Over the past three years there has been a two complaints that we hear fairly regularly around the Mini Club:
Why don’t you organise anything? All we do is sit at the club twice a month and chat. We never actually get out and do anything.
I don’t like the club, there’s too many “cliques”
I cannot understand why these keep cropping up. Dealing with the events first, let’s list a few that we’ve done this year:
1. Meet on New Year’s Day at Lee-on-Solent.
2. Brooklands Mini Show, March.
3. Club meet with West Sussex Mini Owners’ Club.
4. Coles Miller Quay For My Car, May – August, 2nd Friday of the month.
5. Minis On The Hill. First Thursday of the month. EVERY month.
6. Vinyl night at a club meeting.
7. American and Classic Car Show, Easter Weekend.
8. Popham Car Show, 1st May.
9. LL Rally at Horndean. TWO CARS went.
10. Mini Cooper Day at Beaulieu.
11. Silver Ring Rally to the Nurburgring.
12. London to Brighton.
13. Live Music at a club night.
14. Quiz at a club night.
15. Sainsbury’s Mini Run.
16. Several pre-meeting cruises during the summer.
17. Minis By The Sea.
18. Mini In The Park.
19. Miniworld Action Day.
20. Club camping weekend in The New Forest.
21. Cruise and Sunday Lunch.
22. Run After The Sun (RATS).
23. Joint run-out with the Old School Mini Club.
And we’re not done yet:
24. Faulty Tows run to Torquay – 1 – 3 December.
25. Rolling Road Shootout 28 October.
This last event has been a bone of contention with me for a while. We have (as of last Sunday) 60 members with (I guess) 40 cars paid up membership of the club.
We can’t even get 10 Minis to make the event viable. The poor organiser has had to ask Janspeed if we can take non-Minis on the rollers just to get the numbers up and not cancel the event. Now THAT sucks. I know that a number of “the usual suspects” cars are off the road at the moment, mine included, but that still leaves around another 20-25 cars that could attend the event.
Don’t you dare tell me or the committee that this club does not do anything. I will throw the list of 25 (and more that I haven’t listed) back in you face and then tell you to blow it out your ARSE.
As for the clique thing, it’s something that happens in any club/organisation. There’s not a damned thing we can do about it. From what I have seen at club nights the “younguns” crowd round a table in the corner and disrupt entertain themselves while MOST of the other members will happily chat with anyone. The problem is that the outsider needs to have a little force and try to make conversation. We’re there to enjoy ourselves too. If you’re gonna sit in a corner looking as miserable as fucking sin, why should I put myself out to come see you?
I am trying to organise another event for May next year but with the response I’ve had from club meets so far, I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle.
I’m sorry, I rambled. I could go on and may well do, but not right now. Thinking about this has made me angry and I want a smoke.
:(
Sorry to hear that, and I still can’t believe how little interest the rolling road has at the moment. It’s going to be mostly non-mini’s which will suck.
As for the gathering of young-ens in the corner, well I guess you are talking about me and “the rest of them”. I will have to face the fact here and say that I don’t often contribute to the noise whilst Mark (or whoever) is talking. I do often tell others to hush, but many rarely listen anyway.
Collin, if this is aimed at me, or any of us on “that table”, then please tell me/us face-to-face when the whole room IS NOT listening, rather than either blogging about it or complaining whilst the chairman is doing his speech. I can understand anyone getting pissed off while he is talking, but if it is a serious issue for you then please talk to us either before or after he talks. And thats to ALL of us, not just the ones that want to listen to you (eg, me, usually).
I think its bad for outsiders / potential new members to hear a bunch of young-ens in the corner talking while the chairman is talking, but I think its a lot worse when an older person from the club tells the lot of them to shut up. I know that rarely do this, but you have been known to do it in the past.
Ok, rant over. Thanks, by the way, for the chat about lenses / cameras again. You are a walking talking camera encyclopedia!
PS: add up the numbers on how many you did of the above. I count 18 for myself, not including the last 2 which are yet to come. 20 in total for me then, I only missed out on five.
Mate – the “younguns” comment was supposed to be in jest. I think in hindsight it would have been better with a smiley or four. It’s not a serious issue and no, it wasn’t aimed at you specifically. Believe me, if it really was a problem then the chairman would have said something to you in private rather than in front of the whole club. It would also have been mentioned at a committee meet, which as you well know, it hasn’t. :) :) :) :) and just for good measure: :) :) :) :) :) :)
I get to 19 out of the 23 already run so it’s not too bad. As I said previously I would love to have done the ring run but I just couldn’t afford it. As it turns out it was probably a good thing. I suspect my car would have come home on a trailer.
You know what they say about people that love their hobbies: They are happy to talk about it endlessly. There is also a thin line between hobby, infatuation and train spotter…