So Cal So Nev! Director forming Group

Hello fellow Elky Owner,

I would like to introduce myself as the Region 17 Director for the NECOA ( National El Camino Owners Association- also known as El Camino Central). Region 17 includes Southern Nevada and Southern California. Your inclusion on this list is a result of your sign-up on the NECOA website ).

I'm sure that many of you, like me, have been in car clubs before. I used to call it the AA of car ownership. Anytime I thought of selling my "Baby", I would call some of my fellow club members and they would thankfully talk me out of it! Not only did they keep me participating, but became a wealth of knowledge. Today, we can find a lot of info on the internet, but there's nothing like having someone show you how to set the air valve on a Quadrajet in person to make the info come to life.

The friendships you can make through this organization can become life long. Another pair of hands when an engine swap comes up can be priceless. Finding that Bumper or Rear End locally, rather than having to ship it across country from someone on E-Bay, is also a benefit.

To facilitate our communications, I have created a "Group" on Yahoo ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NECOA17/ ) . Think of this as a clearinghouse for all of our communications. We can create "Polls" there so you can vote on upcoming events. You can post an item for sale locally, or a need for an item. If you need a question answered, try it here among your local members. We can send out notices on upcoming events and receive RSVP's on attendance.

Joining this Group is free, and is completly optional for you. If you choose not to participate, then you will no longer receive e-mails concerning Region 17 activities. Joining is easy. Just go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NECOA17/ to join.

For those of you that choose to continue to receive mailings, my plan is to use this communication tool to inform you of upcoming events in which you may wish to participate. We will try and hold these both in the Vegas area as well as in the LA area. We'll have Meet and Greet's, Swap Meets, some Runs of Interest, and a few Car Shows as well. I would like to see this evolve into a once a month activity, but the frequency and type of events will depend on your input and participation.

Thanks again for letting me be your Region 17 Director. I look forward to communicating with you over our "Group", and hope to meet all of you at an upcoming event. Keep an eye out for our first get together- I hope to make it a winner!

If you need to contact me, I can be reached at the address below.

Sincerly,

Mike Darby ( Darbysan)
Region 17 Director NECOA
necoa17@yahoo.com
cell 702-301-4814

Mike why not do the communication here? That's what the regional forums are for.

From an "outsider" in Virginia.

I travel a lot and I often check areas where I may be going. Just like I did just now. The thought is that there is always the possibility they may have an event going on and I may be able to stop by.

I submit that everyone doesn't have to live in an area to have an interest in what goes on there.

Just a comment from the What its Worth Department. :)

Take care.

Poltergeist- good comment about using the forum here. I guess that's why I posted the email here as well. Part of my thought process was to take the mailing list and work it down to those that are still real e-mails, and are interested in getting together locally. The GROUP thing on Yahoo was more of a means to get that communication going, as a straight e-mail account would not let me send out 500+ e-mails.

The Group posting also "Pushes " information out to the subscriber, where the forum here requires the subscriber to log on. Not a lot of difference, but I know I don't always have time to get to the site as often as I would like.

We're getting the list narrowed down. I've found over 100 bad e-mails so far out of 530. That is a point that all users should consider- is my Profile up to date at NECOA? I would ask all members to take a minute and check your's out. You may have signed up years ago, and in the meantime moved or changed e-mails.

We'll get it all sorted out in the end. Thanks for your input.

Mike

I can see using yahoo in order to send an email to all Region 17 members at once ensuring that they will receive it in a easier and more timely manner...it should be an as info only email, such as what you stated, upcoming local events and RSVP's. This would likely increase better participation. However, I think that the same info being emailed could and should be posted here as well in your Region 17 forum. Sorry, but I personally feel that your trying to alienate So Cal and So Nev from the rest of us. If by chance a Region 17 member has something to sell and I'm interested in purchasing it...he should have every opportunity to sell it and I should have every opportunity to buy it if WE agree to the terms. Also someone may have a question that can be answered better by someone in another region...case in point acauth1...Roger, the guru of HVAC...and more and other members as well. Would you chose to unintentionally alienate Region 17 members from a person or persons with that wealth of knowledge...you would if your doing all you suggest through yahoo. I think that you probably could use yahoo as a successful tool, but I think you need to take a step back and take another look at that tool and the way you suggest in using it. I feel a Regional Directors responsibilitys and duties should be to organize events, cruise nights, meets...face to face encounters as such and nothing more, that in itself is time consuming. If you prefer to start a local club, that is acceptable, and that of the decisions of any ECC members whom wish to join. Such as many members here are also members of ACES. But lets remember ECC is a National Organization and lets keep it as that. When I told perspective members that I was a member of an organization of 2000+ El Camino owners they were surprised, when I told them we we at 5000+ members they were amazed...someday I hope to tell them we're at 10,000+ members and astound them, along with the aftermarket manufacturers! You should feel proud to be a Director in a National Organization as large as ECC! I wish I had more time to get more involved in the organization of ECC, other than sitting here on my big puter sometimes helping, sometimes instigating...but I'm basically a lazy A$$ and my wife reminds me of that on a regular basis! 8)

