Are you interested in getting better involvement in planning for monthly runs and events from the entire membership?

I suggest that we all take a look at a map of the bay area. If our membership extends from southern Santa Clara County to the south, to northern Sonoma County at the north and east to Tahoe, you will get little representation from the membership if meetings remain in the south or lower east bay.

Looking at the map, I think we should consider having our monthly meetings somewhere more centrally located like Vallejo, Benicia, or Martinez (I don't live close to that area, but local members there could certainly make a suggestion for a monthy meetng place). East Bay members would still have an easy drive, San Francisco may stay about the same, but those in the North Bay area and Sacramento may be a lot more inclined to get involved.

Because the Bay area traffic is absolutely horrible, I think those monthly meetings should be on a weekend for breakfast, lunch, or an early dinner on a Saturday, because even Sunday traffic is getting congested. I think you would see a lot more happy faces of people willing to get seriously involved. :smile:

For me anyway, I can say I would never attend a meeting on a Sunday night that finishes up at 9pm to face a 2 to 2.5 hour drive, when I, like the majority of the membership has to work on Monday morning (I am out of the house by 6:40am Mondays).

 

Does anybody have any ideas or comments? Maybe there's more desire to have alternating locations, one southerly location in Fremont, an easterly one in Sacramento and a northly location in maybe Petaluma (but then I think almost nobody would make the drive).

I personally think that a single meeting location in Vallejo, Benicia, or Martinez... even Fairfield would be more centrally located and would encourage participation from a greater number of members including the members in the central valley and Sacramento as well as Sonoma, Marin, and Napa Counties. Most memebers would not have a drive that exceeded an hour to an hour and a half if during low traffic times.

 

I vote for Fairfield!

 

Thanks for your interest! We are actually in the process of figuring out where the majority of our members are so that we can get a meeting place that will be easy for our members to get to. We are hoping that with this program, our members will also be able to see how many members are live in their local area. Keep checking out our website for updated features! Thanks again for your input.

 

If you have meetings in the area where there is the most concentration of the existing membership you will guarantee that will be the only area of particiation and reduce the potential size of the club. If the location was easier for those in the outlying areas where there is a potential of greater envolvement (including the north bay area, central valley, and Sacramento), the size of the club would increase and represent a larger geographic area.

The question is:
Is this to be a Northern California club, or just a Bay Area club? I think either is fine, it should just be defined. If it were defined as a "Bay Area Club", then even though there will be members from other areas, there would be no expectations of others outside of the bay area, and the club could continue operations as usual. This is definitly the easier solution.

Although making the meeting time an hour earlier will get people home an hour earlier, that does little to encourage those in outlying areas to participate. The drive as well as the day prevents participation for those that have young families or those that work. Thats just my opinion though.

I look forward to seeing conversation and the discussion by others.

 

South or East bay on a sunday just doesn't work for me either. Would love to get a more local location. Fairfeild sound good to me. And Sat. Mornings are better.

 

Anything is decent.. Fairfield sounds like a good place to have occasional meetings, since the back roads in that area might be less congested... But I don't know..

 

Let’s have it at Lick observatory on top of Mount Hamilton, the drive would be fun.
I really don’t care where it is, if I want to be involved I will make the effort to be involved.:smile:

 

I do like the comment from "see ya"
I really don’t care where it is, if I want to be involved I will make the effort to be involved.:smile:

He is right. It works for most people today.
Britsf

 

Greetings. I am relocating to Petaluma early next year and I am looking forward to meeting up with your group!

 

How many people are willing to drive 2 to 2 1/2 hours away from home on a Sunday evening to get home at 11pm Sunday night?

A central location seems to make the most sense where few people have more than an hour drive.... but that may reduce some attendance from those used to driving only minutes...

 

Welcome Rick! I lookl forward to another north bay area member.... I am about 30 minutes north of Petaluma and there are a few members in Santa Rosa as well. Email me if you want a local run.

