fvrc website info..

[jlinzmaier]

JMO but I'm very much agaist having a R2R formal club forum. I think it's important we have our own domain.

It sounds like you guys are planning several more face to face meetings. Is there really a need for this?? Look at how many people wanted to go to the first (and most important) meeting but simply had other important obligations. Once a set of members is established why can't we discuss this on-line in one specific location. I think we'll get far more input from many more members. Yes, the arguement against that is that there will be many people with different interests and it will be difficult to come to a decision that all will agree on, but didn't we all like the MAJORITY RULES idea for making decisions??

Jeremy

 

[jlinzmaier]

By limiting decision making to those who can attend these meetings means you'll be getting decsion making done by only the select few who can attend. That's entirely opposite of majority rule.

Jeremy

 

[Bri Guy]

Jeremy, thats why I asked if we are going to re-write the bylaws after we become a real club. Seems there has already been decisions made, w/o the majority of us.

 

[NewMelee]

I was wondering how long it would take for this to start........

 

[heliguy71]

+1 on that

 

[heliguy71]

If we have to vote on something we can always vote online for people who cannot attend all meetings so only a few people cannot always make decisions.that is the fair way to do it.:wink:

 

[Fishcrazy06]

I was wondering how long it would take for this to begin as well. Went a little longer than the last time we tried to do this. It was agreed upon earlier we would have a face to face for everything and it was agreed upon. Jeremy you were on board for it too. Now that things have happened you no longer want to be on R2R. I think the best way to accomplish this is to do these things face to face. There was a thread up for almost a week about the meeting and asking if anyone had something they would like to discuss to speak up. The only one who originally spoke up was me on the Membership dues which then had the thread start to active again.

To conduct a formal organization of a club this needs to be done face to face among members. I too thought about the online thing but after talking with some people and thinking about it its just not a good idea. The reason we are going to be having a "Board" of people and term lengths is to have a variety and then not one person or group will be making the soul decisions for the whole club.

There is going to be a diverse opinion on a lot of things but to get this rolling I think people need to meet face to face and hash everything out. From my understanding the first meeting was a quite successful meeting!

 

[jlinzmaier]

I was wondering how long it would take for this to begin as well. Went a little longer than the last time we tried to do this. It was agreed upon earlier we would have a face to face for everything and it was agreed upon. Jeremy you were on board for it too. Now that things have happened you no longer want to be on R2R. I think the best way to accomplish this is to do these things face to face. There was a thread up for almost a week about the meeting and asking if anyone had something they would like to discuss to speak up. The only one who originally spoke up was me on the Membership dues which then had the thread start to active again.

To conduct a formal organization of a club this needs to be done face to face among members. I too thought about the online thing but after talking with some people and thinking about it its just not a good idea. The reason we are going to be having a "Board" of people and term lengths is to have a variety and then not one person or group will be making the soul decisions for the whole club.

There is going to be a diverse opinion on a lot of things but to get this rolling I think people need to meet face to face and hash everything out. From my understanding the first meeting was a quite successful meeting!

I was never on board with having ALL decisions to be made in a face to face meet!!! In nearly all of my posts I clearly indicated and emphasized that ALL should have a vote and there was much interest in the intial indication of MAJORITY RULE WITH EVERYONE HAVING A CHANCE TO vote on decisions. I was on board with the first meeting with a few people getting the groundwork going, but I don't see any reason for every decision to be made in a face to face meeting. That's silly.

I'm sure the first meet was successful. Thank you to all who were able to attend and work out some details.However, I still have yet to see any of what occurred or see any decisions that have been made.

Eric, can you please show me where I indicated that I was in support of ALL decsions being made only by a face to face meeting????

Also, I never indicated that I preferred our "formal club forum" to be on R2R and still stand by that. My opinion is that we need our own entity on an independant website. I wonder what others think?? It would be good to get input from others don't you think. Or are we going to strictly live by the concept that you only have a say if you attend a meeting at which the topic was discussed?? What most interested me was Johns initial re-introduction to this topic which emphasized an environment of DEMOCRACY AND MAJORITY RULE CONCEPT. You can't have a majority rule concept if not all members are allowed to vote.

