It would be great if we could have a MOTD-2007 chatroom to check in with each other and discuss/share info to help each other. I've planned at least one major MOTD event every year since MOTD-2004, and I am in Los Angeles, so having the help of the more local MINI folks would really help me with logistics and such.

Although, I do go back to the area in July and October for "research" purposes!

 

I really like that idea. What about doing this on Saturday morning and moving the parade also to Saturday morning? I think that would be better than Friday morning for 2 reasons: (1) lots of people don't arrive until sometime on Friday, so the traditional Friday morning gathering does not nearly capture all of the attendees and (2) the parade each year is becoming a slower crawl, so why not do it on Saturday when there's more traffic on the dragon anyway, and leave the dragon (and schedule) open on Friday morning for those who want a spirited drive before the weekend crowd arrives?

 

A lot of great ideas being discussed here. I know our club will be hosting the Drive-In again next year if everything goes well. Let me know if there is something we can do to make that a better event.

 

Unfortunately, your drive-in was rescheduled to the same time as the Jam, so I didn't really get to go (I was co-producing the Dragon Jam). But the set-up looked great! Congrats!

How about showing the original Italian Job next time? It's fantastic!

 

Personally, I would have liked to see more people step up and voluenteer for the event planning and management.

I seemed to see the same few people setting up the events and I think they need a huge round of applause and some help next year.

It's the grass-roots nature of the event that made it so much fun. I wouldn't have made nearly as many friends if I had simply attended. It was a lot of planning and work, but I am so happy that I had the opportunity to help. I left MOTD 2006 with 90 new friends from the Scenic Drive.

 

I would have liked to had the Midnight on the Dragon earlier in the event schedule. By that last evening I was too tired to drive the Dragon at midnight and I had to get an early start out the next morning... It's not good to start a 600 mile drive w/ only 4 hours of sleep.

 

WHEW... I just caught up on this very fast-moving thread. I have a lot of feedback that I want to respond to, so bear with me everyone. First of all, I do want to state that constructive criticism is VERY welcome, but the keyword in that is constructive. I stickyed this thread on Thameth's request because we do need feedback. And not just DC Metro MINIs, but all involved clubs and individuals! If you don't have reasonable and positive suggestions to make to improve something you didn't like, please don't speak up, because you aren't contributing to the discussion. That being said, here goes:That is a good idea... in theory, the "traditional dam photo" before the Parade can serve this purpose, but 8:30am on Friday is a difficult appointment to make for many... either because they are not morning people, because they are staying further away, or both. Perhaps on Friday, in combination with the panoramic photo, we can try to get as many MINIs there as possible. Maybe organize into clubs to take photos together? Or organized by car colors? Definitely an idea worth exploring. An official count is next to impossible however, since people come and go as they please, and some people can't even arrive until Friday afternoon or evening.This is the first year we have done REAL badges as part of the registration. I hope you all feel that they were high quality and worthwhile. The design of the badges was quite unique, I thought... but certainly next years design can be altered to take things into account. Perhaps the screenname will be the most prominent text, while still including other interesting info like their real name, where they are from, their Motoring ID, etc... in smaller text. We do mostly associate each other by our screen names, this is true. However, it's nice to know someone's real name sometimes, as well as where they are from, don't you think? The suggestion also came up from someone to put a copy of the signatures on the badges. That would be far too difficult, since each badge has to be printed individually, and the work involved to duplicate their signature is just too much... especially since signatures can dynamically change at any moment!Thameth, the money is tighter than you may think. We try to squeeze in as much as we can into the registrations, and especially the $5 basic registration to include the badges was a very tight fit, financially. Please keep in mind that part of the registration is to be counted, which helps us all to determine the direction the event is headed, and plays a significant role in approaching vendors for their involvement. Aside from that, event insurance is part of the equation - a very important part, I might add... since all involved groups and individuals (and not just DCMM) are putting themselves at legal risk simply by working to organize all of this! It is quite possible that next year all events on the schedule will require registration. I don't know what you meant about "all the events had to be paid extra for"... it's up to each event organizer whether or not additional funds are required. Surely you don't expect free meals as part of the registration for $5 or $40... and the drive-in movie event (organized by Tar Heel MINIs) was a charity event, as were several others.Believe me we tried... but they chose to stay in the background and observe. We are fine with this, but it would be nice to get extra official MINIUSA "stuff" to give away as prizes, or cool handouts as part of the great MINI ad campaigns, etc. Please understand that we did NOT (and would not) ask them to take over planning and organization of the entire event. We would hope they take an interest in acting more like a vendor, as you suggested. Maybe next year they will be more involved.Your willingness to help volunteer for the planning is greatly appreciated... we struggled at times to find people outside of DCMM to help with organizing things. For example, DCMM hosted both the welcome and farewell dinners simply because we couldn't find another club to take one of them... but already we are getting positive signs of more club involvement for next year, which is good! Help can take many forms though such as organizing individual events (Aaron Granger (agranger) REALLY stepped up to the plate this year, all the way from Texas, having NEVER been before... by planning the Saturday Scenic Drive for 90 MINIs... way to go Aaron!) We hope to have a whole set of "new recruits" for next year since more people have come now and want to be involved.

