Lude Generation

Following on from comments posted on Facebook, I feel the need to make a post to discuss the club stands at shows.

Before I go any further, I know that the poster had no malice in his comments, and that it was probably a genuine observation, so I'm not holding anything against him.

The club stand was described as looking "a bit tired" and could do with "more flags more/bigger banners nice big Tent etc" in order to compete with other clubs.

While this may be correct, we need to realise something. We AREN'T as big as most other clubs. The MR2OC, Celica owners, Supra owners, all have (or rent) massive marquees, have lots of flags and banners, but they have a turnout of over 30 cars at JAE every year, their clubs are massive compared to us. As reference, the marquee MR2OC hire for JAE costs over £400 for the weekend.

Due to the limited number of us, we therefore have less money for things like this.

Also, we need to consider that realistically we only attend 3 main shows per year - Japfest, Japshow and JAE.

Japfest - this is a one day show so we wouldn't need a marquee for this. Flags and banners yes.

Japshow - a 2 day/1 night show, putting a big marquee up for this short time is too time consuming. Also attendance at this show is around 10 so would be far too big if we did have one. Flags and banner yes, however being usually windy at Santa Pod, risk of getting damaged.

JAE - a 4 day show, the only one we would really use a marquee at.

This year, I used the club gazebo, mated with another of the same size to create a 6m by 6m covered area which was more than ample for the 15 people there. We didn't need anything bigger. Also, for something that will only be used 4 days per year, it would be a big waste of club money.

The other aspect which needs to be considered is storage and transportation - a 4m by 8m marquee DOES fit into a lude, with the passenger seat removed and not a lot of room for much else. With our cars, we realistically don't have the space to carry something so big. It would also require being stored by someone who has the means to transport and is guaranteed to attend the shows every year.

We DO have a big marquee which is currently stored at Ammo's place. However at its last outing a few years ago it was damaged and some poles were bent. While this could be put into use again, it will require new poles being purchased.

So we are down to flags and banners. Let's be honest, we only need one banner really, and we have one which was paid for by a business used regularly by clubs members. It has our name and logo on it, along with the web address so prospective members know where to go.

I've looked up getting some custom flags made up, and these cost between £80-£100 for a medium sized one. As you can see, these things aren't cheap.

When I take payment for show tickets, I add extra to cover postage and materials. Any extra left over once tickets are posted, I add into the club kitty. This means the more people that attend shows, the more it boosts club funds. Unfortunately this year seems to have been quiet on attendance, and as such I have only just covered costs. For JAE I had to pay out my own pocket (my own fault as didn't realise the extortionate booking charges for the online ticket system).

As it stands, club kitty has £127 available funds (once next year's hosting charges have been accounted for), which will get us 1 feather flag complete with poles and base.

Whilst I know that many of you donate to the forum, we need more if we are to "improve" our image at shows.

Personally I think we are good as we are. We might not have the shiny "look at us" presence of other clubs, but are we like that anyway?

Please discuss below, so we can decide where to take this forward.

I wondered why you didn't reply to me to facebook.. I'm glad you're not holding it against me as you say. I guess the more you and others get to know me you'll know I'm not like that!

Now please don't get me wrong, or anything I say twisted I love this forum. It's the best I've been on. A lot of the others are quite elitest and clicky. On the whole this forum is different.

I was merely voicing my opinion which according to most is encouraged here which is one the reasons it's a great forum.
I think it would be nice if there were more flags etc I like that sort of thing. And a fair few on the facebook page agreed.
Another suggestion I like is the idea of, is club clothing.

And after all just because we are a relatively small club doesn't mean we can't make a big impact

Once again no harm was meant I was merely throwing some ideas out there, but I've never ran a club or anything so you will know better than me

Definitely no malice. Although no one else said it, those comments were liked and agreed with by others on the group. Will be interesting to see what others think

GreenyUK wrote:Once again no harm was meant I was merely throwing some ideas out there, but I've never ran a club or anything so you will know better than me

I'll be honest, when I first read it I was pretty p'eed off as JAE takes a lot of organising to make sure we have the right equipment arranged and have someone to bring it along to look the best we can, and for someone to say it didn't look very good.....well!!

Then I saw your point of view. We aren't as big and shiny as some other clubs. It's a fact. But we simply don't have the budget of the other clubs.

Slowly we are growing as a club, the 15 at JAE this year beat the 10 of last year, but to get bigger and better stands, we need more people attending the shows. I know we can't expect everyone to drop all plans to attend every show, but when we get over 30 at Japfest, it proves the interest in shows is there.

