My first thoughts would be Racecougar, Guitar Maestro, or Shadow Dragon. All 3 of them have been around as long as I can remember, and I think most people here know and trust them, which is what is needed for this plan to work.
The site earned about $6500 over the last 3 years in Adsense revenues (only shown to non-members). It also earned $2,975 in membership fees over the same period. So the site has earned $9,475 in three years. So if a group purchase is set up, the people involved will be getting an actual return on their money; it won't be a sunk cost. So not only are contributors helping to keep the forum in the members' hands, but also they are making an investment where a return should be expected.
Also, we aren't collecting any money from people doing banner ads at the top of the forum, nor are we collecting money for the Ford Parts Counter vendor forum. Not only are they getting free advertising, but we haven't been actively trying to attract advertisers for those slots. The previous owner made income on those things, and we've made none over the last couple years since my attention got distracted. So that's where the biggest revenue growth potential is. If the managing partner of the group buying the site was effective at filling those advertising slots, it's reasonable to expect contributors could earn back their initial investment in less than two years and everything after that would just be profit.
I'll contribute money, but I don't want to be elected to anything (not that I would even be nominated, but in the past I've been elected to three different positions that I didn't want, so that's why I threw that out there).
Eric, please keep in mind that Rayo does not speak for the rest of us, and in no way shape of form has been appointed to get ANY ball rolling. Admin/Mods will get the ball rolling once we finish our discussions that are already taking place privately.
Existing site leadership, to be honest, will know a lot more than the general population of the boards here (paying or not) about the inner-workings of the site and its organizational structure. With the old club command structure's being dissolved with the previous sale, the admins/mods are about all we have with regards to leadership - and I trust them more than the "general population" to make the right choices on behalf of the rest of us.
Because anything that is said, posted or even privately messaged here can - and most likely will be - read by the very person who currently owns the site and wishes to sell it for as much as he can.
Discussing things publicly here would be the equivalent of walking into a car dealership and telling the salesman flat out the highest price you're willing to pay for a car. That leaves no room for negotiation.
Existing site leadership, to be honest, will know a lot more than the general population of the boards here (paying or not) about the inner-workings of the site and its organizational structure. With the old club command structure's being dissolved with the previous sale, the admins/mods are about all we have with regards to leadership - and I trust them more than the "general population" to make the right choices on behalf of the rest of us.
I'm one of the two owners of SCCoA and we are doing our best to keep the negative comments towards TCCoA to a minimum and that is why I deleted some of the post by Fast Freddie (aka ThunderRoad). I would appreciate it if you guys could try to do the same. IMO..This isn't a SCCoA vs. TCCoA thing, it's a how for TCCoA to best move forward thing.
As most of you probably know, a merger of TCCoA and SCCoA is not really practical or desirable because the two clubs are each geared toward serving different models. TCCoA doesn't have much SC specific content and SCCoA doesn't have much content that would be useful to the average Thunderbird, Cougar, Mark VII & Mark VIII owners.
I think your best option is to try and get Eric to turn over control of the club to a group of TCCoA members. Once that happens, I will gladly renew my membership.
I cleaned this thread of most of the Rayo "Treasurer" banter now that he understands he's not the club representative.
I also removed some SCCoA bashing. They may not be V8 Tbirds but they're MN12 owners and they deserve the same respect that you'd give a fellow member here.
Dave: Thanks for your input here and your support at SCCoA.
There is plenty of ideas between the mods and some others, I'm staying on top of what's going on but have gave little input, so it's being handled as truck monkey said
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