Jeremy

 

[jlinzmaier]

If we have to vote on something we can always vote online for people who cannot attend all meetings so only a few people cannot always make decisions.that is the fair way to do it.:wink:

+1

Someone please show me why this is a bad idea!!!!

Jeremy

 

[NewMelee]

If we don't have people get together and make an agenda then how to we put things to a vote?? With 20 different options?? NO it won't work that way. I DO believe that we need to have a vote on things, I DO only want to have this work as a democracy, and I DO believe that there needs to be a board to gather information - create necessary options - then and only then propose those options to the membership. I am not going to get petty about this, but a democracy with out organization is just anarchy.

All I was worried about is that Dave takes too much of his own time and then we all go a different route. Again I like what he did but I was worried about the horse being put before the cart. Thank you again Dave for looking into it and working on a working model of a site. My point is when we met, we said that there needed to be another meet to discuss a list of things further. THAT was only to be done after John got the effects (minutes) of the last meeting typed up and posted for all to see and feedback was attained.

I am not looking to pick a fight with anyone but that was my understanding from before we even met together.

 

[drew.michael]

IMO you guys need to keep this as "non-political" as possible. All the bickering on here is only going to drive people further away, myself included.

 

[Fishcrazy06]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jhildebrand
Thank you for the well thought out response.

There does however have to be face to face meetings for the officers of the club for it to work and be effective. Virtually every type of organization is set up that way to conduct business.

I agree entirely and completely understand that aspect.




Quote:
However, we can easily discuss new business at meetings with officers and any interested parties attending and post a voting poll the next day for paying members only to make the final decision.
IMO this aspect of the clubs management would be critical. Allowing everyone to have a say in the decision making is key. Limiting the decision making to only those that attend a meeting would very much leave out a vast majority of people that would like to participate and have their say. Again, just my opinion.





Quote:
In the spirit of complete transparency, all info would be available on the website from every meeting.
Spectacular idea!






Quote:

It is my intention to do the bulk of the work on the forum - hash out the constitution, mission statement, bylaws, member requirements, ect...
Very kind of you to put that much effort into getting this going!






Quote:
You are totally correct in saying that doing this at a face to face meeting would exclude some people from having a vote that counts. How's that?
You lost me on this one John??? I just want some way for everyone to have a say and prevent a situation in which a select few are making all the decisions.






Quote:
Well, I guess next I'll post a thread for interested parties and start a running list. We'll put a two week window to get on it and then start with the nuts and bolts questions of what we want this club to be and handle one topic at a time. By then I can have an outline of a typical constitution, bylaws, mission, etc... and we can as a group revise it according to what want to see. This should be easy. I have the printed structure and code of conduct for about a dozen clubs and most of them are so similar you can't tell them apart
You've got me on board!! Appreciate your efforts!

Jeremy

John stated a couple of different times on here that there would be face to face meetings. After the face to face then there would be things put to a vote! At the bottom of that thread you say I'm on board and appreciate your efforts.

ERIC

 

[customcolor]

i only worked on the frame work and still am of what could be our club site....LIKE I HAVE SAID BE FOR...IT IS A BETA SITE JUST TO SHOW IT BE FOR WE DO IT!!!!! I dont think there was any thing wrong with me doing what i did....at least most of the work would be done already when we deside if this is going to happen....then all i would have to do is dave every thing i did and transfer it to where ever it needs to go...that way it can get used right away! aka...getting the bugs out of it first....

remember the BETA site is very changable....i can almost change any thing on it...

all i know is im not going to pay to be a member of a club with no name first....

