Battery Vehicle Society

Once again Jeremy you've hit the nail right on the head.

From my standpoint what I have seen is a handful of people desperately trying to keep control of something they've lost touch with through their own blinkered refusal to listen.

A bit like government really

Jeremy wrote:One, admittedly fairly radical, idea is to question whether a formal society of association structure is actually beneficial.

There are several special interest groups, formed via internet fora, that operate very successfully without being so structured. Some have "membership" figures running to thousands. Many organise events, hold social gatherings and shows, as well as having a lively on-line presence.

I think that this has been part of the success of the G-Wiz owners club forums. There is no formal society, it's just a group of like-minded enthusiasts. Some people join because they're curious about the cars and want to ask questions. Others join because we've been building up a fairly good technical section. Some join for the social side or just for the banter.

We organise a few events - not many, I grant you, but we do a few. We generate a small amount of income through online advertising and this pays for window stickers and club memorabilia. We have some equipment that has been donated to the club which is available for members to borrow, and we have written our own diagnostics software to allow members to manage and maintain their own batteries.

The club is also active in campaigning for new public charging points around the country and tackling some of the issues that members have when using public charging bays.

We have a team of volunteers who are available to be interviewed by the press and we have arranged for loan cars for journalists and local government authorities.

We are in the process of creating a second web site to encourage our international membership. When this is launched it will provide information about the club in ten different languages. The forums are being updated to include international translation tools to allow members to translate English into their choice of language.

We have no politics and no subscriptions. We do not have a magazine, and my thoughts have been we should never have one... that said, I like the Midas magazine I've just been looking through. Hmmmm...

The group has almost 700 members and new members continue to join at a rate of 10-20 a month.

An interesting discussion and some good ideas, but they all bring up a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. Who actually manages the forum and BVS website, and are they funded by the BVS? I believe ChrisB was involved in setting it up originally and that Tim has been involved lately, but that's all.

MalcolmB wrote:Who actually manages the forum and BVS website, and are they funded by the BVS?

Once a forum is set up it can be pretty much self sufficient with a little bit of moderating thrown in to weed out libellous comments. It needs a little bit of funding to the hosting company but that should come from the BVS.

However I feel the website needs attention. When Nikki and Kate got the latest incarnation up and running the home page was a lively source of news. It has stagnated since their departure. Perhaps the committee should decide what the purpose of the website should serve and get it updated accordingly.

Unfortunately there's no one really interested in the main site. I posted a lot to it but I just seemed to be wasting my time and the committee simply aren't interested in it so I gave up on it pretty much.

Amongst the many things I do I actually build websites so I do know the importance of them. unfortunately the BVS committee don't see it so why should I bother

Qdos is quite right on this one. On each passing day the website -- with the exception of the forum. Is just becoming more and more out-dated.

You only need to see the main page informing everyone about the Electric Mini ( which was posted up almost 3 months ago )

Not to mention the next 10 events -- only one event ( which is a film evening )

Its hardly inspiring stuff to encourage new members
Thank the powers that be that no one has thought of pasting up a copy of the latest Battery Vehicle Review. I wont go on about it but --- Check out the back cover ( solar car from 1982 ) Back in its day it might have been breaking news but --- 27 years on I feel articles like this belong in the archives of a museum.

I dread to think what the next copy will contain -- Pictures of Barny Rubble in a stoneage electric car
With all the right-ups written in Hieroglyphics
Or even if we are lucky and wish to keep up with the times maybe Olde English

qdos wrote:Unfortunately there's no one really interested in the main site.

Sad but true. I hear the criticism of the current wordpress site and accept it. This is one problem of the layout we have, with a 'news' page as front page. A static front page doesn't look so bad if you forget it for a few months.

I will highlight this thread to the 'internet team'. Any volunteers will be most welcome.

Who is the 'internet team'? And who is now moderating this forum?

Chris is the forum admin and moderates it; he is also the overall coordinator of all things 'internety'.

Timpootle is the webmaster, and has organised the transfer to a different server, the society emails etc. Behind the scenes he has been doing all sorts of techy things which aren't obvious to the regular user.

The internet team currently consists of Chris, Tim, Rob, and me. If anyone would like to volunteer to assist Tim with the website side of things, I am sure he would be pleased to hear from them

Sorting out the website is most definitely on the priority list, though I am sure people can appreciate that, as volunteers, those of us working on it are doing so on top of day jobs and other BVS committments (eg in my case, writing minutes, a multitude of other secretarial and regional things, and sorting out the AGM arrangements, which is the thing I am currently working on).

With regards to the main website: as I understand it Tim is upgrading various bits of the software that the site uses (you'd have to ask him for more info than that). Once this is completed the calendar function will be fully working again, so I will then update it with the 2009 events I have been told about (most of which are listed in the recent Battery Vehicle Review magazine). And we are in the process of looking at improving the front page, perhaps with a static 'about us' page, which wouldn't be so noticeably out of date during periods where we don't have manpower to work on the website as much.

Mary.

SaintMaryUK wrote:The internet team currently consists of Chris, Tim, Rob, and me. If anyone would like to volunteer to assist Tim with the website side of things, I am sure he would be pleased to hear from them ;-)

I've been testing software for over 15 years now so if Tim can put up with my pedantic drivel I will be happy to give any changes to the website a workout.

Hugh