I need to know what you guys think of the following proposal:

I would like to have Ian change the title of the Midwest Xterra Club forum to the MadCity XOC. I bring this up because of how active the MadCity XOC is and how the members are from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The Midwest Xterra Club never really got going, and the MadCity Xterra club is going strong and growing. Members from the MadCity XOC are organizing and taking the lead on the upcoming Midwest Xterra Gathering and I think it is time that MadCity XOC takes over the Midwest Xterra Club forum. Please provide your feedback so the right choice can be made. I am not trying to step on anybody's feet or piss anybody off. I am merely trying to be more efficient.

Thanks in advance for your feedback and support,

Michael (lincolnnellie)

I think it would be the right and good thing to do. In the past, I said to keep it the way it has been. But, Midwest Xterra club never really got up and going. The only thing is we are changing is the name and not the ones that post here.
Dan

I think it would be a good idea also, you have my support.

Here are my ramblings, call it a brain puke of my ideas and thoughts....

I don't know how to post a link to a specific thread on here, but we have discussed something similar to this before, only then the idea was to drop the Midwest forum all together in favor of smaller regional groups.

The idea of keeping the Midwest forum in its present state was to allow everyone in the region to be able to have a central place to chat and hear about outings instead of having separate forums for each groub/club. The Midwest Xterra Gathering was also intended to be a traveling outing with the MadCity XOC being the first to host it, not an exclusive gathering to always be held in Northern Wisconsin, at least that's how I understood it.

As for renaming the Midwest Club to MadCity XOC, I think that isn't the way to go, I would think possibly listing (with links to webpages) all the clubs in the Midwest at the top of the Midwest forum might better than changing it to one specific groups forum. Don't forget there are people from Michigan, Iowa, and Indiana that post in the Midwest forum.

The other idea would be to change the name of MadCity XOC to the Northern Midwest Xterra Club or something like that and essentially have a merging of clubs, even if the Midwest group, never really meets, is not in anyway structured, and doesn't even have an official memeber list!

Ok I am done rambling, sorry if this is all over the place... I have to get back to work.

-erik

I think you have a really good idea there. As far as changing the name of MadCity XOC, that would have to come from it's members and I don't know if they would want to do that. It is definatly a viable solution to the problem. Your other idea of listing the regional groups in a sticky message at the top of the forum with links to their websites would also work. I think we should see what the MadCity XOC members want to do. If they will change their name, then we can have Ian rename the forum to the Northern Midwest Xerra club and merge all of the clubs. If they want to keep the name, then we could just list the links to the different websites.

I figured that the Midwest Xterra Gathering was going to be a traveling event, but wasn't sure how that was setup. Thanks for your input EAP, you were one of the people that I thought I would be stepping on when I brought this up. I didn't want to piss anybody off.

Thanks,

Michael

I would eventually like to lose all of the club forums on XOC, and offer 6 or 7 forums based on regional location (Pacific NorthWest, West, Mountain, Central, MidWest, NorthEast, SouthEast) which would allow newcomers to find a local club in their region. This would streamline XOC and make it a lot easier to navigate.

Originally I had planned to offer a free forum to any club but it would be a public place, which many clubs realized was not ideal. AZXC is the only club right now using XOC as their forum, so until they host their own somewhere, it will remain how it is now.

We do most of the SWXC stuff here as well as the TCXC.

I would say to just cut out the clubs that are no longer active to save space

But every week I get a request from "Little Town No One Has Ever Heard of Xterra Club" wanting a forum...

I understand your frustration Ian. I think that having a forum named Midwest Xterra Club when that club really doesn't exist is counter productive. If MadCity XOC changes their name, then we will merge all the clubs and have you (if you would be so kind ) rename the forum. If not, we will leave everything as it is and have a sticky at the top with the websites to the different clubs.

I think Ian's idea is grand. Like he said most do not use the forums here. Separating them by area then putting sticky threads at the top for individual clubs seems like the way to go for me.

Then someone can get into the Midwest area and see all of the clubs available to them with links in the thread to their individual website and so on.

I wont be changing the name of MADCityXOC club simply for the reason that I have gone to all the trouble of logo design, stickers, website etc. and it was a major hastle to standardize everything.

I started MADCityXOC BECAUSE Midwest XOC was not active and there were no other clubs for this region. While Michigan UP is accessible to MADCityXOC, Michigan state is out of the way. Northern Il works as does Iowa and we make frequent trips to Minnesota as we have family there. We do not cover the whole middlewest as defined by websters, so it doesnt make any sense to rename it. You can see I put great time and effort and thought into this club. With 23 members and more being added it is too late to make changes.

The XOC forum for regions makes sense but we do all our posting and forum stuff here. Throwing an S on the end of "Midwest Xterra Club" to "Clubs" makes perfect sense.