 

There was a sticky here in the MOTD2006 Dragon Forum asking folks who wanted to organize events to contact DCMM's Dragon Organizing Committee to have their event listed on the Events Planner Calendar. I submitted the Dragon Jam to it. It was online for quite a while, so people did have an opportunity to put something together.

I'm sure that some of the newbies will have ideas for fun events for upcoming MOTDs.

 

Response #2, for the non-Thameths...

Mark, the whole point of the parade is to signify the start of the weekend to us and EVERYONE else (especially the bikers!), since most people arrive Thursday afternoon and evening. That doesn't mean we can't have a separate photo gathering (in conjunction with the panoramic?), but the parade will probably continue in the way it has. The parade is not SUPPOSED to be fast. I led it this year, and I deliberately tried to set a pace that was reasonable but not outside of people's comfort zones. Based upon initial feedback, most people who have attended before were very happy with the pace of the parade this year. If you are concerned about getting uninterrupted runs in, I recommend you show up a day or two early, or simply wake up earlier before most people are getting moving... it makes a huge difference! The numbers are only going to grow, uninterrupted runs are only going to become harder to find.The "all vendors in one location" concern actually came up while we were there, and we're already considering doing that... putting ALL vendors in the lower area near the general store - provided there is room for them all! Directions and clarifications on where they are could have been done better too - on Saturday, we put up a "mud map" on the whiteboard in front of the adventure center which displayed the locations of all of the vendors. Next year we hope to be more proactive about that too.I like the idea, at least the hangtags... but as we start to add more ideas, the question will come up... are people willing to pay more than $5 for basic registration? The reason it has been kept at $5 is to try to encourage the "fence sitters" to register anyway. At the minimum though, a hangtag for the full registration is a great idea... and perhaps blank MOTD4 hangtags for sale separately (inexpensively) so the basic registration people can buy one, write their own info in, and hang it up. I don't know for sure, but the concept is good.

 

I can halucinate Fontana building a MAJOR convention center with hotells... But then the locals get angry because they can't get on the public roads because of all the MINI's.

But aren't we close to that right now?

I would also think that there would be other roads besides the Dragon and Cherohala Skyway to explore the Lateral G's on.

The White Water Rafting might be fun but also COLD. It is still spring. The train rides also sound fun.

 

Didn't MINIUSA donate items for the raffle?

 

I don't know for certain, since I wasn't in charge of managing the prizes... but I think some of the donations you may attribute to MINIUSA were actually donated by dealerships, like MINI of Sterling and MINI of Nashville. I may be wrong. I think AtlantaMINIs, at the chili cook-off, managed to get more "official" stuff from MINIUSA and/or a dealership... but MINIUSA could do a whole lot more (without taking over) if they chose.

 

Yea, thats why i said they should be invited as a vendor. Then they could basically get their own setup, bring a few cars. And basically do almost what they would do at any autoshow but even better since its for MINI owners. It could basically become MINI owner appreciation day. Like lets say this year they could have brough a GP or two (do they have two? ). Then they could have given out ride alongs or even test drives. They could have maybe brought the last Traveler concept to show off. Maybe some classic concepts. There is ALOT they can do which would come out REALLY kool. Hell maybe even give away one car every year in some kind of contest.

 

Awesome idea Gabe!

Edge, if you want i can start to put together the best suggestions in one post to make it a little easier for you guys to go through for next year if you want??

 

Last year events were listed on the event planner, and had the number of registered people for those events, and a checkmark if you registered, the rally, the Cherahola Skyway Drive etc.

This year events such as the Dillsboro trip, Brew Swap etc, while listed did not show that you were registered with a checkmark. Those event numbers were in the individual threads, with tallies kept by the individual organizers.

It would be nice if all those things were listed in ones event planner.

Steve

 

Keep a simple record, yes... but I wouldn't suggest putting it in a single post yet. This thread is serving the general purpose of posts & discussion.

