REDWOOD RV CLUB

[TravelinAnderson]

The reason I questioned the factory's control over the website is because of this forum. I don't know if it's the admins lack of involvement or weaknesses in the Web Wiz Forums software but the spam and lame search engine and limited topic categories are serious issues that need addressed sooner rather than later. If Redwood can't or won't correct these issues, we should have the option to create a discussion forum of our own on the website.

[5th_Time]

Steve, I was thinking about that. The forum on this site is, to quote Dave,primarily a "waiting room"for pre-sales& pre-delivery people like us. I think there should also be an "owners forum" on our sitewhere our valuable "technical discussions" and "how to" threads can be filed in an organized way. We've all put a lot of descriptive effort into solution-type postings. It's very difficult to find postings from others later on.



I don't think an owner's forum, with threads such as elections, rallies and other subjects of limited interest to non-owners would compete with the types of discussions on Redwood's forum.


Just one thought on your posting.
Edited by: 5th_Time

[COLJDM]

All, what we make the web site and how we control it is entirely up to the members of the Redwood Owners Club International. All recommendations thusfar are doable. The draft constitution allows for an executive comittee consisting of the President, VP, Secretary and Treasurer. Dues are $15 per year. Redwood approved the constitution with no objection to the verbiage. Additionally, they procured a domain name and basically said the website is the club's issue. So we need to appoint or elect an acting executive council, and a election comittee to get this thing going. We also nee a couple of members who know how to set up and manage a web site to work one up. I will gladly kick in $50 or so to start the clubs bank account. I am pursuing with some Data Processing folks how to set up a web site and manage it. Right now we need a core group willing to work to get this off the ground. I am travelling this summer and will have 156 hours of dead time to devote to this project (my wife drives as she states in no uncertain terms my driving sucks), I am willing to work to get this going and have a product available for membership vote at the August Rally in Syracuse, IN (Redwood Factory Rally, August, 2012). So who is willing to step up and help get this club off of the idea and discusion phase and into reality?? My email is coljdm60@gmail.com and my phone is 904-495-5739. We live in Saint Augustine, FL. Additionally, if anyone would like to get together and discuss this over a cold dring and munchies or a meal, our summer schedule follows this message, just send us a note or call:

1/20126/1/2012 1ST. AUGUSTINEFLHOME BASE
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6/16/2016/19/201 3ELLSWORTH AFBSDELLSWORTH FAMILY CP605-385-6699
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[Dave&Ginny]

I'll be happy to donate some money as well if it's needed. Unfortunately my expertise is in marketing and printing not web design. I used to be able to run a graphics computer but now I simply hire those folks and I have one hell of a nice Mac that I simply check my email on and look at a few proofs when needed.

I have a business mind at your request if that helps too.

[5th_Time]

I'll donate to get things started too. Also, I think dues should be at least $49... $15 is way too low. It's a commitment and there will be alot printing, membership cards, etc. we'll need to provide. Worthy of a follow-up discussion...

[Dave&Ginny]

I would have to agree. I would rather have the dues higher and have resources to do the right things from the beginning rather than charge less and get by. To help push this a little, maybe they should start up a special limited time only "founders club" that cost $120 and they get a special name badge ($10 value), hat ($15 value) and sticker ($5 value).

Get 20 members to do this and you'll raise $2400. With this money you spend $500 on hats and $100 on stickers. Now you're $1800 in the black (order the name badges as you need them). Now you'll have hats to sell at a $5 profit at the rallies and give a few away. I can get all of this stuff cheep ( these prices are approximates)

[KR2011]

Why not make the dues $500 or why not $1000, I think you guys are getting carried away, first off why do we need membership cards to tell us that we are members of the "club"? What are the members going to get for there dues, so far all that has been discussed is a members only forum. Frankly I can get that for free already, yes I may have to put up with spam but I may have to do that with a paid for forum as well.

Lets figure out what we would like to offer as benifets first and then figure out what the dues IF ANY should be.

I am a member of several clubs and the highest dues I pay are for my good Sam membership, look at what they offer for only $12 to $29. I understand they have 1000's of members. They use there membership cards for discounts offered by businesses that offer the discount.

What I'm getting to here is that it sounds like you are getting the cart before the horse.

