Forum Replies Created
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Remember if the sizes of the pictures to be uploaded are around 520 x 400 pixels they upload fast and several can be attached at a time.
DarrenI am in the process of painting my dads whizzer parts. He tried to use a rattle can like he did years ago, but they didn’t turn out well. I told him the chemicals that they used to put in those things way back then aren’t in there anymore due to the epa. I talked him into redoing them and using automotive paint. So I made a job for myself. I’ll see if I can post some photos of them soon! They aren’t done yet. he wants to pinstripe them but, he can’t make up his mind how he wants them.
Wow!!Those look real nice. Looks like a lot of work.
Charlie, size down your photo little and see if that works. The pictures that you emailed me were too big at 4000 x 3000 pixels. If you can size them down to about 560 x 420 pixels they will load much quicker and they will go through several at a time. If there is anything else I can do just let me know. If you aren’t sure how to size them down maybe I can give you a step by step if you have Microsoft picture manager.
By the way it might help a potential buyer if you state close to where you are located and how much $ you are looking to get out of the motor and transmission.
Darren
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This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by
Darren Chafin.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by Darren Chafin.
Kaitlyn, you must understand that you are exempt from the contest right? 🙂
That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to it. I’m really not aware of too many different logos that Cushman made. I was confused as to how the background always seemed to match the paint fairly well until, I realized that some of the paint shows through the transparent part that holds the decal together.
I haven’t even tried to contact Terry. I need to do it, but I have been invested in two different projects lately. One of them totally not related to scooters but motorcycles (Indian Motorcycles to be exact). I have been working on my Indian that has needed attention for a long time. I’m also working with my dad on a project of his. He bought a new Whizzer last year and he said he is going to have it done to ride this year. He started to paint it with a spray can (bug bomb) that just wasn’t co-operating with him. I don’t do spray cans unless it is a very very small part. So I have somewhat talked him out of the spray can thing and I want to do it right with automotive paint. So Ive been busy with that stuff and believe it or not the gear up for this years meet has already begun too! I have some changes that have taken me a while in this website and still adding to it, the board meeting coming up, and magazine and editor issues to deal with. So it’s been busy! Look for some changes here and there through out the site.
Spring is just around the corner. I haven’t been to Plain City in a while. Maybe this year I could take a day off and visit. Taking a day off is so expensive for me though. We’ll see!
Here are some new pictures of the new building going up on the grounds. It’s coming along great!
Arriving early, yeah we have brain stormed for years how to deal with it, and we are still always revisiting the issue. Our meet following immediately after the Jay County fair has helped prevent (the two weeks before the meet starts people) people from arriving soooo early. It’s really been working in our favor to hold the meet after the fair. That’s about all we can do in my opinion.
As for the flea market stuff, we can’t afford to tackle this issue right now as you stated. It would just be so very labor intensive, and we can’t afford that right now. Besides I really don’t think it is a huge issue.
We have advertised for help with the magazine several times before. It hasn’t taken up a half page before like we will be posting in the next issue, but I feel very few members actually read the magazine. Believe me, it will be made clear at the meet this year that we need an editor!
Yeah that’s a bit of a haul.
Thanks! This website has been a major ordeal to get it the way I think the club would like it, the way I wanted it, and something that I can handle updating. I definitely wanted to keep the costs down while ending up with a site that is worth while. A little over two years ago I screwed up with trying to keep costs too low, and got exactly what I paid for. The company (Now Marketing) did a excellent job of giving me a superior website over the last one for the amount of money I paid. They have been very helpful when I get stumped on updating or moving things around on the site. I hope members continue to participate and keep it active.
I will post whatever project I start as soon as I can get started. Time just isn’t appearing to me. Last Saturday we just put away the Christmas stuff down the basement and cleaned it up for the better part of the day. Sunday was spent with church and functions. This past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I worked from 6:30 till 8:30 in the evening. So I just can’t seem to find the time I want right now. Maybe this weekend.
I hope these forums do start to take off soon with participation, but I’m impatient. It’ll happen in time. Heck this website has only been up for a few months and I see a lot of folks signed up to participate. I think the right subjects have just got to appear.Doodle bugger,
We have changed the meet so that it falls on the weekend. So many were skeptical that it would be a good change, but the first year immediately eased their worry. I hope that you can join the meet again. It has really grown in the last several years to include the field in the back. It just keeps filling up so fast now and what used to be baron is used now for camping and vending space.
I’m so glad that you brought some of this up. I never did touch base with the website very much other than here it is and didn’t really explain my plans for it, although most of it is self explanatory now.
