"gauntjoh" wrote:

Hi Jordan,
The club will lose nothing if guests and "freeloaders" leave as these people do not pay anything to support the club anyway. It is they who will lose out on the wealth of technical support and help provided through this forum.

Best Regards, John

I strongly disagree with your above statement. I don't have statistics for myself, but I personally try to provide as much help here as I get, likely more. The club bulletin board WILL be adversely impacted if guests leave or are no longer allowed to contribute, in both intellectual value as well as ad traffic value.

Can you address the other statement that I quoted? That the majority of the membership dues go towards magazine production and not supporting the bulletin board?

Thanks,
Jordan

Jordan, there is definitely truth in what you say, because there are many "Guest Members" who contribute technical support here on the forum, but those same guests have been watching our conversations on here about the Club going broke for the past 3 years, yet still haven't tossed even a nickel in the jar to help keep the doors open in a Club they obviously enjoy. $40 a year is less than a cup of joe a week.

A few years ago I started a thread, I think it was called, "Is there really only 30 of us here", because at the time we supposedly had around 12,000 bulletin board members of ACMOC, yet week in week out, all I ever saw were around 20-30 full financial members on here weekly, shooting the breeze, and about 30 "guests".

The 12,000 member count was used I think to try and create potential advert income on our forum, but in reality I'd suggest that is minimal. If you spend a few minutes and look through our members list, and click on any letter of the alphabet, then slowly work your way through each member whose avatar starts with that letter, then visit that members page and see when they were last on here, you will find around 99% haven't visited this BB for years, there's a whole truck load who joined in 2007 and never came back ever.

The interesting thing for me, is why so few of our 2,800 financial members use this BB regularly, I've suggested it's fewer than 30, actual financial members who are paying all the bills, who use it weekly, and I think I'm not too far off the mark with that number. My gut feeling is the bulk of our financial members are not regular computer or internet users, being either flat out with life, or senior in years and would prefer their antique Cat info came in paper form, rather than ether form. Ether is for starting cranky engines.

My understanding is the "new" forum will still allow guests to visit, you just will not be allowed to suck the technical data out of our system, data worth realistically hundreds of thousands of dollars, because even a "modern" Cat tractor like a dead D9, is worth only scrap price, without the right technical data to repair busted components. Just ask the guy here in Oz who recently saved one, and only because of the free help he received here. $40 on a D9 wouldn't even buy you 30 minutes seat time pushing dirt.

I'm hopeful that long time guest members will see the benefit of becoming a financial member of the Club, and help me carry the can for keeping the dream alive, and if they don't, well it's been nice sharing the journey, but here is where the road forks, and I'm going one way, and those folks will be going the other way, because there is no such thing as a free lunch, or free repair and maintenance of a antique Cat.

2,800 good folks agree with my way of thinking, of sharing the load, if there were only 28 other people paying annual subs of this Club, I'd be worried I was on my way to a hiding for nothing, but I think my back is covered on this bet.
All the best
Mike

Thanks for the information on how to be a "contributing member". I joined, but it is currently not reflecting.

Referencing some certain individuals who are upset about financially contributing to the ACMOC:

There are many great informational forums that are moving to having to pay to play. I personally have been meaning to join the club many months ago, but unfortunately haven't found the time to do it (laziness mostly). However, during this time I have met several ACMOC members and all have asked me to join the club.

What differentiates this organization from other "forums" are that this provides (purpose, bonding, and love of old CAT equipment) to many folks across the globe. Additionally, there are many who unfortunately due to age or circumstance cannot leave their homes and it actually gives them a purpose to wake up and connect with people who share their same love of CAT products. Equally, many of these said members contribute a wealth of knowledge to all members that is irreplaceable.

The bottom-line-up-front (BLUF) fact of the matter is that this is a club and you are paying dues to be a part of a something that brings people and equipment together. We all know what a CAT gaskets, filters, etc. not to mention the trip to town costs... if $40.00 isn't in your budget then I would say that you should reach out to the individuals running the site and see if you can get a free pass, discounted rates or possibly some type of senior discount. It is totally understandable to those living on a fixed income and you should be "HUMBLE" enough to admit it if you are. However, I'd say the vast majority of us are not living on a fixed income as these machines are not cheap to work on or keep in operation.

