A new use for this Forum?

[avantey]

As we have all seen Pat Thorpe has done a load of work to post mountains of info on the 2010 Spring meet in Canandaigua. Besides being field marshall I also am just finishing up the brochure to be mailed with registration. Due to a severe lack of space on the brochure I had to omit listing of hotels, campgrounds, etc. and only put links to web sites on the flyer.

Here is an idea on how to make this forum a more effective tool for future meets. Can we take the three or four notes from Pat listing lodging, condense them to one stickie and put it at the top of the forum to help all those coming to our meet find lodging? It is a great way to keep using Pat's work to make finding lodging easier for our guests, to use the forums as an AACA communication tool rather than just a social site, and will help Pat get some sleep!

It is also a precedent for use by all other hosting regions if it works well to get out useful news about upcoming meets. We could have targeted stickies that get removed for lodging, directions or any other specific subject.

Well, just my thoughts on how to help the membership plan their meet experience easier and make the Forum more useful to AACA.

Down the road we go! - Bill Preston

[ex98thdrill]

Just a note to you all, Bill Preston has busted his butt on the flyer and laying out the show field. He is one of the most dedicated committee chairs that I have involved with this meet.

I have a lot of good people involved with this meet, but the more that gets done, the more appreciation that I have for the Hershey Region and the hard work that they do each and every year.

I have my hands full with this meet, but I also know that our meet is a pothole in the road in comparison to the Hershey Meet.

To the members of the GVACS, Wayne Drumlins and Hershey Regions......

Thank you for all you've done and continue to do.

[charlier]

Here is an idea on how to make this forum a more effective tool for future meets. Can we take the three or four notes from Pat listing lodging, condense them to one stickie and put it at the top of the forum to help all those coming to our meet find lodging? It is a great way to keep using Pat's work to make finding lodging easier for our guests, to use the forums as an AACA communication tool rather than just a social site, and will help Pat get some sleep!

Bill, that is a good suggestion but with all the meets that are done in a year the number of stickies may start filling up the first page or two of the forum. While the sticky aspect of your suggestion has it's advantages some might think it a disadvantage when the first page or two of a forum is full of stickys.

BTW, your suggestion of consolidating/condensing information is used on other automotive forums. On a number of other automotive forums it was suggested that for event information the spokesperson for the event should put all the event information in the first post of a thread. As new information is available the first post is edited and the information added. For some events that can mean a BIG first post which some might not like. That BIG post is usually preferred to having to search through pages and pages and pages of posts to get information scattered throughout a thread. It appears that the forum software here does allowed editing of posts days after a post is made.

This idea has been taken one step further. When the spokesperson for an event starts a thread they could create multiple posts at the beginning of the thread. The first post could cover general information about the event (ie dates, times, activities,etc.) . The second post could cover hotel and camping accommodations. Other posts could cover other aspects of the event like show field location, trailer parking location, etc. At first these posts might be nothing more than a post with the words "General Information" or "Accommodations" or "Misc Information" in them. As time goes on the meet spokesperson simply edits these posts and adds information to them. This would keep the various types of information organized and in a predictable location (ie the first 2 or 3 posts in the meet thread.

Just some thoughts as to how other forums handle event information that seems to work well for them and provide timely, easy to find information about their events.

[Shop Rat]

..... As time goes on the meet spokesperson simply edits these posts and adds information to them. .....

That is how I did the printable list for folks going to Hershey this year. I organized it by fields, judging, showing etc. and just kept editing it as new information came in.

[avantey]

I like the ideas for getting info out without the stickies. It achieves my goal of using the forum to the guests which is all I am trying to promote here. I started with stickies as they are at the top and get noticed more easily as you come to a board. And I only meant to use them for national meets and delete them after the meet. I agree they could pile up so updated information threads would be an interesting alternative.

As for doing the web work maybe show hosts should consider a 'webmaster' on the committee whose sole job is to promote/inform about the meet online wherever they feel it is possible to reach an audience that would like the show and maybe join AACA.

Thanks for the input- Bill.