Battery Vehicle Society

OK one of the repeating issues which I keep hearing people mention is that the often feel they are about the only person around who seems to have any desire to see more electric vehicles on our roads.

The rapid expansion of membership of this forum and the main website (www.BatteryVehicleSociety.org.uk) illustrates how many people have been searching for other like minded people and how we can introduce people to electric vehicles if we simply communicate better.

I know for a fact that you are seldom much more than 10 miles from another member of the BVS (how do I know this? Well I've made a note of people I meet and where they are located for my own purposes) They often say how frustrating it is to get intouch with other members of the society and like minded people. This is in fact the whole reason why the Society started in the first place, to enable like minded people to get together and commiunicate with one another.

Now I know there are people who are very warey of having their contact information available. (in fact I'm one of them I'm ex directory and I am on the mailing preferance and telephone preferance services for example) but each member of the BVS has a membership number which can be used in lieu of their name if they don't want their name to be used.

It is fairly simple to put together a list for the purposes of easing communication between members without divulging people's names if that is their wish. I know because I've done it with several organisations.

So at the top of this posting there is a poll where you can indicate your prefferance relating to this. Simply click the option YES or NO. It's not a compulsory list you would have effectively 3 options in it

1) Not to be included in the list at all
2) To be listed under your name
3) To be listed anonymously using your BVS membership number

Let's hear your views.......

Qdos, the location field in the memberlist could perform this function.
No more detail that local town and County is required to see who your neighbours are and then make contact via the forum PM function.

Usual rules about takling to strangers need to be applied with common sense but the individual has control over what info they put in their profile.



MarkTime

Well, I clicked 'yes' but I agree with MarkTime- there is already a location list. What I would like to see is people using it.

Also, local meetings are a Good Thing. You can meet folk and ask silly questions in person, as well as on this forum!

/2p

I have said yes to the member list basically because not everyone on the forum is going to be a member and every member is not necessarily on the forum (so we will probably need to be careful of that as well).

Anyway, I agreed with using the member list.
Although it is a bit limited. You cant do a search or display all at once to emulate a search. The useful thing is the Sorting method.

Which I would suggest that people put there county first then that will group everyone locally in one easy movement.

Going to update mine now

Rob

I'm not referring to the Forums here, this is a much more fundamental issue. Basically a list such that members of the BVS (they need not be on-line) can get in touch with other local members of the society.

We are gradually building up regional areas for the BVS however the co-ordinators for those regions are unable to find out who is in their region. So the issue is....

Would you like to see a membership location list?

Currently this is not available at all. There is only one person privy to this information and that's the membership secretary.

Sorry, I missed the distinction first time round. You mean there is a world outside of the internet? ;-)

Umm- yes, I would like a BVS membership location list.

Sorry, I also missed the distinction between the web and the real world, I should divide my time more responsibly

A 'real' memebership list would be good.

MarkTime

As we often have an unreliable internet connection we are in favour of a membership location list.

We have noticed that 140 people registered on this forum have not stated their location, not sure why.

Qdos you may well be right that most of us are no more than 10 miles from our nearest BVS member but we have no idea who they are

We would like to see a local group set up somewhere near us - Bristol really is a bit too far (approx 150 miles) to manage regularly especially in an EV with a range of 45ish miles

That's exactly the reason for having a list of people's locations avalable so you can find out if there's people in your locality who you can meet up with. Where in Cornwall are you ? I know of a few people in Devon.

We are in Mid Cornwall and our nearest town is Bodmin.