Russ grab yourself a cuppa T after typing all that out
Spot on with everything you've mentioned
Once i've fully recovered from a broken foot (next 2months) then i'd be up for maybe a monthly meet in the Essex area
Russ grab yourself a cuppa T after typing all that out
Spot on with everything you've mentioned
Once i've fully recovered from a broken foot (next 2months) then i'd be up for maybe a monthly meet in the Essex area
Ricardo Lol Yeah I did go on a bit, but you no what its like, one you start typing more things come to mind & before you no it you've done an essay
Some Essex meets would be good matey. Mending of foot & weather improvements should hopefully coincide
Originally Posted by Russ B
Some Essex meets would be good matey. Mending of foot & weather improvements should hopefully coincide
Sounds good to me Russ
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
I DRIVE ROUND COLCHESTER A LOT IN MY BLACK 5
Asbo, Caps lock off matey
I'll keep an eye out for you. Mine doesn't come out very often, I normally use my daily driver. Only when the weather is nice or at least dry & I wouldn't be "on the lap" in colchester, if one still exists that is lol. I'm a bit old for all that now. I was in colchester last Saturday, had to go to halfords for some stuff, then it was a back road blast home. Keep an eye on the boards for a meet hopefully sometime soon.
My point of view on the club is this......
To me personally( not sure if anyone else feels like this) owning a 5gtt is quite a lonely hobby to have. I never ever see any others on the road where I live. If you have a problem with it garages don't want to know and tell you the best thing to do with it is scrap it. They all have niggly little things that go wrong from time to time and even though I have my trusty old haynes manual if rtoc didn't exist I would never consider owning a 5gtt
I really think this is why rtoc works so well. We all need each others knowledge to keep our cars on the road
hope it's not just me that feels like this
Amen
My point of view on the club is this......
To me personally( not sure if anyone else feels like this) owning a 5gtt is quite a lonely hobby to have. I never ever see any others on the road where I live. If you have a problem with it garages don't want to know and tell you the best thing to do with it is scrap it. They all have niggly little things that go wrong from time to time and even though I have my trusty old haynes manual if rtoc didn't exist I would never consider owning a 5gtt
I really think this is why rtoc works so well. We all need each others knowledge to keep our cars on the road
hope it's not just me that feels like this
Amen
Most people i know think im mad owning a gtt
Without rtoc i would of pushed it off the nearest cliff
As much as i love anything 5 related i think that is mainly down to the community of RTOC...
As much as i love anything 5 related i think that is mainly down to the community of RTOC...
It'll be 2 years this July without a 5 but i'm still here
I still think my 2p of help and GSOH is needed herebut as mentioned umpteenth times is a much making good friends, through events, curries etc as owning the 5....
I could probably count on both hands the same members ( who i all class a good friends ) who always turn up to events, both in the UK + abroad. I feel it would be great to get some other members along to the events this year ( Not that i dont like the regular faces
You need to use both hands?I could probably count on both hands the same members ( who i all class a good friends ) who always turn up to events, both in the UK + abroad. I feel it would be great to get some other members along to the events this year ( Not that i dont like the regular faces
You'll find it's the same members as they're the ones who continously and quite happily put in the time and effort to go pretty much anywhere to help out and do things socially
Wow 1995 ????
I could probably count on both hands the same members ( who i all class a good friends ) who always turn up to events, both in the UK + abroad. I feel it would be great to get some other members along to the events this year ( Not that i dont like the regular faces
I'd be at more meets if the dang thing would stop blowing up lol
time and money throws me and most other members out, but we all get stuck in and help each other out daily.I could probably count on both hands the same members ( who i all class a good friends ) who always turn up to events, both in the UK + abroad. I feel it would be great to get some other members along to the events this year ( Not that i dont like the regular faces
i think the events page is looking alittle thin myself when i joined this site a number of years back there seemed to be somethink booked most months from curry nights, drives out,rolling roads ,the shows which people and rtoc was attending (ie banners and good selection of cars even a bbq's here and there ) but if you look at the events list now no shows no currys ,bbq's . you have a ring trip which to most of us its out our price range or holidays.
no group paintballing days or karting local or national < these you can do even without a renault on the road
well i feel a little better now!
Nothing stopping you from organising a day outi think the events page is looking alittle thin myself when i joined this site a number of years back there seemed to be somethink booked most months from curry nights, drives out,rolling roads ,the shows which people and rtoc was attending (ie banners and good selection of cars even a bbq's here and there ) but if you look at the events list now no shows no currys ,bbq's . you have a ring trip which to most of us its out our price range or holidays.
no group paintballing days or karting local or national < these you can do even without a renault on the road
well i feel a little better now!
