Kawasaki Triples Club

It was such a nice day today so thought it worth a trip out to Box Hill to see what was going on. Had a good long chat with a chap and his wife on a very nice indeed H1D he's had since 1997 but only just rebuilt fom the basket case it was. He is Paul Seddon who lives in Croydon and is wanting to join the club and has been trying on line and is concerned of no acknowledgment to his applications. He says he's applied twice in the last couple of months, so I'm hoping Gary can verify and conform back to him if all is OK as I've taken passed along his moblie number and email details.

Also had a chat with another guy there who's name I have already forgotten, on a rather tasty bottle green Z900, who is just about to register his freshly rebuilt and now MOT'd H2B. So I encouraged him to join too when he said he was considering to after picking up a leaflet at Stafford in October.

no i have nothing from him no details or anything i have emailed him with the link u gave me so hope he joins up

Do new applications come straight to you and only you Gary, or do they instead go via site admin people like Posh Pete and Graham? Just wondering how his attempts to join have faltered and hope this isn't a weakness that others may have been put off joining by as well. He was really trying to join and frustrated it wasn't happening.

In the past it was straight forward to renew membership online. This year I had to ask for a PayPal invoice from Gary.

I think the site needs some work done. I miss the search facility too.

The site has been up "for attention" for far too long now!

Hal wrote:Do new applications come straight to you and only you Gary, or do they instead go via site admin people like Posh Pete and Graham? Just wondering how his attempts to join have faltered and hope this isn't a weakness that others may have been put off joining by as well. He was really trying to join and frustrated it wasn't happening.

They go to gary, and the system works because becasue we have been using it for years and nothing has changed in that department. Sometimes people have pc problems or finger trouble.

PT

kas750 wrote:The site has been up "for attention" for far too long now!

The site seems to work fairly well as it is?
We developed a new site with lots of features but for various reasons it never got launched
This site is hosted for free and any problems (which there aint) are sorted for free.
Despite any other features on this site it is used mainly as just a forum??
There seems to me, little point in making "another forum"??
BUT ,there is some money available for a new website/ forum and if ANYONE (club member) wants to take on the challenge to design and develop a new website/forum then put your views/ideas to the committee and we will move forward on it

Just because something is "free" doesn't make it good in my eyes.A while back ideas were mooted around about how we could spend a surplus of club income.Surely developing the club website,and as i said website,not specifically the forum would be a good way to move the club forward.Anyway that is my idea.Its for elected committee members to do whats best for the club.Jobbing members were asked for opinions and thats mine.

kas750 wrote:Just because something is "free" doesn't make it good in my eyes.A while back ideas were mooted around about how we could spend a surplus of club income.Surely developing the club website,and as i said website,not specifically the forum would be a good way to move the club forward.Anyway that is my idea.Its for elected committee members to do whats best for the club.Jobbing members were asked for opinions and thats mine.

Now attached to the right thread......

Constructive critisism is welcome, so please come forward with your ideas. I find it ironic that the website becomes the communication vehicle for its own criticism. Proof enough that the forum is effective. It would be hard to replace what we have with something else for the same value for money, as we currently we pay £0.00 per year and for this we have a forum that has been available (with hardly any problems) for many years?!

Things have moved on a lot since we put this site together. On the Social Networking side of things we have seen the arrival of Facebook with critical mass behind it. Needless to say it is ?in vogue?, is more connected and has many more features that encourage people to stay in touch globally with far more subtlety and far less effort, whether on the move, via iPhone, PC or whatever. Quite a few members use Facebook now and it works well for those who do (including me). Compared to the Forum it is easier to post pictures, attach videos, connect to anything and do all the fun thins one does on a forum. It may not be good for specifics as far as a classic bike club is concerned, such as technical advice/support and information history but for the social element of staying in touch Facebook has it all.

BUT?. I am not suggesting we use Facebook as an alternative to the website. What I am implying is that social networks will gradually replace forums as social connectivity tools in the future so why invest in a new forum when the one we have is adequate. What we could do is find out if we can bring Facebook in as an element of the club site??

On the membership side our site is reliable and does the job. If anyone thinks it can be replaced it with something better than go ahead. A new site will incur costs such as development, hosting and on-going maintenance which we don?t pay today.

If you want Amazon.com for shopping with ?add to cart? and ?check out? for your bike spares, memorabilia/merchandise and accessories then we may find something ?off the peg? that fits some things and not others, or someone who is prepared to put a bespoke solution together for a budget price. We would need to consider how to manage customer requests on a daily basis though as we wold not have a 'back office team' working the shift. We did take the ?pay pal? approach on the merchandising before but the process would have to align with the site and Tango has his way of managing things (which is fair enough).

This is neither corporate nor enterprise and without the IT support from Paul Browne I am unable to do much unless we find another IT person, but then they will charge..!. He said he would get back on the case but with increased pressures at work and less time it is a long wait. By the way, we are all more busy these days with less time to spare.

If you feel the need then feel free to step forward. In the meantime this site will remain as is until Paul Browne is able to provide a new site, or somebody else decides they can revolutionise the KTC website with something far better than we have today at a price that makes sense to the club.