WHY IS THIS NAME THING SO HARD TO DO WITH OUT MAKING PEOPLE BICKER?

i want this to happen and i want to be a part of it....and i want to get things done....

this all reminds me about the calender issue that we had on rc!! all i did is try to do some thing nice for the CLUB and i start some thing that i was not even trying to do.....

i just want this to get going about the name thing and the site so the rest can get worked out over there. then poles can be put up and chosen apon by people that live in this area and are members of that site only and by payed members..(just need to get that figured out to how to link paypal to a site also so when some one comes a payed member they can do more on the site)..remember there are people reading this site that can post and vote on poles that are where ever in the world.


remember i am trying to help by doing cheap alternitives to get things rolling quickly....and Squid...vbulliton is not always needed to do forums...there are others out there and i chose Simple Machines Forum for software...hech for free i think it is well worth it...for a local club i think cheep and working should be great....saves some cash for things like meters, bus trips, and all the other things every one else wants...

remember price for fatcow for one year is $90 (thats what i am paying)that includes space and dot com.
im just saying that for $80 less a year for the first 2 years i can add a domain to my billing account...yes that means i am going to pay for the first 2 years of the web site and also work on it if most agree to that....
we are not all made of money and $80 could pay for alot of gas in a bus for a trip to where ever...

 

[jlinzmaier]

If we don't have people get together and make an agenda then how to we put things to a vote?? With 20 different options?? NO it won't work that way. I DO believe that we need to have a vote on things, I DO only want to have this work as a democracy, and I DO believe that there needs to be a board to gather information - create necessary options - then and only then propose those options to the membership. I am not going to get petty about this, but a democracy with out organization is just anarchy.

All I was worried about is that Dave takes too much of his own time and then we all go a different route. Again I like what he did but I was worried about the horse being put before the cart. Thank you again Dave for looking into it and working on a working model of a site. My point is when we met, we said that there needed to be another meet to discuss a list of things further. THAT was only to be done after John got the effects (minutes) of the last meeting typed up and posted for all to see and feedback was attained.

I am not looking to pick a fight with anyone but that was my understanding from before we even met together.

Yes I agree with you Ryan. The difference in what I'm hearing is that you stated the group will get together to create an agenda and provide a list of options to vote on. The impression that I'm getting from some posts is that decisions will continue to be made at face to face meetings and there won't be as much say given to those who can't attend. I may very well be reading into things too much, but this concept worries me greatly and I want to be sure that everyone has equal say in what occurs.

As much as people may initially disagree, there can be very good dialogue, information sharing, as well as decision making through the internet without a formal face to face meeting. Let me give an example:

There is a nationwide shortage of intensive care doctors. To remedy this situation various hospitals have utilized off site intensivists. This means that the doctors manage a critically ill patient, place orders, prescribe treatments, consult with other doctors, and entirely manage the care of a critically ill patient who could be well over 1,000 miles away. This has been an extremely effective means of resource management and more and more hosptitals are utilizing these means of critical care patient management. If a doctor can treat a patient from a thousand miles away, it's rediculous to think we can't make decisions like voting on a name, website, members dues etc... through a common forum until we get our own common ground established.

Now, I may very well be jumping the gun, but I'm strongly afraid of too much power being given to only those who can attend meetings. Some will say that if you wanted to speak up you would make more of an effort to attend the meetings. That's not true at all. Many of us very much wanted to attend this last meeting but simply couldn't. I couldn't even get out of bed that day because I was having such severe back spasms.

Hopefully things will get cleared up when John gets a chance to post the minutes.

There was a thread up for almost a week about the meeting and asking if anyone had something they would like to discuss to speak up.

Prior to the previous meeting, those who couldn't attend were offered a chance to give their input. Many did but that wasn't, by any means, a vote nor can it even come close to the same level of importance. Their is no indication of what importance our input was given. That means we have only a personal trust factor to rely on that our input was taken into consideration. I do trust the people at that meeting, but I'm making the point that providing my "input" is a far cry from actually having a vote.

At this point I'm going to entirely drop the subject and won't say another word until I see Johns minutes or until I'm acutally given a chance to vote on the decisions being made. It sounds like there are intentions of first creating a paid member list then allowing some voting. I hope this is the direction things are going.

Just to clarify. My adament intention on having an independant website vs hosting the "formal club" forum on R2R is becuase there are some people on RC who won't participate if the club is only on R2R. I know this seems silly, but when a lot of people moved from RC to R2R there was a divide created and a bit of animosity created between those loyal to RC and those loyal to R2R. If we have a neutral independant web site we can hopefully negate that animosity and recruit more members. Not trying to skew any decisions that have been made, just clarifying my previous indication as to why I felt we shouldn't host on the R2R forum.