Nothing stopping you from organising a day out
There must be this stigma in the club that only Area Reps are supposed to organise events, nights out, curries etc
Not sure what you could do to make people join / raise the member numbers, or infact make the club bigger and better.
Make people join? - you can't do this but you can promote through various channels to try and encourage this: Using PR(free magazine articles, OTP etc), Social networks, events/shows (to name just a few!) like all good communication if it works the club will grow on its own
As membership secretary i can tell you that the amount of new members and renawals are keeping me busy , alot seem to say they heard about the website through magazine adverts..of which there is one in this months PFC i beleive.
Can you or someone from the committe tell us how many new members we have a week on average? In 2009 how many new members joined the club? How many existing members renewed?How many members lapsed? and how does that compare with 2008? Are the numbers up or down?
The sad fact is that with the country still in recesssion and the rising price of fuel yet again, that the numbers that can attend this years events will probably drop on last years. This is true so the club committee should surely be looking at this major factor when making decisions/planning events in 2010?
The club is stable financialy , the website is as good as its been and spring is coming
What are you suggestions to "shake it up" steve ?
i think there is as rtoc organised events get more attendance then a self organised event me myself would find it a hard work to get deposits in for karting ect unless can be done through the shop ect then i would not mindi think i still get discount at a karting place
Newsletter is a great idea. This will add 'value' to new members joining the club as well as keep existing members informedI'm already actually working on this
in the evo owner club they made there own mag with got sent every 2 months to paid members and i used to look forward to them ? may be a idea and get advertisements and updates to members and show projects in progress, discuss new ideas and tests ect
Great Idea
[quote=Ian S;132152]
- A lot of people still think of this as the 5 GT Turbo owners club and those cars are fast becoming extinct so we need to think about how we can keep the club going and attract more members with different cars etc.
- Yes, but who is going to do that? er the committee?...We tried to get the Megane and twingo. I bought a twingo-turbo domain name. I gave an ex 5GTT Owners club chairman an Hon membership and he owns a 225 sport. I created the forum board. But more people need to do more to make this happen in an on going way.Put a plan together, delegate the work to members wanting to help and it will be put into action. You only had to ask?!
- What should we sell in the club shop? Shouldn't we have more specialist parts for Renault Turbo's that you cannot get elsewhere so people depend on us and not just think of us as another forum
- Yes. But, again, who's going to make this happen. There is such a high level of apathy / lack of time / interest. I've done a bit but more is needed in an ongoing way. Re Stu's carb jets; no-one in the committee refused it. The thread just petered out. The comments were that the jets were thought to already exist and someone just had to source them. No one did.why did no one on the committee source them or ask one of our many club members to? Stu originally suggested buying about £2000 of jets. That was too much. I never saw £200 mentioned. For those who don't know, I've been trying to get a km/h dial for a new batch of dial kits since maybe November. I posted it on the thread in group buys with very little response. I spent some time trying to buy one from Europe with no success. In the end Xenon posted one to this threads OP who forwarded it to Lockwood who have done the artwork and are about to commence production. Not many people seem to think of the club shop and the on-going membership when they have a part made. I think mostly they see satisfying their own need and maybe a small profit. IMO the shop can't make a huge loss though on it's items, some members think it should, others that it should make a huge profit. I think it's more about stocking things people actually want to buy?
- Club together and fight for some more benefits for club members to make the membership fee more worthwhile?
- It needs someone and people to come up with the ideas and possibly also then make them happen.I thought the committee were supposed to 'make things happen'? we can give you as many ideas as you want?
- Should we amalgamate with another club for the day to share the costs of a Pod or track day?
- Considered from beginning of RTOC ND's. We did share a RR day in Kent with a Peugeot club some years ago. We don't really need to though as the club can just about afford the losses to give it's paying members a day for themselves. Obviously though, not making a loss would be a lot better. Maybe this should be looked at more carefully? As someone has already posted on here we're still in recession, people are out of work and money is tight for some; so why book somewhere that already makes us a loss and with potential for further falling numbers, due to the above ,this year we could potentially lose a lot more unless we can encourage more new members & for them to come along. Miller and I did seriously consider hiring Rockingham for the 2007 ND and trying to get in some other clubs. Financially a big risk though as it's a big fee to hire. That was before he found Mallory. The committee, mainly via Stu, did try and get back to having Pod on a Saturday but they didn't have a space for us any more and so we went for the Friday thing which seems to go down well and has so far had smallish losses.