Well, I guess my thoughts on trying to get participation out of Region 17 is hitting the wrong target. I apologize to all of you that feel I am trying to take anything away from NECOA. In fact my intentions are completly honorable. Otherwise, I would not have Volunteered my time to take on this task. I really don't want to start a seperate group, car club or any of that . I barely have time to try and fulfill my responsibilities here.

I have only been in this position a short time. I received a download of over 500 names and e-mail addresses in my Region, and I needed to find out how many of those were still valid, and if there was interest in doing things regionally. As you say, it is a lot of work to set up events, and my time is scarce enough that I do not wish to do this for 2 members out of 500!

As with many things, this is somewhat of an experiment on how to use technology to help accomplish my task of coordinating within the region. In former times, I would have sent out letters to all members on the list. Instead, I sent out e-mails last weekend. One of the reasons I chose to set up a group on Yahoo is that through my normal e-mail I can only send out to 50 people at a time, and no more than 150 in a day- Yahoo SPAM blockers. Therefore, it would take me several days to send out 1 message to the region. Not very efficient, if you are trying to coordinate responses to an upcoming event.

To date, about 20 out of 530 have responded positively. More than 100 came back as bad e-mail addresses. The balance have not responded, so either they are not interested in local activities, or may have gotten out of Elky's altogether. SPAM filters may have gotten me as well, so I might have to try again.

Once I have a chance to see the total response to our e-mail campaign, we should be able to 1) potentially update the NECOA files with more accurate e-mail info and 2) hopefully increase the participation here on NECOA and 3) have a means to broadcast info regarding local events to those that are most likely to participate. Of course we will post the same info here on NECOA, so it is visible to those that use the website regularly. We for sure will have members that will be visiting in the area, and would love to meet them. Vegas is a great spot, and gets a lot of visiting traffic.

We would not want to Brodcast a message to the entire NECOA population, as it is unlikely that someone from NY is going to want to know about every Meet and Greet in Nevada. Our e-mails get enough SPAM as it is now. In fact, my intention is that unless a member in the Region specifically wants to receive future e-mails from NECOA, they are taken off the list. Their joining the regional "Group" on Yahoo facilitates this decision and e-mail process.

If this form of Broadcast message works out, maybe we can update our own website to accomplish the same task. If it doesn't, then we drop it and move on. The alternative is that we arrange a local activity, advertise it on NECOA, and hope members take the time to visit the website, find out about the event, and make plans to participate. I guess the difference is active, focused advertising directly to the members vs passive, "I hope they logged on" advertising.

All that being said, I do appreciate all of the responses here. Your feedback will help me to focus in on the important issues.

One of the reasons I chose to set up a group on Yahoo is that through my normal e-mail I can only send out to 50 people at a time, and no more than 150 in a day- Yahoo SPAM blockers.

To date, about 20 out of 530 have responded positively. More than 100 came back as bad e-mail addresses. The balance have not responded, so either they are not interested in local activities, or may have gotten out of Elky's altogether.First, you need to send your mail through something that's NOT Yahoo. I find that about 90% of the Yahoo mail I see is spam (and who knows how much of the Yahoo mail I don't see). Also, this is the first time I've seen mass mailings from any forum.

I received your message, but deleted it as spam (phishing). The purpose of this forum is communication. It's probably best to let it do it's job.

All members in CA and NV (and in every other state, for that matter) are encouraged to update their members' profile to tell us where they live and provide us with a current email address.