Jeremy

 

[siropa]

Let me first state i've always been in favor of a formal club. I think the reasons have been well stated in other threads here.

I've been purposely staying out of the discussion about this on R2R for several reasons, but mainly because last time I got quite the verbal beatdown for chiming in on the subject. Besides the public posts about it, I got a number of nasty private messages over on RC. Left a pretty bad taste about the whole subject and I didn't really want to go there again. Plus I also find it quite ironic that this time some of the main drivers for the formal club were some of the loudest objectors over on RC...

I too find the idea that much of the topics can't be hashed out online ridiculous. Given how wide of a geographical distribution we have in the club, it is hard for people to always make it to meetings. Not to mention the wide range of work schedules. From people who never work weekends, to others that always do. 3rd shifters etc. There isn't a time possible that will always work. But the web site is always there. If someone chooses not to chime in or vote in a thread, well then they lost out but they had the chance to give an opinion.

It would be nice if meeting notes or minutes would be posted about the first gathering. It seems the decision to talk about the website separately was made there and there was no announcement of that decision until the flak over Dave's beta site brought it out. That really does raise the fear to a lot of people that a small group is deciding things for the larger majority. That isn't how it should be.

I also believe that even the appearance of a small group making the decisions will drive a lot of people away from the formal club. Historically we've shown there are a lot of lurkers in this club and those are the ones you'll likely lose.

Bill

 

[kesslerkid01]

ok why can't we all just get along? this is all a bunch of petty arguing over what is really nothing nobody has read the minutes from the last meeting or anything!it is all grtting out of hand already!!!I was at the meeting and all we did was try and start a set of guide lines to start this club out we talked about a few things as will happen at a face to face meeting what if this and what if that.????how do we set up anything with out starting somewhere every thing that was done will be voted on and is set up that it can be changed it is jsut a guide to start with!
I for one am getting turned off by all the fight of a few and why would any one want to join if all every one doe's is fight about nothing !!!
just my point of view
Kris

 

[kesslerkid01]

John will be posting the minutes from the meeting but remember we all have a life and families also give him a little bit i am sure they will be up here soon!

 

[jlinzmaier]

I've read this entire thread several more times.

My apologies if I offended anyone. I trust the work that the group of you had done on the 30th. My first impression after a few posts on this thread was that there were more meetings to be set up for significant decision making. Now after reading through again it seems the intent for these meetings, is to create a few OPTIONS of various aspects for paid members to vote on. THAT'S GREAT!! I'm all for that. I was just very worried that significant decisions were being made without the input of those who couldn't attend the meetings.

I understand that everyone has obligations and I'm sure John is in as much of a hurry to get the minutes posted as we are all anxious to read them. This thought does however reinforce my concern for allowing all to individually vote on options vs making decsions at meetings. Those same obligations will inevitably prevent many (or most) from attending specific meetings.

Others voiced concern that it seemed that decisions were being made without input from those who didn't attend the meeting and that's why I pursued this topic so thoroughly.

Jeremy

 

[Fishcrazy06]

Its just that I think we need to get some of the details hashed out face to face. The face to face meetings are to get things rolling from my understanding and get a somewhat of a group foundation laid out. Then We can start with the voting and get things rolling.

Dave I mean this by no offense and don't want you to take it the wrong way. I think we need to have the website hosting done completely seperate from ones own personal account. If something was to happen to the one having it on his domain or account that one said individual could get upset and lock up the whole thing and take all of our information from that said website. I am not saying you would do this but its something everyone should think of. Hence why I stated earlier I don't think it would be a good idea. We all knew from the front the expensive aspect was going to be the website side of it and most if not all the money would go towards that. Take a look at what happened to WRS last year or the year before. Just need to protect ourselves as a group.

Once again Dave I am not saying you would do this but this is the concern some have is all.

Eric

 

[officerbogus]

IMO you guys need to keep this as "non-political" as possible. All the bickering on here is only going to drive people further away, myself included.

+ 1 on this