cars over the 10 years or so they were used in anger, but as far as I know nothing on the next 30 years and the evolution of the replica market. (I know I run the risk of being shot down over this as there may well be something out there, but not that I know of at present. Admittedly, I have only managed a few of the back issues of the newsletter so far).

I realise long time members will not be exactly excited about this prospect and if I am in a small minority as a newmember, then maybe not appropriate, but you did ask for ideas....

However I hope this is useful, and would be happy to help given my very limited knowledge of the Club and the Stratos market at present.

Peter

Hello Peter,

All Ideas are welcome and you wont be shot down by me........ if you need to see the past newsletters then dont forget that all of them are included in your membership under their own section on the forum, you will need Adobe reader on your PC to view them but that is free to download from www.adobe.com.

Hi Ian

I have been working my way slowly through them when I manage to grab a minute. I think it was a great idea to have them available for folk like me who are new to the club to see what has gone before and to see how things have evolved. One question I do have if I dare ask is, what happened with the old forum. I have seen some references to it and sounds like you may have been held to ransom and still have no access to its contents?

Peter

It was privately owned and not a club resource, and it looks as if the owner didn't keep up the payments, and the host has closed it down.

WRT newsletters, I haven't read the most recent one yet! I have bits of articles going round in my head, but the time to commit to paper/doc file eludes me. I had hoped that VR software would be the answer, but it isn't!

I will be sending an illustrated technical article for the next newsletter.

I think the newsletter is the chronological history of the club, so it should carry on.

There's something about an electronic version of a newsletter compared to one printed on paper.
For some reason I don't bother to read the electronic version, or tend to skip through it. Maybe that's just me?
I do realise that a printed newsletter is not workable because of the expensive and labour.

You can't read an electronic version on the crapper - that's the trouble!

Thats why we let you print your own andrex...!

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Originally Posted by ChrisCar6

You can't read an electronic version on the crapper - that's the trouble!

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Could you project it onto the wall?
The newsletter I mean.

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Originally Posted by ProtoTipo

Could you project it onto the wall?
The newsletter I mean.

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Thats ok for a No 1, But for a No2 it needs to be on the floor !!!

Mel