Just to say I have no problem with handing the task over if there is someone out there who can go the distance with something new. As long as we can all be convinced that we will get something better with good value for money.

kas750 wrote:Just because something is "free" doesn't make it good in my eyes.A while back ideas were mooted around about how we could spend a surplus of club income.Surely developing the club website,and as i said website,not specifically the forum would be a good way to move the club forward.Anyway that is my idea.Its for elected committee members to do whats best for the club.Jobbing members were asked for opinions and thats mine.

We can spend money for sure but we need to understand what is good and what is bad. We also need to be providing something that the club wants so it is understanding ALL of the needs.

Your comment, 'just because something is free doesn't make it good'. Are you implying that the site is not good...? Please explain where you think improvements should be made, or what we could have instead of what we do have.

Many people in the club and on the committee have said that the club should be carefull about spending money on a new website because what we have is good enough for most who use it. Can we please echo this so we know where we stand..?

If we do spend money we have to understand what we are buying and whether we need it (cost vs gain), otherwise there will be reciprocating complaints from other members asking that we justify the money spent.

another thing worth mentioning is that to move this site on we may have to burn our bridges with Paul Browne (unless he is able to find some time to imporve what we have, or we spend more money with him).

If we do burn our bridges we will lose a lot of hidden the advantages and benefits that keep the site alive for zero cost (a situation that I have been preserving). However if this is what the club wants Paul will hand over all the code that we need and we will be on our own.

I just hope he is not reading this post either, as he may make the decision ahead of us.

So, lets decide what we want to do....?

I feel the website/forum is our shop window for the world to see who and what we are. Although it has been said many times that only a certain number of members use the site , this does not mean they and prospective members don't have a look.

I understand that Paul Browne has helped the club a lot and for free but it is time to move on.

The website as it is is ok and it works well, but it is tired and needs freshening up regularly.The improvements I would like to see are....

Return of the search facility
A shop for memorabilia/club merchandise (perhaps an Ebay shop ?)
A change of the front page now and again
A better and regularly updated events section
The "contact us" page is a mess and needs sorting out
The "committee" page is out of date and needs updating

My 2p's worth

I visit the club web site once a year....

to renew my membership, cos I know it is not worth visiting, because it will have the same stuff on it
I always jump to the forum,.

question is do we get many "hits" on the club main page, is this how people find the forum, then after a bit of interaction join the club ?

Not saying there is anything wrong with the website, although I remember triumph saying "there is nothing wrong with twins, we have been building them that way for years"

We are all not getting any younger, the future of the club is young blood, if anyone knows any "young" bikers show them the home page and ask them does it make them want to find out more ?

we show our bikes at classic bike shows, which is great, but how do we get the next generation interested in triples?

I am not suggesting we spend £££££'s on a flashy front page, but it is looking tired, oh and according to the front page


"The Southern Rally is normally held in the Aylesbury area around the first week in September. It is generally the same formula as the Northern Rally and in the past two years many members have made visits to a local Dyno for performance tests on their bikes."

oh and "Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group"

7 yrs without an update!!

I am no where near good enough to bring the front page up to date, but if i saw the same front page on a website for 7 yrs I would not bother visiting it.....

oh hang on I don't!!!

Gary T

I have been a member for a while now. The banter and help is brilliant, but I still have no clue where to go to buy merchandise or even what there is for sale ( assuming there IS something?).

I did try to buy a reprint handbook from here about 18 months back, but after a few posts and then some emails enquiring, nothing ever happened. I bought one on Ebay in the U.S. in the end.

It really does need updating and if there is merchandise for sale, then it really ought to be shown and easy to purchase with a point and click facility. I have enough on my plate with two ongoing restorations, a full time job and running two forums already, so I am not able volunteer to start on building another one sadly, but if there is cash to spare perhaps someone could be engaged on a professional or even semi-professional basis to design and host an e-commerce site and an updated forum site ?

You are spot on gaz it needs updating , there are also some photos that could do with removing in the rally pictures section ! For parental reasons ! But it needs to be done , I wouldn't have a clue meself , as for club memberships I and graham pretty much have it in hand and ANYONE who wants to join has to come through the route of me , this way over the past years we have avoided the twats that were trying to sell Viagra and penis enlargers ( whatever they are) Come on Pete the. Site is well overdue a update Gary c ( membership sec) @ the moment !

perhaps we should look at what other clubs offer in the way of websites?

the vmcc site is very good

http://www.vmcc.net/default.asp

as is the vjmc site

http://www.vjmc.com/

I do not have the knowledge to update the site....But what i do have is the best interests of this club at heart when i make a suggestion to try and improve it.If we don't move forward we will get left behind.We need to offer value for money to members who are stumping up hard earned cash year after year.A quality website with features as mentioned previously will help it flourish.
Sadly when a suggestion is made,as i have in the past, it is almost considered a personal insult,which its not.
I will just keep my thoughts to myself in future.

Kas it's not a insult your right things need to move forward and now NOT in a years time as nice as kylie is I am sick of looking at her on the h1 , if I could do it I would but I haven't got a clue , not sure about the "hard earned cash comment though" !

since the topic emerged on this post, under 10 people have committed on it
480 views though

scouse has just reminded me of the 'club website'

I'd actually forgotten there was one, as i link straight to the forum.

It is awful

I cant see how it would be difficult to change the 'HomePage' with interactive merchandise purchase and club membership renewals/new members.

Just a fresher front end really, under the hood would stay the same surely.

The 'homepage' could even be hosted elsewhere but linked to kawaportal.

I think everyones ok with the forum, its just the big flagwaving front end we're missing