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Originally Posted by j0n
Take the Nats for example. I don't know of anyone that supported the idea to have 46 different race classes, and 65 different show awards. All these classes needed awards which i believe Tim and Justin paid out of pocket. Simply eliminating a ton of needless classes would have saved them money, and for anyone that attended the ECFBN, it would have lengthened the racing beyond 2 rounds.
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2005 = 4 brackets and 1 heads up class
2006 = 4 foot brake brackets, 1 electronics bracket, and 1 heads up class
2007 = 2 foot brake brackets, 1 electronics bracket, and 3 heads up classes
that is not a whole lot of classes. the first year weather, or at least anticipated weather that never came certainly effected the turn out. the bad thunderstorms that were supposed to be around all day never materialized. in 2005 we also didn't give a dime to the track, they merely collected at the gate and concession stand and let us use the facility to run our event. island even was kind enough to put up the trophies for us.
last year i made some mistakes in getting the word out, and attendance suffered. i am not too proud to admit that my mistake was persuing sponsorship to try to put up prizes so much that i neglected to take time promoting to make sure people would be there to enjoy teh show. regardless, we had a good time, and once again island only collected gate and concessions money, adn we sort of split the cost fo trophies, island was stil kind enough to pick up more than half of that tab as well though.
for 2007 i looked to other for a lot of advice and i am going at things with a much more balanced approach. we opened up the racing rules by reducing the number of bracket classes and adding to the heads up racing that everyone seems anxious to see more of. along with the prize fund that the club is developing, we hope to see a large improvement in attendence and the quality of racing.
all three years the car show has cost little more than a few sheets of paper and a trip to the dollar store for some frames. island dragway, much like in the drag racing, has been kind enough to provide the class and best of show trophies for us.
with such a small investment it seemed the wiser decision to include as many prizes, and therefore winners as possible into the car show. the more people win something, the better the odds are of evryone having a good time and walking away with something they can be proud of about thier car.
Quote:
Originally Posted by j0n
As for the debt involved with t-shirt, hoodie, and calender sales, a pre-order could have been arranged, which would eliminate any out-of-pocket expenses for the admins. However, they chose to spend the money and order them without any preorders.
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we have offered pre-orders on al three of the merch items you mentioned. the lesson of which was that a lot of people say they are interested in purchasing items, less than half of those who are interested are willing/able to preorder, the greatest number seem unwilling to buy until they see the prduct first hand, and even fewer seem to have any money on them the first time they see it and actualy decide to buy.
without sacrificing the quality of the products we are willing to put the club name and logo on, our only choice has been to front the money and allow the process of being paid back run it's natural course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by j0n
Basically my opinion is that you and Justin dug your own graves here, and making a ton of nazi rules in order to beg for sponsorship is not the only way out.
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the rules were not made for the sole purpose of "begging" for anything. they are the result of requests from many members. when this topic was brought up,the members making the suggestions provided many examples of how the refinement of the rules and the evolution of the club would help to insure more growth and good times for everyone who participates in the forums and club activities.
the need for sponsorship to help the club continue to grow is a contributing factor that was a part of the decision making process, but not the only reason that was considered.
believe me, if justin or i had the money to support a clubthis size for the rest of forever out of pocket, we woudl never bother looking for sponsors. but that isn't the reality of the situation, and we see no need to lie about it or cover any of our reasons for coming to these decisions a secret.