Just MY two cents worth.

[COLJDM]

What would you recommend for benefits and how would you procure them?

[5th_Time]

Dave, I like your ideas -with or without the rally stuff. Membership cards with Reg # are not just an "idea"- every club has them.





We are not going to be "Good Sam" with thousands of members,andit will be a tremendous amount of work to get this started - most all of it from volunteers. Perhaps even more than an executive committee, we will need a budget to be able to implementeven initial organizational tasks.





I like the idea of a "Founders Club" to provide funds to begin developing the mission/benefits/developmental tasks. As you know, once the club is organized and dues announced,if you laterfind that you've set themtoo low, it will be very difficult toraise them "substantially" after than.





BTW, I spent more than $15 on hot dog rolls this past weekend .Edited by: 5th_Time

[TravelinAnderson]

I don't think we need initial funding to develop the intellectual elements of the club or website. The creation of this club is becoming a huge undertaking so I say we eat this elephant one bite at a time. Let's get a list of tasks together and address them one at a time.
John has taken the initiative and as a result we have a domain name and a preliminary draft of the constitution and bylaws. Those need to be approved before we proceed with the website content.

The only things I have issue with are the number of votes a unit gets (I think it should be one vote per unit) and the dues. I think we should decide what the fees for creating and maintaining a website will be and what tangible items will be provided to a member before we establish what the dues will be. If a membership card is all we're providing then a nominal, annual fee is all that's needed to cover expenses. If we are going to have hats and t-shirts or other items then the dues will have to be raised.

I also think we need a LOT more participation from the Redwood forum members. There are currently 243 members on this forum but only 5% participation. That's not enough to even establish the governing board for the club. We need to get the word out to the rest of the members that the forum has become active and their input in the formation of ROCI is needed.

The ADMINS are only people that have contact information for all of the forum members so we should get them to send an email to the entire membership to inform them of these developments.

John, since you have already established a relationship with Alexandria Trusov, will you contact her to see if she can get the ADMINS to do that?

For the rest of us, if you google "owners club" (use the quotes) you will get 26,000000+ results for websites that other clubs have established. Click on a few, or a lot, and if you find one that you think will work for our website, post the link in this thread so we can all check it out. Once we decide on a basic design we will know if we need to farm out the work or if someone here can create the website.
The lower the costs...the lower the dues.

[COLJDM]

Steve I will coordinate with Alexandria Trusov regarding contact with Forum Admin folks. Will let all know as soon as I receive something.

[TravelinAnderson]

Thanks John.. and to all who are taking an interest in this.

[Tall-Pines]

I have done a quick Google search of forums
and the first page has yielded the following samples:

<a href="http://carriageowners.net/forum/index.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Carriage 5th Wheel Owners
Forum</a> [Powered by Simple Machines Forum – Free]



<a href="http://www.rv.net/forums/index.cfm/fuseacti&#111;n/listings/forum/24.cfm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">RV.NET (Fifth-Wheels
sub-category)</a>





<a href="http://forums.goodsamclub.com/Index.cfm/fuseacti&#111;n/listings/forum/24.cfm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Good Sam Club – Open
Roads Forum (Fifth-Wheels sub-category)</a>
Same unknown software as RV.NET


5th Wheel Forums [Powered by phpBB – Free]




<a href="http://www.fifthwheelliving.com/index.php?acti&#111;n=forum" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Fifth Wheel
Living</a> [Powered by Simple Machines Forum – Free]



<a href="http://www.cedarcreekrvownersclub.com/phpBB3/index.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Cedar Creek RV Owners
Club</a> [Powered by phpBB –
Free]



<a href="http://www.heartlandowners.org/forum.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Heartland Owners
Forum</a> [Powered by vBulletin – $200 –
$500]



Everest Owners Forum [Powered by phpBB – Free]



The Diesel Stop [Powered by vBulletin – $200 – $500]

All
examples are viable and the key as I see it, is methodical organization and grouping of categories and
sub-categories.




More Google searching and I found another web site that lists and compares Forum software! Go figure?!

I then did a comparison with the above samples and a few other
varieties.


