MINIs in the Mountains...
On Sept 9th the MINI5280 club is having our monthly meeting & will discuss/wrap up MITMs from this year.
If you live out of town or won't be able to attend the meeting, please let us know what you think worked... what did't work.... what you liked... what you didn't like... what you would like to see.... comments.... suggestions.

Feel free to PM me if you don't want to post what ever you want to say! Thanks in advance!

 

I won't be able to attend (It's too far for me to go on a work night, lol)
but i will be happy to make a list for you. I really enjoyed MITM. I can't wait to go again next year!

 

Thanks Vick!!

 

Are you also soliciting feedback from non-MINI5280 members? (We're talkin' WAY out of town...)

 

Absolutely!! Please

 

Well, this was my first MITM so it's a single data point for me, but I was extremely impressed by the level of preparation and organization. There was obviously a lot of hard work that went into putting it all together and keeping it going, not unnoticed by the participants. The positives far outweigh any of the little nits that I came up with, but in the interest of helping to make positive improvements I'll share them.

The things I really liked:
- The top level of the parking ramp as the "nerve center" and the co-located vendors
- The well staffed and organized check-in tent
- The MITM handbook--especially all of the suggested drives laid out in detail
- The badges with both NAM names and "real" names and the meal passes integrated right into them
- The fact that Jonathan didn't bite my head off when I failed to go around the traffic circle on initial arrival
- The "economy" lodging over at Edge -- what a great deal!
- The announcement boards for the daily drives (and the citation tally )
- As an early riser, it was fantastic that the water was on by 7 am over at the car wash
- The buckets that were available at the wash
- Positive comments from Richard while detailing (a highlight!) which only happened because you set him and Heather up over at the wash
- Mingling with the other MINI owners on the ramp
- The chalk drawings (I'll have a plan for next time)
- The first half of the Rocky Mountain National Park drive (CMR to Estes Park) when everyone was together, including the first stop to allow everyone to catch up and get organized and the potty stop in Nederland
- The BBQ under the tent at Winter Park (less the waiting line for food)
- The awesome group photo
- The well organized Saturday banquet -- the food was pretty good too
- The seemingly endless prize give-aways
- All of the drives I made (maybe I'll be brave enough to go up Mt. Evans at night next time--the daytime trip was definitely a white-knuckle experience)

Small Nits & Suggestions:
- It would be nice if there were just a few more short drives under specific leadership planned and scheduled in advance. The ad hoc nature of most of the drives led to many getting organized and led privately (i.e., not advertised on the board) by established cliques of MINI friends making it awkward for someone new to try and hook up with them (or even know they were occurring).
- In advance of the RMNP drive, we should have identified a specific rendezvous point and time for everyone following lunch in Estes Park. I was disappointed that the nice, cohesive group of MINIs got scattered to the four winds and never really formed up again. Not enough folks had radios to be able to keep abreast of what was going on.
- When food is involved, people tend to show up on time. Best plan on everyone being there at the start of the BBQ rather than anticipating that they will filter in over a period of a couple of hours.
- Suggest you share some advance info describing how the group photo is going to be choreographed to grease the process (a paragraph in the handbook?).
- A couple of the vendors got their feathers ruffled at the banquet because they thought that having their name posted on the table meant that it was exclusively reserved for them. A bit of advance communication would have mitigated this.
- Any way of sharing the list of registered participants with everyone? Maybe it could just consist of Name, Home City/State, and NAM Name to avoid privacy concerns. It would sure help with remembering names and following up with newly formed friendships.

Again, the nits are puny compared to all of the positives. Well done and thanks to all!

 

Wow, thanks so much for the feed-back. This was a really helpful post. I'm so glad you enjoyed MITM and that it was an overall positive vacation for you. Even your nits weren't so bad and are easily improved upon.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your observations.
Chuck

 

I second having a name/info roster of attendees. It is hard to obtain other's e-mails and other personal information on the fly so the roster would help. It was my first MINI/Mini event so all others will be judged by MITM 2008.

 

just how many of these things we can actually address and resolve, which is really all of them. We will keep your notes for next year and use them of course.

Thinking back a few years to our first event, some things never even occured to us. Anymore, they do and believe it or not, Rick and I are very serious about addressing them. (Please don't park on the grass signs, for example...ladies t-shirts for example....veggie meals for example....)

So thanks for the feedback, Gary. We care about these things and will address them for the group.

Jonathan

 

Hey, Keith! It was great to meet you at MITM '08. Our drive back over the Dragon was a hoot! Hope to do it again next year.

Oh, and agreed on a roster of some kind.

I think the only change I would add (on top of some listed by Gil) would be to have the rides and departure times listed on the website during MITM. I stayed in a hotel in Frisco, so it would've been nice to be able to hit the website to see when rides would be departing, as opposed to driving over to Copper to find there weren't any scheduled rides for a few hours.

Overall, I had a great time. We here in Colorado get spoiled by having all these great roads to drive at any time, but doing so a long line of MINIs makes it even more fun!

R

 

Thanks Gil-galad for the helpful info. We value your feedback. I'll address the item I've quoted above. I personally would not want an event I registered for to give my email address to other registrants without my consent. The reason is that anybody with access to a list of names and email addresses may not be careful about protecting that personal information -- once it's out it's beyond the original provider's control. For that reason, it's not likely that MITM will provide personal information without consent (which is a maintenance headache). Also, not everybody at MITM was a registered participant.

That said, I would like to offer what I think is a much better solution. Make or buy your own personalized business or trading cards and hand them out at MITM, AMVIV, MOTD, MTTS or any place/time in between. Your card can have a short bio, your hometown, NAM handle, email, web site, club and a photo of you and your MINI or anything else. Sports teams, hot air balloonists, law enforcement and fire fighters do it all the time. Last weekend I received a couple of balloon cards that are 2.5" x 3.5" (a bit wider and shorter than business cards). You can print them yourself pretty cheaply or you can have nice ones made at your local office supply store at a fairly low price. Online you might want to see these sites: www.mintcards.cc (not .com, about 20 cents each per 1000 ordered) and www.mytradingcards.com (about 45 cents each per 1000 ordered). Just a suggested way to trade information without depending on event registration.
--Rick

 

WP, you know it! Pauhana, great idea about the cards.

 

Another idea would be to have a sheet at the check-in booth. If people choose to put their email address on it then they can -- then someone can send an email out, but it would only go to each person on the list.