We have been encouraging all Regional Directors to build an email list of members in their local area so they can better plan for meet and greet, car shows, swap meets, etc. Being part of a large national organization does NOT mean that we should ignore direct personal communication about local activities, such as by emailing notices and reminders. We do NOT provide our members' info to anyone outside ECC/NECOA, so that information remains confidential. Jay Levitan is using it to great success here in New England and so are other regional directors elsewhere.

We will be announcing some additional new leaders and activities in Region 17 very shortly that will help our members have more enjoyment with their membership. So please update your members' profile and respond to any emails you recieve from NECOA leaders. Thanks.

Interesting reading. RRL

Mike I was thinking about what you said about only being able to send 50 emails at once, have you talked to Robert (acauth1) about setting up a elcaminocentral email addy? If robert is running his own email server I'm sure he could set you up to do a mass email. Just don't start spamming the world. :lol:

Well, I guess my thoughts on trying to get participation out of Region 17 is hitting the wrong target. I apologize to all of you that feel I am trying to take anything away from NECOA. In fact my intentions are completly honorable. Mike, I know that your intentions are. I apologize for the comment I made concerning alienating Region 17! I understand it's got to be very time consuming for any Regional Director to contact, keep track of, and organize the number of members within his/her region. We have an excessive amount of "Ghost Members." Just out of curiosity I checked the first 2 pages of the members list (200) and close to 50% have never posted anything in approx 3 years...I can only guess how many of almost 7000 members are no longer here or are non-exsistent. Something does have to be done and I see that your idea is probably the best and most feasible way to attrite non-exsistent members. I do agree that non-particpating members receiving an email concerning events, functions or info are more apt to respond back, which in turn would undoubtably increase participation. If they even just respond back to let you and other Regional Directors know that they do indeed exsist this would still be a step in the right direction and generate more enthusiasm. Once again please accept my apology for my comment, and by all means continue with the great work you and other Regional Directors are doing to benefit ECC. Mike

Mike ( theelcaminofactory), thanks for your reply. No apology necessary- that's why we Directors get the big bucks!.
It has been an interesting experience. So far, we've received less than 25 responses out of 530 emails. We tried the second approach, using the Region 17 Forum on this site. The last time I looked, we only had 3 responses from the region!

I'm sure that the first e-mails I sent out got caught by SPAM blockers, or were just deleted by the members because they look funny. I do the same thing. It also appears that using the Forum as a communication tool will take a lot more education and work.

For now, we'll keep on plugging away, trying to narrow the list down . Once we have a solid list of folks who want to be participants, we'll probably split the region into smaller territories so that it will be manageable. It's just not practical to expect someone to drive 6+ hours to come to an event- except for something really spectacular!

So far, we've received less than 25 responses out of 530 emails. We tried the second approach, using the Region 17 Forum on this site. The last time I looked, we only had 3 responses from the region!

I'm sure that the first e-mails I sent out got caught by SPAM blockers, or were just deleted by the members because they look funny. I'm sure it's frustrating. I myself have all my incoming email go into my Spam blocker (even family) until I have time to identify it...sometimes I don't go through it for 2 weeks at a time, and just start hitting delete delete delete without even looking at some of them, hang in there, maybe some more will respond back within a resonable period of time, if not hit them again.

It also appears that using the Forum as a communication tool will take a lot more education and work.Perhaps part of the problem is that the links to the various region forums are so far down the page. Would it be possible for the forum software to put a link in the "General Topics" section to the user's default region?

im still here :( my email never changed....i never get emails :(

-Anduh

In response to Snaggletooth's question about lack of E-mails:

Well, a while back we tried to tune up the interest in this region, but to date we have had very little response. In the Yahoo E-Mail Group we created, we had 26 messages in Mar, 1 in April, and none since. :(

Guess I'm to blame as much as anyone, since it was my idea to try it in the first place. However, the input we received on our Poll question about the same issue came back with folk's just wanting to get their info on this site.

With all the SPAM blockers out there, it was pretty difficult to get through to the members. So going forward, we'll try to utilize this site for input, and we will attempt to get the So Cal / So Nev members to get together through other means.

Thanks to those that did participate. :D

Mike D- Director Region 17

Well lets make a gathering...cause my local cruise night I just attended. No one talked to the Elky owner...which was me :(...and my car was too clean! haha. Arrangements?

-Anduh