Well now you know it wasn't said in a horrible way. I suppose since I'm not in the circle of longer registered folk so things I say will be taken wrong as you don't know me well yet.
I don't know what equipment was there as I am one of the guilty ones who couldn't make it but the photo only showed a gazebo and the banner.
And like you say the club is growing and so will it's budget. I also bet it'll be the same as most things in life, spend abit to make a bit. I'm sure the more "shine" we can put on the more people will think "I want to be part of that next year"
I imagine it must be nerve racking for some new members to break into a club stand when it is mainly long term friends there if you know what I mean, but that is how things start I guess.

Maybe more get togethers outside of shows would help? The national was great gives people a chance to mingle in a laid back fashion.

It would be good to have a few more banners etc (so we can have some on the gazebo/marquee etc as well as on the frame thingy) - in fact a banner that fits the frame properly would be great

But, aside from that, in comparison to other independent stands we had a bigger sound system than the vast majority and very, very few of them had projectors with the ability to show films etc. (I think I counted only 3 others in total) and even only about a third had fire pits, so not doing too badly really!
The gazeebo combo was way big enough for the numbers that came (or even double the quantity tbh) and the BBQ was big enough for the quantity of people we had there too, but would have struggled if we had more members.
Beyond that, a small number of stands had fridges and then beyond that 2 or 3 had really posh gear provided by Honda (because they're for current models and it's great for their promotion).

Either way, as Gayno says, this has to be put into context, the following were things provided FREE by a few members (including from one hero that couldn't even attend!), for the enjoyment of all;
Gazeebo x2
BBQ
Sound system
Projector, laptop
Fire Pit
Lighting
Generator
Bread rolls and condiments
BBQ charcoal and lighting equipment
Fuel for fire pit

Practically speaking, what more do we need than that?
The ability to run the genny all day so we can have music/video/phone charge capability all day would be a good improvement
Need to sort an improved surface to project onto (gazeebo wall is a bit too reflective, but that's easy to and will be sorted)
Some amount of refrigeration would be great but isn't essential and yes, a posh marquee would be lovely
But at the end of the day, it's attendance of cars and the people that really make these things both a) enjoyable/successful, b) possible to deliver improvements (funds/support)!!!

It's true that a lude (particularly a 4th gen) isn't the most practical thing to transport stuff to shows in as well, so this does limit things a bit. We brought sounds, projector, laptop and fire pit and took that lot home plus the club gazeebo that Sam purchased for the national meet, which is a sizeable volume of stuff - I'm more than happy to provide that (or more) but the only reason that was possible was because I took 3 ludes and because Phil stepped in as an extra driver!
I have a small commercial drinks fridge and dj equipment I could/would bring as well and don't mind upgrading/adding more bits of sound/lighting etc if they're going to get used, or even picking up a genny between now and next year (keeping eyes peeled on eBay will pick up an affordable bargain in that time), but I don't have the car space to take any more (all 4 ludes would require yet another borrowed driver ) and for the number of people there, what would we have done with more gear tbh and personally speaking, who would have helped set it up/take it down/load/unload my cars of the extra gear? We had more gazeebo lighting available this year but didn't use it, for example.

Ramble over...


Ps I do intend to go to japshow next year so bring on the accommodation and equipment improvements

Absolutely. Anyone can arrange a local meet and post in the events section.

However we had 2 new members come along to JAE this weekend, and both had a great time. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea to do that, but I think that proves in itself we are a friendly welcoming bunch!

Sure the photo only showed the banner and gazebos, but on the inside we had a generator, 2 speaker stacks and a projector for late night film watching!

Gayno wrote: I know we can't expect everyone to drop all plans to attend every show

Nope, but when the dates for JAE 2014 were posted up on the forum in something like November 2013, it's hardly asking people to drop all plans

At the end of the day, if people want to come they'll come and we can size the stand/equipment accordingly.

The Dutch come over to JAE and even single day events like Mimms every time in reasonable quantity (we even get a farlow that comes down from Northumberland every time ) but we can't even get people from the same county - that's not down to what equipment is provided, it's down to whether people want to come or not.

The only issue with having our own generator, as we found out this weekend, is keeping the thing working. Any replacement parts would need to come out of the club kitty.

Ideally, we need a member who has a Japanese towing vehicle, with space to store a trailer containing our marquee and generator, who will come to most, if not all shows!!