Important: Please Read!

[slob]

I'll try and answer everything that's been raised so far, let me know if you feel I've missed anything, sorry my mind is so chaotic:

Lars(stopintime) makes a good point about the DOC affiliation. I feel it probably mostly works very well for Italian clubs, where small regional clubs are tied to their local dealer, less well for the rest of the World, especially in the UK where we have national clubs that predate any factory affilation.
For example I received an email notification of the #werideasone initiative, which was meant to get as many DOC members as possible down to their local dealer for a 'global rideout', 48 hours before the event was due to take place, hardly enough time to get anyone anywhere! presumably because I'm not a Facebook user?
However I'm aware that we have quite a few members who are not active on the forum but love to go to WDW and really look forward to any annual offical trinkets.

I'll also take this opportunity to point out that we've never restricted forum access to UK Monster Owners, the contribution of stopintime and many others makes this forum a richer place, even if he's not technically a UKMOC member. The same goes for pillion passengers, I know I wouldn't be without mine! When members have sold their Monsters, I've always said I'd give them a year's grace with DOC affiliation, it's amazing how often owners regret the sale and come back with another Monster shortly afterwards.

Also, tied to the myDucati website is a DOC management platform, which allows management of affiliation/memberships etc. and has a handy mailout tool for communication with members but has never been open to anyone but the Presidents, making a mockery of the VP and Secretary roles as defined by DMH.
I am on a global whatsapp group of DOC presidents and this is a regular gripe recently, but is as nothing to the name change thing, it's a real pain for most clubs, most of whom have paid memberships and are effectively companies with trademarks financial requirements.
Will our fellow DOC: Ducati Owners Club GB, just be know as 'GB' from now on (after nearly 40 years!).
The Scottish club dropped affilation earlier this year, they were the only other free to join DOC in the UK.
I figured we were better working with DMH than independently, although I feel the nature of the relationship has been declining since 2012. We'd always had a very good relationship with DUK although I haven't met the new CEO since Tim left.
As I said in the OP I don't feel it's my place to make the call on how 'we' go forward as a club, as I walk out of the door, but I know what my gut feeling is right now!

I agree with Lars and MrsC about Facebook being totally unsuitable for running a club, certainly things like technical info would disappear into 'digital soup' and never be findable again. Never mind about my general feelings about Facebook, I can't believe anyone would still want to be on there in light of the revelations in the last few years, no matter how convenient it is. Its mission is to replace every forum and other means of communication and silo off its slice of the Internet for the enrichment of Mr Suka-burg but for ease of use, Facebook is more or less the benchmark for whatever forum software a club uses I'm afraid.

I've always tried to keep the forum free, as it was when I joined in 2003, this has meant Pedro and I do the forum support and our hosting provider (another former member) takes care of the Server itself. It also had the bonus of meaning we didn't go the same way as at least three clubs I can think of, that imploded due to financial 'irregularities'.
This also presents a potential pitfall for a subscription/donation model, as soon as payment is involved complete financial openness is an absolute must have.

cont...