Area Groups Section- Suggestion box and requests

Hold your horses there boys

Shall we work on the areas before we start to populate them? West Sussex group? is there a north, east and south Sussex too? that's four groups in one smallish county! we end up in the 230 seperate groups with 2 members each scenario at this rate.
Lets concentrate on sorting the geographical areas, get the framework right, tweek the Borders etc before we start to populate lists.
When this is done we can go to John and the mods with our proposals AND then if / when the framework is in place we'll start signing up.
If we carry on like this it'll just get in a muddle and any good ideas will just get lost in a sea of musical chairs and pointless lists of names that will have to be sifted through by some poor sod!
Lets just be patient and get it right yeah?

Cheers
Si

err.......

ok soz

A bit premature, has never happend before honest.... :roll:

clockworkgazz":vnmi4gh3 said:

err.......

ok soz

A bit premature, has never happend before honest.... :roll:

Click to expand...

PMSL

Dont worry, it's quite common and not a big deal!

Well you have to see how many people are in an area so surely you need to carry on as we were then if each area becomes busier then you can split into smaller areas. For example Yorkshire can be as busy as it is remote. You could have just 5 people for a massive area but 50 in another smaller but more populated area. Doing this any other way could get fussy and messy. Is there a better way? At least this way you can get an idea of the different demographics?

Good points raised- but I need breakfast before a debate

A few good points raised Mazdaman.

But....
We already have a rough idea of numbers and the demographic spread- we don't really need 21 pages of people posting their location at this stage. I feel it is best to let this thread continue as a platform for debate- put up a map, argue about it's boundries and so forth. By the end of the week we can open a second thread with the area groups listed ( with counties included in that area listed within ) which people can add their names too. This would make the job of building the new sections much easier when the time comes (no one will have to wade through my ramblings to get the memberlists sorted for starters)
Secondly. It matters not how many numbers there are in any one location or area- you cannot have too many seperate area groups as there will be too much going onto keep up with; remember that one of the corner stones of this idea is for each area group to get a dedicated sub page on this site, will anyone want to trawl through 25-40 sub pages to find out what's going on- and remember these pages would need a moderator too!
Not everyone will be pleased with the physical size of the area groups- as I have said,the north west, Yorkshire and highlands are large areas, but once these areas are formed, smaller groups can meet within on a regular basis just as is done now. As mentioned elsewhere, the MacRetro clan ( who are almost the trendsetters and pioneers of creating a larger group ) have been quite happy to travel for 2-3 hours to get to a meet. This is backed up by the poularity of events such as the peaks ride- in short, for a popular and well organized and attended event, people will travel.

I feel that at this early stage we need to look at the framework. This thread was started to assess members feelings about area groups, many are still silent but overall those who have spoken have beenpositive. So, we have decided to buy a big Christmas tree, let's go and get one before we get out the lights and decorate it!

European Constituencies would be a good start.
Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland are the others of course.

No point in making them small areas. Even if one place has 500 people and the other 50. It does not matter, that's how 'area clubs' end up.
Even the size doesn't matter as they can split it down internally between them once they find out how there area works.

Splitting Wales in to North and South may seem a good idea, but then people in the middle (not many I assume ) would be in both. The South would probably go to the Bristol events and the Northerners.. well being the real Welsh people wouldn't go anywhere else anyway
I'm sure they could decide themselves if they wish to travel to the north or south for a jolly ride.

I just see it as a way to tidy up talk and get people living near by a place to meet up and consolidate their efforts.


When I was an Orienteer I would join my local club, run under there tag and you meet the local people and organise with them, but there tended to be part of a bigger area club over them.
I figure we are starting the area clubs here. Not the local clubs as we do not know the interests or central localities.

Sorry to all the none Great Britain based people, you'll need to figure it out yourselves. I'm sure they can be added as well in due time.

Oh my god- what have those Europeans done with Wales and Scotland? Have they been abolished?

That map is very similar to the one I am working on. The main differences are that the counties just to the north of London are included in the London and Home counties section and the south west area has a seperate Devon and Cornwall section. Add two in Wales and Two in Scotland and you get the magic 12 areas.

Thanks for that map FluffyC.

Midlands/East Midlands seems about right