Did you read my long reply to your points? You need to factor in "cost" when you start talking about "cool" stuff. I fought hard to ensure that basic attendees got a printed registration badge this year - $5 is not a lot to work with... and you also need to keep in mind that some of that $5 goes to processing fees just to handle the money in the first place.

 

No problem...

Yes i read through your reply. Very well put and great info. As i said i know that alot of the stuff that came full reg took up alot of its cost. It was great stuff and i'll definitely be using it. Insurance i know takes a huge cut as i used to help plan my local AutoX events. Hopefully later i'll have more time to go through most of your points.

Thanx for your participation! We're here to help, not bash.

 

Along the lines of being a "newbie" at the dragon, yes it was hard to know what was going on where. It may be a good idea next year to have a schedule placed in our goodie bag, as well as announcements over the radio of what is going on that day? Kind of like a news bulliten in the morning? Not too sure. Or at least before events start, announce them?

I really dig the idea of somehow labeling the cars. I recognized some of them, but it would be great to be able to put them with screen names as well.

things can only get better. It is so hard to organize an event for this many people from far away. I was only sorta involved at the end of it with DCMM since I was only able to join in at the last minute. But, I garuntee, JustJAY and I are in it for next year! But Kudos for all the hard work for EVERYONE!

 

Well there was a schedule in the goodie bag, but by that time i had pretty much made my own schedule of things i had seen in the forum here and there. Stuff like the Scenic drive, the hike (got cancelled), and others. There were things that i saw for the first time on the schedule i got in my goodie bag and it was too late to change my plans. This is where a master thread in the MOTD 07 forum can help with planning.

 

oops. i guess there was a schedule but mine got chewed up by the dragon! It flew out my window on my first run! LOL

 

Ohh here's another suggestions but probably a bit for another group.

Can the Midnight on the Dragon be moved to Friday night?? I wanted to do the Midnight run but since i had to leave Sunday morning i just couldn't stay up till probably 3 am doing the Midnight on the Dragon Run. Seems like alot of people have long drives ahead of them on Sunday so they can be back to work on Monday(11 hrs for me).

Friday night would be perfect since people will have a bit of time to sleep in a little bit on Saturday but still get to do alot.

 

I think group photos would be good. I know some clubs organized it for their clubs, but I mean real pro photos for the groups. My camera can't do justice.
I would love to have had a pic of all the EBers together, as well as all the DCMMers. I know this would take a LOT of time and planning, but it would be kind of cool to do.

I know there is already chatter about plans for stuff for next year already. I know the women are planning a run/lunch benefit for next year. I would love to see more benefit stuff. It was great to see it starting this year...Well it may have started before, but this was my first year. but I gladly donated!

I would love to see more vendors, but I understand that room is a problem. I wonder if there is a better covered area for them. Maybe see if Fontanna can get one of those BIG tents? that way it would be more water proof? My poor install from AC...I felt so sorry for Mike trying to install all the vinyl in the rain, especially mine. (I sure do hope you come back next year!) I love it!

Classes would be great! Yes I have mods, but I don't really know exactally what they all do. I am reading ALOT about them, but I want to learn more! and I would love to see more what other people have done. that is one of the greatest things about all of us. NONE of us have the same car!

 

Nope...don't think that will be changing. It has always been on Saturday night, and that will continue to be the tradition. koolmini and YuccaPatrol are its founders and will be organizing it, as usual. sndwave and I always stay at Deal's Gap as information and safety monitors, and the earliest folks returning on the Midnight Run were back to Deal's Gap early enough that we returned to our cabin at Fontana by 1 - 1:15 AM.

 

I really like the idea of a huge car gathering/car show. Those of us who have modded our cars a lot could take some time to make up little info sheets listing our mods. It would be cool to be able to look at them all at once by just walking up and down the rows.

 

One item I would recommend for Midnight on the Dragon... someone came up to me on Saturday afternoon and asked if it was the pace of the parade, or a lot faster. I told them that it was a stable pace, similar to the parade (based upon my experience last year). I was wrong... anyone near the front was definitely driving much faster than most people's comfort level. I was OK with it... but passenger nausea did become an issue.

I would simply suggest that the Midnight be run either be split into smaller groups of "fast", "medium" and "slow", or barring that, to have a general recommendation to allow faster cars to go first, and hang back near the tail end if you want to drive it at a more leisurely pace in the dark.

Please note I'm speaking just as a fellow attendee, not as a DCMM Dragon committee member.