<ul>[*]Simple Machines 2 – User
Reviews 3.5/10
Although used by Carriage and Fifth Wheel Living, this
software has very poor user reviews[*]vBulletin 4 – UserReviews
4/10
Used by Heartland and The Diesel Stop, this NOT free. User reviews are
poor and software has not been updated since Dec 2010[*]phpBB 3 – UserReviews
8.5/10
Used by several of the above sites, this software has quite good user
reviews. AJAX is the only supported Plugin/Technology.
Forum style is
Flat.[*]MyBB – UserReviews
9.3/10
Although not used by any of the samples shown, this software has been
rated Top Forum Software for 2011.
This software supports HTML, Javascript
and CSS in addition to AJAX. Forum style is both Flat and
Threaded.[/list]

My recommendation would
then be to use either phpBB or MyBB.


I’ll set up a sample system on my own website
and check it out.


If any Redwood owner is a member of one of
these or any other forum that they would recommend ... let us
know!

Ian
<blockquote style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" dir="ltr">
</blockquote>

[5th_Time]

Hi Ian, any recommendations on site software and content management software after the site is written?

[Tall-Pines]

Here are links to demos of the suggested Forum software picks:



phpBB3 Demo



MyBB Demo



Note that what I checked out was Forum software only.



A simple home or landing page could be created with a link from there to the forum.

Would be useful for other info. Heartland has a nice site that has either their Portal or their Forum.

This functionality is available in MyBB but NOT in phpBB ... so I think I just reduced my suggested software list to ... one, MyBB because Portal, Wiki, Blog and Downloads Manager are bundled into the software.



Ian

[TravelinAnderson]

Those are good examples of discussion forums but we are are looking for "owners club" websites similar to F.R.O.G., The Forest River Owners Group.
http://www.forestriverfrog.com/
Our hope is that Redwood will improve their own discussion forum (this one) so we can concentrate on the Redwood Owners Club International (ROCI). If Redwood fails to improve this discussion forum we can then incorporate one into the ROCI website or have a link to one that someone else has. As Tall-Pines mentioned, MyBB and vBulletin are both good products that we could use should we decide to do that.

[KWire]

I know I don't have a RW yet, but I have already put forth some ideas on this forum and the ROCI subject so I thought I'd throw in my two cents...

John when you contact Redwood would you ask them if they are willing to give a 10% parts discount to the ROCI members? That is what Heartland does and it is a benefit that owners receive. This requires cooperation with Redwood, as the only way to become a member of the "Owners Club" is with a valid VIN #, and that must be verified by Redwood. To some the 10% would offset any fee that you might charge to join ROCI.

Steve, I agree that the Owners Web site should not be a discussion forum. I am still hopeful that Redwood will step up to the plate and make the necessary changes to improve this one, like we have all talked about in another thread...

Keith

[Campers]

I joined the ROCI the day I purchased this Coach. I don't need a membership card, as I pull mine behind me. Being from Canada, we don't have "Official Members"
Why would I pay out any more money to show that I own a RW. Member Forum such as this one gives us all the info we need and if a Rally is being organized, it could be set as a thread on the forum. There are only a few that use the forum and not many others on giving their options that are members. Wonder about it? My opinion only

[par]

I agree with Campers, and if I understood the point of theproposed club, I frankly don't see Redwood not being part of the picture. The purpose of this site (or any site) is to discuss issues about RW RVs and at some point I would even expect an 'expert' from RW to step in. I do not see the point or purpose of another club that may only fragment the audience. Having said that, it would appear that a little control from the members (and perhaps Admins to control this)on this site could be in order. Last week I opened a topicabout Solar Panels and it quickly digressed into a bitching session about RW, absolutely nothing to do with the subject. This must stop or this site will loose any credibility it might have left...my opinion.

[mhs4771]

Another vote for everyone to take two steps back, catch your breath and re-think this whole thing. I'm still a member of the Montana Owner Club Forum and find it to be very well run, although sometimes the Moderators/Admins go a little overboard, but all in all a very good forum. A National Rally is held in the Fall in Goshen and there is a $50.00 fee to help cover cost. If you want MOC Cards, there's a template on the site and you can print out your own cards (have done so). There are regional Rallys held throughout the year (we're still registered for the NorthEast Rally in June). There are no formal dues, but of course donations are always accepted. There are no bylaws and such, just a fun group of folks that love Camping in their Montanas.