Wow 1995 ????
15 years man & boy......'ardest gme in the world.....
Got my first 5GTT in 1990 when I was 19, an '88 ph2 in electric blue. Crashed it big style after 6 months,then got another one a couple of years later & had at least 1 ever since. So i've been a 5GTT owner for 17 years & been in the club in its various forms for 15 years this year. I've had my current 5 for 8 years, but it had been tucked away in my garage under covers for 5 years up till June last year. Some say I'm mad, some days I tend to agree
Thats dedication Russ, a true enthusiast15 years man & boy......'ardest gme in the world.....
Got my first 5GTT in 1990 when I was 19, an '88 ph2 in electric blue. Crashed it big style after 6 months,
[quote=millie;132458].........
More carefully than what? As stated it was looked at carefully. It's a question for Miller to answer more fully, but I think Mallory is the cheapest we can book on a Saturday that's in the Midlands.We don't really need to though as the club can just about afford the losses to give it's paying members a day for themselves. Obviously though, not making a loss would be a lot better. Maybe this should be looked at more carefully? As someone has already posted on here we're still in recession, people are out of work and money is tight for some; so why book somewhere that already makes us a loss and with potential for further falling numbers, due to the above ,this year we could potentially lose a lot more unless we can encourage more new members & for them to come along. Miller and I did seriously consider hiring Rockingham for the 2007 ND and trying to get in some other clubs. Financially a big risk though as it's a big fee to hire. That was before he found Mallory. The committee, mainly via Stu, did try and get back to having Pod on a Saturday but they didn't have a space for us any more and so we went for the Friday thing which seems to go down well and has so far had smallish losses.
Many members were very displeased at the presence on no Renault Turbos at our large club events and were always very vocal about that. We allowed other clubs and cars anyway to make less of a loss.
18 years I've owned my 5GTT. Same one the whole time. Bought it in March 1992. A March '88 with 50,000 miles. Broke down approaching 4 years ago. Have it parked on the drive. Not looking anywhere nearer to getting it going. I do miss it.
I organised a couple of meets down at Southend seafront 1 summer and IIRC we had over 20 cars turn up. No harm in proposing an idea to get an idea if anyones interested.
I also like to think my biggest claim to fame is organising these puppies
I took it upon myself to get these made after running the idea through the forum. I also collected all the money then spent my own time packaging them and then sending them out to everyone
Oh, i'm not an Area Rep, just someone that can help out if i can with a big interest in the club.
We tried to get the Megane and twingo. I bought a twingo-turbo domain name. I gave an ex 5GTT Owners club chairman an Hon membership and he owns a 225 sport. I created the forum board. But more people need to do more to make this happen in an on going way.Gee wiz, you really don't seem to get it!Put a plan together, delegate the work to members wanting to help and it will be put into action. You only had to ask?!
Like none of us already know that! And haven't tried it many times over the last decade of trying to keep this club going!
And delegate to who? This is not a business where I for example can fire poorly performing staff and easily replace then with the next in line. It's entirely voluntary. We don't have a queue chomping at the heels of the committee wanting to be in the active core or the club which might make those there have to perform faster. We (I assume clubs like this one in general) can barely get enough people to do the basic essential tasks required! And mostly they have little spare time to do it.
By saying "you only had to ask", are you volunteering to perform a useful function for the membership? Perhaps you can really help out. We really could do with someone to find a way and make it happen to get more people from other clubs to join this one. One of those ways is obviously to have a better club and website than say the Megane sport club. But have you seen their website? It looked pretty good when I saw it some time ago. And I guess they all must have a decent income, unlike many of the 5GTT owners who are skint. Will they lower themselves to what they perceive to be our level, tooling around in battered 24 year old motors? If we had a load a of really good technical articles about the Megane Sport that might help. No-one at all will do articles and I think most members don't know they are there.
There's nothing stopping members from offering their services to the club. Why should they have to be asked all the time.
Gee wiz, you really don't seem to get it! Yes I get it alright!!
Like none of us already know that! And haven't tried it many times over the last decade of trying to keep this club going!
And delegate to who? This is not a business where I for example can fire poorly performing staff and easily replace then with the next in line. It's entirely voluntary. We don't have a queue chomping at the heels of the committee wanting to be in the active core or the club which might make those there have to perform faster. We (I assume clubs like this one in general) can barely get enough people to do the basic essential tasks required! And mostly they have little spare time to do it.
