Marmite!! Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 (edited) Just as an FYI, private groups are available in the feature set of VB4 and can be found in the AdminCP, as a moderator you may not have access to that function but only to the moderators CP so you perhaps are unaware of the feature. It takes a little bit of reading about to understand but it isn't too onerous. As I indicated I also run a VB4 based forum, with the CMS and blogs features enabled, so know a little bit about this stuff. Oh, and we manually approve all memberships also, (I'm right there with you on that one) and I don't mind the extra work that that generates (especially in terms of checking against various on-line databases etc.) as long as it keeps out the malcontents and undesirables! Hi we are well aware of the functions of VB4. We disabled the option for Community/Private Groups some time ago as we wanted the Forum open to all & did not want to allow members to create "Elitist Groups" As said any other input in to the running of the forum please PM me to save cluttering up the thread. Just found this thread, quite by accident I might add, and have to confess that although I've been trawling around here for a bit now I never knew that you hosted a forum for the Friends of the Tank Museum. All the more disconcerting as I'm a life member of the friends! I notice you have not taken part in our poll!! Cheers Lee Edited February 28, 2013 by Marmite!! Typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Git Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 Lee, thanks for the heads up on the poll I must confess I had not noticed it mate. It's most probably due to the very bad head cold I've been nursing these last few days...a real old-fashioned stinker of a head cold. It feels like I'm trying to push treacle uphill on a cold day, if you know what I mean! Apologies also if I've offended in any way. It's not my intention (as I say I have a very bad cold so I'm probably being more obtuse than is normal for me). In many ways I'm a bit of an outsider to both HMVF and the Fotm thing, I'm a vehicle enthusiast who doesn't own any vehicles and doesn't really go to any of the shows and I'm a fotm member that rarely visits Bovi. As such I have absolutley no idea of what goes on in terms of politics or behind the scenes machinations in either arena, as I said earlier my own real connection to Bovi and Fotm is primarily the Tracklinks mag. I didn't even know that there was a previous forum for FotM so it's no surprise that I wasn't aware of this area either. I get the sense I'm bumbling in areas where I ought not to be, but in my own defence I simply thought I was responding to a technical query about how doable something was. As someone with some experience of the forum software I thought I might be able to contribute. Obviously there's more to this than just technical issues and as such is way beyond my ken! So, again I apologise for blundering in areas I know nowt about, I'll make no further comment on it. I'm here for the research only! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john fox Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 (edited) I notice you have not taken part in our poll!! before I get told off, I have voted - just as well its not a secret ballot There is no question that the TM appreciates the physical assistance from members of the Friends. I too am a Life member of the Friends dating from 1987/88 can’t remember which. It’s how I got started in the vehicle game through the Friends programme of visits (more on this later). In accordance with the truism, first impressions last, when I joined the FOTM “seemed” to be run by a cadre of ex RTR as an adjunct of the officers mess and outsiders were just that. I sat back and was content to get the magazine and do the odd trip. There was no ability to get involved hands on hence I “defected” to Duxford and spent the whole of the 1990’s as volunteer up there every Sunday, sometimes Saturday too. Bovy and Duxford are about the same distance apart for me, though with the M11 Duxford is quicker, so it was possible to be hands on at either but there was no opportunity at Bovy. Decades go by and times change, Bovy opened up to workshop volunteers but attitudes appeared not to. I tried Bovy again but was made to feel unwanted as numbers were restricted and only “skilled” people need apply. Non workshop activity at the weekends did not appear available as warden or similar posts seemed to be mid week only. So again I went back to my hole and just read Tracklink each quarter. The visits programme also stopped as no one had the time, or more importantly, the contacts to get access to sites the public couldn't go to anyway. I have worked in finance all my life so it was obvious to me from the outset that the Friends was never going to matter to the TM financially as its admin costs were (and remain) simply too high to give any meaningful distributable surplus. So when the current furor blew up I must admit my thought was TM has a point. The FOTM is largely irrelevant to TM, if TM want hands on unpaid staff then you cannot blame them for what they are now doing in recruiting direct (particularly if they pay expenses!) as paying a FOTM sub is unnecessary if you end up doing TM work anyway (I’m out of touch obviously with how autonomous this is, ie controlled by TM or FOTM workshop “managers” (Duxford was/(is?) autonomous and it impacts the whole culture positively) Apologies if you think I’m negative, yes there is an undertone of rejection so my views are biased, but as a life member of the friends I see no future for them as anything other than a social network who get an interesting and informative magazine. With my day job hat on their charitable status is exposed. Would I join FOTM now? Answer: No, I would become a TM volunteer instead, but that is purely on the basis I am (just) physically close enough to get to Bovy and would end up doing the same thing on site anyway. however, if I could not attend site, then I would take FOTM, but purely for the “social” aspect, the Friends visits programme is now back and that in itself is worth every penny of a FOTM sub, but utterly irrelevant to TM. “Benefits” of FOTM membership: - Cost: £25 pa - Free entry to TM but crucially not on an event day where you have pay full price compared to Duxford where you do get in for free on events - Tracklink – a great read - Visits programme (but some of these are open to non members anyway) - TM shop discount As for the forum, you can see when I joined HMVF and my relative activity level. For a long time I had no idea there was a separate TM forum, I did eventually become a member of it but compared to HMVF there was little of interest on it and I did not even notice it closed down and moved here. I thought the boards on here were TM promoting TM so did not bother with them. Can't see any value in a dedicated FOTM board now. Edited March 14, 2013 by john fox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmite!! Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 As for the forum, you can see when I joined HMVF and my relative activity level. For a long time I had no idea there was a separate TM forum, I did eventually become a member of it but compared to HMVF there was little of interest on it and I did not even notice it closed down and moved here. I thought the boards on here were TM promoting TM so did not bother with them. Can't see any value in a dedicated FOTM board now. There was an announcement about it http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?23189-Bovington-Tank-Museum-joins-HMVF & the TM was supposed to inform the FOTM, this seems not to of happened? The remark in the above link referring to a forum with 10,000 members should read about 9,900 spammers & about 100 genuine forum members, if that. It appears that they just approved anyone that joined their forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john fox Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 (edited) There was an announcement about it Lee, just to clarify as my original may be read both ways, I meant I was unaware of the existence of the separate TM forum itself, not the boards here on HMVF. I don't recall the TM forum being regularly promoted to FOTM by FOTM at the time to build up member engagement with it as I was already a member of HMVF there was, for me personally, no comparison between the 2 forums so no incentive to haunt the FOTM, so its passing did not really impact me. I was of course fully aware of the transfer over to HMVF for the reasons you outlined, ie. I clocked that because of my active engagement on HMVF, not because of promotion in Tracklink, although there almost certainly was some, but you don't really register afresh what you already know from elsewhere Edited March 15, 2013 by john fox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajmac Posted June 24, 2013 Author Share Posted June 24, 2013 I've just received an email with a link to the FOTM new site: http://www.friendsofthetankmuseum.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fv1609 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Alastair that seems like a step in the right direction although it still looks as if we are still without a forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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