Thank you for allowing me to be a member and I look forward to keeping my old machine in operation for a very long time to come.

There has been much discussion over the last two or three years at Board level about the Club finances, where money goes, who contributes to what and who doesn't, as well there have been a number of threads on The BB, some of which have been referred to in some of the conversations in this thread.

ACMOC is made up of a number of parts, the BB is only one of them, some members only use or participate in some parts and not other parts. If members only had to pay for the part or parts they used it would become an unworkable administrative nightmare. The BoD has now set $40 as the basic membership, those that wish to have a printed magazine pay an additional fee for its printing and mailing, so those who don't want don't pay for it. To repeat, THE BASIC MEMBERSHIP IS $40 There are members who also work on committees, as Moderators and Directors who pay their membership and do all the additional service work free of charge for the benefit of the membership at large.

I see that most of those guests now complaining about soon having their access to the BB limited, want everything for free and expect others to pay for it or give of their time to make this site available. It is totally unsustainable for this to continue, advertising revenue is relative peanuts to the actual costs of running the site, someone has to pay, it is only fair that all users contribute, there are members who do not use the BB, yet they are contributing through their membership, it is just how the world works.

The new site will progressively be populated with material such as digitized parts books and workshop manuals etc, this will only be available to Members. Newcomers will have a small access window as Jan has explained, they should be able to evaluate the value of membership from that and hopefully join.

It is human nature that there is always a small number of people who believe everything should be totally in their favour and free whilst everyone else pays, the BoD has decided it is time to support those who pay and not have freeloaders abusing those who pay.

Wombat

I told my fuel delivery guy today that I thought from here on that all the fuel I needed should be delivered to me free of charge. I pointed out to him that over the years I had made many suggestions to him concerning fuel and service that should be equivalent to the cost of the fuel. For some odd reason he could not understand why my suggestions should be equivalent to the cost of the fuel.

I finally threatened him by stating that if he would not deliver me free fuel, that I would go somewhere else and it would be his loss. I carefully explained to him that other customers that wanted free fuel would go elsewhere and his business would go down the drain if he didn’t give free fuel to anyone that requested it. He didn’t seem to understand that he should charge double or triple prices to his paying customers so he could give me free fuel. After all, the paying customers are probably not giving him any useful suggestions and they should bear the brunt of the costs.

While I am at it, I am now mailing my letters without stamps as I have made numerous suggestions to the Post Office. It is about time I get some of the free stuff I deserve.

This thread is making me miss guys like Bob from Ontario even more.

Jordan, there is definitely truth in what you say, because there are many "Guest Members" who contribute technical support here on the forum, but those same guests have been watching our conversations on here about the Club going broke for the past 3 years, yet still haven't tossed even a nickel in the jar to help keep the doors open in a Club they obviously enjoy. $40 a year is less than a cup of joe a week.

Maybe it's an age thing. I don't view internet forums as a "club" but as digital information exchange. I personally have spent a lot of time over the last ~25 years sharing my knowledge & expertise on things via internet forums free of charge, never asked anyone to pay for my time. However, my expertise simply does not lie in these old cats, hence the reason I come here.

People choose whether to help each other on forums, they don't have to spend the time if they don't want to. Once you start asking people to pay, it's now a service with expectations? And do the experts like OM who seems to help everyone receive compensation for their time and effort?

Now I understand running a website costs money to host, and to make changes etc. I was involved with a project that ran a phpBB website and forums with 10,000's of members, the hosting costs were never a big problem for a team of 4 people, like $10/month. Maybe times have changed...

ACMOC antique caterpillar machinery owners CLUB complete with local chapters local members who donate their time to be officers people that help each other out restoring antique vintage machinery and take them to Local and national shows to be around other like-minded people with the interest in vintage machinery. The forum is part of the club and yes it’s a club