some advice from someone whos been there... (archive)

We started firstfives along time ago, before bimmer.org existed. We have had our trials and tribulatioons, but its been great. I say we, 'cause you can't do it alone. I much prefer our firstfives site to the roadfly equivalent. Its much more of a community. We have a great FAQ, sponsor events, make T-shirts, grille badges etc... We even have a logo or two. Our name is trademarked. You can find our contact info in the Roundel, etc...

Now, all of this costs money. The current dictator for life, Peter Florance, has been really good at soliciting donations to pay for server space, domain name etc... When I was DFL, I sucked at it, so I payed alot of expenses out of pocket. I put tons of time and money into the site.

My suggestion, go for it, be somewhat organized about it, but not overorganized - too much bureacratic bs. Most certainly have one person in charge of the web design, etc... and one perrson in charge of the 'club activities, etc'. It too much for one person to do by themselves.

Make sure that the community is friendly towards all. Ignore the spammers - delete there posts and send a message to there ISP, refer questions to other boards when appropriate. Don't make it commercial. You won't make a red cent off of banner ads, trust me on that one. Do lots of promotion. Try to get your site mentioned in the Roundel, Bimmer, or Grassroots Motorsports, get linked on all the appropriate bmw pages.

Its gonna be hard to start now that roadfly has already done it. We had momentum over at firstfives, so most people go there, but since most E28ers are already coming here, it will be hard to get them to go to a new spot. In the long run, its well worth it, but you need to convince everyone of that.

Sorry to babble. I'll answer any questions a prospective organizer might have. I'm no expert, just someone who has been there. Do you know what Sensei means? - One who has gone before - not master as most people assume.

Sensei Greg

hehe

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