Years ago before my presidency of the club we did indeed publish where our money was spent. As I recall we did away with publishing it because Joyce was called by many of our members and asked questions about the balance and different bills. She was spending a lot of time on the phone trying to explain reasons for certain charges and so on. Many of our members don’t understand that our fiscal year ends at July 1st. So when we showed a balance of $20,000 in our bank account in January, folks thought we had $20,000 and we are collecting again for membership, although the $20,000 was already allocated for two more magazines being the spring and summer issues. That’s when the questions would come. Also I think it was around that time the girls, Tonya and Denise, were about to take over the books. Well they wouldn’t have been able to answer any question at the time since they were just introduced to the job.
Another reason we didn’t want to publish our accounts was the space taken up from the magazine. When we spend $10,000+ for a single issue we wanted to get as many stories and such in as we could. With Kaitlyn having some experience now with how the bills are paid and what are the reasons for the bills we may revisit the situation and take a look at publishing a record of our accounts again in a simpler form.
With that said I can somewhat give you an account of your membership. Free entry onto the grounds is a benefit as you mentioned along with free advertising in the for sale or wanted ads. $20 of it goes towards just paying for the magazine. Years ago, again before my presidency, it cost about $4 an issue. The cost of publishing a single magazine is now closer to $5. If our club was a larger size we could probably get that number down. Of course the more you order the lower the cost applies. Another $3 per member pays Kaitlyn for her services. She is indeed the only one on the board that is paid for her services. A little over $1 goes to pay for the complimentary license plate that you receive for attending the VMBC meet. If you add that all together it comes up to a little over $24. Now the postage for the magazines , the envelopes they arrive in, your membership card, any office equipment, and office supplies is not figured into the $25 membership, and much more little things that I couldn’t list. This would be a book. That’s just a quick dissect of your membership. Actually the membership fee hasn’t covered the items listed for years. The only way that we have made ends meet is the profit from the swap meet and show at Portland. The problem is that in the past few years rental of the grounds has went up along with utilities. I’m sure you can relate to your gas, electric, sewage, and water bills going up. We also pay for porto potties, golf carts, trash collection, insurance, trophies, building rental, any damage that the grounds has sustained, such as when the motor home destroyed the grass during the great flood, and so on. It’s just now that the show profits are cutting to close to not having enough money to cover the many various bills from the show, not to mention any small reserve for an emergency.
Now for the reason for raising the dues. Aside from the $25 not covering the membership benefits, As stated in the past magazines, my dad, Garrett Chafin, is resigning from the editors position. He has continued to do this for free all throughout his term. The club has paid for half of his computer. That’s it! We have advertised in several past issues that his position will need to be filled. No one has come forward to do this in the last two years! One person did come forward two years ago, but she cannot do it now due to life changing events. If no one doesn’t come forward we may have to pay a person to assemble the magazine.
As for this website, so far no money has been paid by the VMBC club members. I have personally paid $3,060.00 out of my own pocket for this website to be a reality. Also 99% of the information on this website is my own time and in most cases, wording also. Because only a few board members understand the importance of a website, I feel I have to prove to them why it is important before asking for the funding. Now this website isn’t the grand website that the Antique Automobile Club of America or the Antique Motorcycle Club of America has built, but we don’t have $10,000 – $15,000 into it either. I believe the AMCA wishes you to be a member for the reasons of their online library. They have a lot of time and money wrapped up in all those old ads, catalogs, and owners manuals that are available for viewing. If you consider we spend $40,000+ a year for 4 issues compared to the $3,000 I have invested in this website it’s a much better deal because it should last 5 years and reach tons and tons more people. Of course it will need an update every so often, but still it will come nowhere near the cost of $200,000 in 5 years.
I feel this website is necessary for our club to grow in membership and stay the largest club of its kind. It really needs to be available to everyone that has access to a computer, including the forums. That’s why I pushed a forum to take top priority with my website designer. I think many folks including the younger generation needs a way to ask questions of the older generation for answers. If they have no way to reach us then why would they want to be a part of our club, or how would they learn how to fix a 60 year old scooter of whatever make? So far I am very happy with our website outcome, although I am still quite unsure how to do some tasks. Still lots of learning to do.
As for the online VMBC magazine, only two magazines have been uploaded. The first issue was for the website designer to set a place for it on the website. The second issue was for my training so to speak. You see the website had already been online for a few months, and I hadn’t tried to upload a magazine yet. I wanted to make sure I didn’t need any special programs to do this, and that I personally could do it before the warranty (if you will) was up on the website. So to answer your other question the VMBC magazine will not be uploaded every issue. Perhaps just one issue per year will be uploaded. I did get some great feedback that members did like the idea because they could read it wherever they were by bringing it up on their phone, I-pad, any computer, or whatever. It was just a process that has run its course to make a somewhat updated copy for sample. Another copy probably won’t be uploaded for some time.
Sorry it has taken me a while to answer back, but answers like this take me a while to type (chicken peck) out. I hope this has answered your questions.Thanks Pete.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by