Out of ineterest can you name all committee members?
By saying "you only had to ask", are you volunteering to perform a useful function for the membership? Perhaps you can really help out. We really could do with someone to find a way and make it happen to get more people from other clubs to join this one (I can do what ever you need me to do, I don't think other clubs joining is just the way to go though but that's just my opinion). One of those ways is obviously to have a better club and website than say the Megane sport club. But have you seen their website? It looked pretty good when I saw it some time ago. And I guess they all must have a decent income, unlike many of the 5GTT owners who are skint. Will they lower themselves to what they perceive to be our level, tooling around in battered 24 year old motors? If we had a load a of really good technical articles about the Megane Sport that might help. No-one at all will do articles and I think most members don't know they are there.
There's nothing stopping members from offering their services to the club. Why should they have to be asked all the time. We need to be asked because we don't know what is going on and where you need help, we don't know what the committee will be working on in 2010. I pushed for the area rep's which sounds like it's moving forwards but we didn't know this untill now.
Millie, there is a list of CM on the club page. To get there, press "club" in the blue bar.
An awful lot of words but not saying anything new ?
Any chance of getting this back on track, it had been a fairly constructive thread until all the fancy coloured fonts started getting abused
The nub this is as I've already stated. More committee members are required if members want more out of the club, the current team are maxxed out. In addition there needs to be improved and organised communication in both directions - about what members want to see happening and indeed what is actually happening.
Maybe the existing committee should create a sticky to advertise the fact extra committed help would be welcomed and some members, especially those discontent with the way things are, need to push to the front and raise their blo*dy hand.
I got a vaguely warm reception to the idea of a members representative and its possible responsibilities. Maybe as a gesture the committee could fashion a role statement or two and offer them up to the member-base for application? How does anyone know whether they could commit to something if they don't know what it is they are committing to?
In fact it would be a good idea to create role descriptions for all the roles in the committee (assuming these don't already exist). This shouldn't take too much effort by one of the existing team in trying to resolve this latest mini-uprising.
Incidentally, I've never volunteered because I've always been happy with the state of play and have always had admiration and shown deference to those who have put their own time into the club.
The general tone of this thread would indicate that those that have bothered to take an interest in it
Some good points raised and are being acted upon as we speak .Better communication between the committee and members being the main gripe as far as I can see ??
I hadnt said anything as i for one am happy with the club as it is. As individuals we all 'expect' different things from an owners club. Personally, having been a member for a few years, i love the way it works and what it does. Keeps me in contact with good people who share a passion for a great few french cars, gives me info on fixes for the 5, provides interesting info on other renault turbos, organises a fab nat day (admittedly it was my first last year), provides meets locally - south west lot you know who you are, when are we going to Maccie D's again fellas, i miss the arcade
We rely on those who are prepared to 'volunteer' their spare time to each part of the club. Website, club shop, events, contacts etc etc. As someone else has said, its not a business where you can hire or fire, it runs on good will and i believe on this basis it works very well indeed. Dont get me wrong, if these or more people want to volunteer their time to add more to the site/club and what it offers, fantastic, all the better.
I don't think other clubs joining is just the way to go though but that's just myopinion
I think it was your own Steve who said earlier that the 5GTT is dwindling so the club will dwindle.
Unless the club finds new pastures it will eventually consist of a few preserved road going 5GTT and a few track day ones and their owners.
To continue to have our own track hire days, such as Mallory and the Pod, more members to support those events are needed. Members with more disposable income. and their friends.
There many many small clubs, such as ClubCento of which I am a member, supporting the Fiat Cinquecento, they have about 100 members paying £20 a year and a website with boards like this one, but less sophisticated and comprehensive and a lot quieter. There is also the much larger Fiat Forum, using vB like we are they have a board and classifieds for each model of Fiat, there is no fee so it has a lot of users like Clio sport does, but not really a club. Paid for by adverts I think.
In the former case there are a few very motivated Cinq enthusiasts running things. The rest don't want to but are glad that someone does.
For this club to remain like it is, it needs to incorporate more models of car and the members that come with them. Preferably ones with more money who can afford to go to all the events. Then we lose less money, have better and more events, have more to offer, have more people wanting to help out, are more attractive to potential members.
When petrol reaches £10 a gallon, or £10 a litre, how popular will cars like this club cater for be?
Are you saying that you don't want non-turbo Renaults involved?? Surely if you want the club to grow you need to attract both people who have turbo Renaults and those who have an interest but don't necessarily own one now, or that they own another Renault Sport vehicle for example....