 

[QUOTE=zied]How many people are willing to drive 2 to 2 1/2 hours away from home on a Sunday evening to get home at 11pm Sunday night?
______________
Not for us Sonomans, zied. I agree that it would be a good idea to consider a Saturday or Sunday morning breakfast-type meeting/drive combined, and at a more central location. The only problem, if any, is to find a place with meeting room availability.

 

Just came across this thread. I agree the Sunday evening time is the worst possible time for a club meeting. I vote for a breakfast meeting either Sat. or Sun. But much later for Fairfield! Benecia or Martinez have been mentioned and that seems to me to be the most centrally located for the majority of members.

 

Hey Rick,
Have you sold your classic Mini yet? If not, would I be able to check it out when you come up to Norcal?

 

just to keep thread alive

 

highway 84 is awesome, and the road from vasco that goes into Oakley?
thats a good one too... then there is old altamont pass road.
all good choices.

 

Norcal should change their name to EASTBAY MINI CLUB, and meet their. I do not feel they represent the name NORCAL any longer

 

But when and where are they meeting now? I never joined NorCal MINIs, but I have thought about it. I live in the East Bay and even though an East Bay meeting would be most convienant, I like the idea of rotating meetings at different locations.

 

a Blue rocket 2, check out the Norcal MINI site for the meeting locations, I beleive they are still being held in Pleasanton. I've been to a few, but it's hard to get to all of them from SF. Maybe I'll see ya on some runs with the club.

James

 

I know I'm not out there yet, but will be in a few months so I have a vested interest in this...

What we've done with DC Metro MINIs where we have members spread across 2 states and Washington DC, with some members more than 4 hours away from others, is to rotate our events.

While we have a regular monthly event at Tate MINI in Annapolis, the rest of our events are scattered throughout the area. There might be a Saturday event this week in Baltimore, but two weeks later a Sunday event 40 minutes south of DC. The next month we might have an event in Maryland just over the VA state line.

We've found that if we mix it up a bit we can accomodate members throughout our area. Not everybody can make it to every event, but by rotating the locations nobody feels left out either. Plus, runs are less likely to get stale since we're not driving the same roads every few weeks either.

 

we have done kind of the same thing hehehe.... we have 3 (4 with MOASF) northern California Clubs doing their own thing, but a lot of us belong to all of them..... we pick and choose the events based upon location as well as the quality of the event. Its not to say that we don't have a higher allegiance to one club over another... but we do belong to all 3.

Prior to forming Redwood Empire Minis, and Gold Country for that matter, members requested that the Norcal meetings and events should be scattered somewhere (anywhere) other than the East or South Bay area.... it never happened, and thats the primary reason the other clubs were formed. My first post at the beginning of this thread was to encourage varied meeting and event locations long before I started REME. You can see that in 9 months little has changed... but thats okay.... we now have regional clubs.

 

If you go to the NorCalMINI website you will find an Event Planning Breakfest on August 27th (sat am). Yes it is in Pleasanton but come, it's a place to bring a plan. Make it happen. This will be the third breakfest. Some of the upcoming events to come out of this, Fort Bragg and Jackson (Rancheria). If you want it to happen, be there.

 

Fort Bragg will be a nice run for the East Bay area club. REME included Fort Bragg on our June run with PDX to Avenue of the Giants, The Wild Cat (Lost Coast), and Brookings to Grants Pass, Oregon.

There is a Micro Brewery in downtown Fort Bragg that makes wonderful brews and lunch. Depending on how you get to Fort Bragg, there is also Anderson Valley Brewing Company in Philo. It is a beautiful drive. When driving through Mendocino, don't forget to spend a few minutes in the Mendocino Headlands.

When you are in Fort Bragg, you are not that far from Leggett (the start of the Avenue of the Giants). You can see some photos of our recent run at http://www.redwoodempiremini.com/mbb...photo-main.asp.

How many NorCal members heading to Mini Motors in Santa Rosa today? The Norcal RSVP page was down last night and only one car showed up on the page as being registered for this morning's event.

 

Just to throw in my opion, I like meeting up at laguna seca. When there isn't a big event its like $6 to get into the picnic area, I think. Anyway, I only live like 30 min away from laguna