Its the old chicken and the egg situation... The club is only as good as its members. SO to attract mone Reno Turbo's (the new breed) Twingo's, clio's, lagunas, meganes etc we need to have members with those cars and the knowledge to boot...
Because you're right Ian, in the future we may need to have these members to subsidise our dying pre 1990 reno turbo club...?
The problem is though Ian, is that to attact a 'new' fan-base for alternative models, you have to give those owners something that's worthwhile them joining here, and I don't just mean an exclusive yearly National Day.
The other problem as well is that no matter what way you cut it, this club will always be seen (in the majority) as a club for R5 GTT's, with a sprinkling of R9t's, R11t's, a few Clio's & the such like running c1j engines, a few other Renault turbo motors, and a few old skool members who are here just for the banter on the boards/to stay in touch with rtoc shananigans.
You only have to look at the 'Megane' section on here for proof of that; ie, even though there is a dedicated section for owners of those cars, that's pretty much it, hence why they're probably all on MeganeSport.net as well/instead, as that's more 'catered' towards their car.
My own personal feeling is that unless rtoc changes dramatically (and that's not me saying it has to, nor do I have any ideas on how to either), this will always remain a club for the aforementioned old skool Renault turbo motors, hence I can't see how the current membership numbers are going to increase in any significance, if at all.
Errm, you did! Who did you push?I pushed for the area rep's
Did you know that club had area reps back in the '90's and never stopped having area reps and a Senior Area Rep? Did you not see the way it worked on the old site?
That and other features were intended to be implemented more than a year ago on this site while a few of us worked every evening for at least 5 months to re-create what had been lost.
But development stopped as key workers stopped having time and despite an on-going request to the membership for help with the website nil extra people got involved. One person did join the committee to help with one aspect of the development but was too busy with work commitments to do what was needed at the time. Other committee may have had some time but were not technically capable enough to be able to. Not one single person in the membership even came up with a result for a company who could re-program and work the old ASP SQL site or / and this new PHP / vB / SQL one. I found a company but they proved to be not very good.
Even now, I would like / we could do with aspects of the old site to be re-enabled and integrated into this site so the membership have access to search the threads and information stored within it.
No, I'm not say that I don't want other models. Many members were saying that.
I said that we decided to allow other clubs, not just other cars, on the the track, because we wanted their money. And also because it could have the knock effect of popularising our event for the following years and help to grow it's attendance a bit.
This is also my opinion. The club will almost certainly always have the image of a Renault 5 GT Turbo club to the majority of people, and I think that in order to change this we would really need to make an effort to make people aware this is no longer the case, and owners of all sporty Renaults are welcome. Mainly changes to the website, and advertising at more events. We have enough events / trackdays to entice people I think..
We have to also think, do we really want the club to change that much. I don't know an awful lot about the cliosport website (for example), but going off what I've heard about them, they all sound like a load of poofs, who like nothing more than a good detailing session, but get all confused when they need to change a taillight bulb
This forum is (IMO) a priceless wealth of knowledge. So much so, I would say that a complete novice could buy a GTT, not knowing a thing about them, and practically rebuild it using the knowledge and experience of people on this site alone! Not to mention the close knit society. Everyone seems to know everyone, and it makes for a great laugh at events and whatnot.
Personally - I think the club is mint. The forums can get a bit tedious at times, but all in all, it's a good forum with a good bunch of lads and ladettes.
Just thought I would join the list of people giving their opinions - not that anyone pays any attention to me
Mart I think we missed the boat a bit when Renault brought out new turbo'd models.
I think as far back as end of 2006, after the new guard gained fuller control over it from Mark / Bruce, who were effectively obstructing development, the site was altered to de-emphasise the 5GTT and play up other turbo'd models, but we just had a lack of anyone at the top of the club with a new turbo'd Renault who was keen and passionate to evangelically go and get all the other new owners to come here.
Those keen people started their own site(s).
It would be a big departure if we were to drop the turbo and just aim at 'normal' Meganes / Twingo, etc.
If you want other cars here you will need to change the name of the club RTOC = Renault 5's.
Isn't that akin to what I've just posted?
[/invisible post]
invisible cars also
Hook, line, sinker mate.
Unless Renault bring out a completely new (turbo) model of car, and not just a tweak of the current Clio/Megane/Twingo range, then the boat has already hit the iceberg. Glug glug.
So, if that is the case, rhetorically, how do we improve numbers?
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