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[anxious]

I have been a participant of this forum for more than 3 yrs now and have just hit 500 posts. I have been a very regular visitor and contributor to the discussions that interest me. Over the years, I have noticed that most of the advertisements on the website are linked to US based websites which I have never heard of. There are hardly any local companies advertising on the website. How are these foreign advertisements procured and who earns the revenue on these advertisements? Is the revenue ploughed back to the club? Does the club own the website? If not, who has proprietory rights to the website? Well most of us are happy to enjoy access to the website(including myself), I am just curious as to the above. I hope someone can enlighten me as to my queries above. Cheers. Have a good weekend!

 

[astroboy]

Only the administrator can answer this milliondollar question.

U using any "free" email like gmail, yahoo, hotmail.. etc? Do u see advertisement in ur browser after logging in with ur ID and password?

Same concept.

 

[redbaron]

Be an offical member than come to the agm your question will be answer.

 

[jarance]

I think the question was brought up by one of the members during the last AGM..

 

[redbaron]

Thats way i told him to sign up to be offical member than he can get the miniute of the meeting and the answer is there

 

[syahruln]

Ya... anxious... join lah!

 

[jagmalhi]

lol need to join and be a member to get a simple answer ka? i guess if not a member no right to ask la..haha

 

[redbaron]

lol need to join and be a member to get a simple answer ka? i guess if not a member no right to ask la..haha

Forum belong to the club my friend. Yes you can ask question but this want is club matters so non members sorry ya.

 

[anxious]

Ya... anxious... join lah!

Believe me I would like to be a member of the club.

However todate I have not been convinced to do so.

The affairs of the club seem to be shrouded with so much secrecy that it makes my very spectical.

Honestly I feel that things have got to change b4 the club can attract more members.

There has to be more transparency.

Pls take my critism constuctively.

You could probably start by making the AGM minutes available to the public.

How the club is run is a very important criteria in whether or not someone is interested in joining the club.

Of course you could say ".....its my club and I'll run it as I please and if you are not interested you can go fly kites."

Of course such an attitude will curtail the growth of the club and it will always remain the "private property" of a few rather than represent BMW owners in Msia.

I will certainly join the club when I am satisfied that the club truly represents BMW owners in Msia. Then I'll be proud to associate myself with the club.

Until then I'll continue to strive for change from outside.

Why bother you may ask?

Well you see this is because this is the only Official BMW Club In Malaysia. I feel that that tag creates a responsibilty.

As I have said b4 its better to have one strong BMW community in Malaysia rather than many smaller private concerns.

Hopefully we see some positive change and maturity in 2008.

Have a great 2008! Cheeers!

 

[anxious]

So anyone care to share the AGM minutes. Surely the minutes are not protected by OSA.

Thks.

 

[XXX]

Anxious

join the club run for office and steer this club to the directions that you see fit...thats the power and the advantage of becoming a member, its not just abt getting a shirt and stuffs...in a listed company I need to be a shareholder of the company b4 i can say anything...so buy a share in the club and be proactive....but as a forummer pls do stay and enjoy this site that the club has so kindly open up to all at the expense of the paying members who contribute to the running of this forum, we are thankful to the paying members for their understanding to have this site open to all so that we can use the forum as a marketing tool to attract more BMW enthusiast to be official members of BMW Club Malaysia. The next AGM is in March so be a member and make those changes...the club seriously needs people like you.

 

[XXX]

anyway just to answer your questions rgdg the ads, right at the bottom of screen you will always see this,

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

it doesnt say powered by BMW Club Malaysia, but BMW Club Malaysia owns the domain name...as far as I know this is how it works, Jelsoft has developed the software to create forums like this but it does not sell/rent it to individuals, even if it does it doesnt come cheap..so what it does is it lets individuals use this software of theirs to create forums but google pays....and this ads you see are generated by google and not BMW Club Malaysia, all BMWCM does is to hire an administrator to run this software, host and maintain it for them....there may be more to this but i think this is how the concept roughly works.
IT gurus outthere pls correct me if Im wrong, as this is just how I think it works.

 

[xtracooljustin]

Forum belong to the club my friend. Yes you can ask question but this want is club matters so non members sorry ya.

Anxious has presented a fine argument. Even financial earnings of public listed companies are disclosed in newspapers, Im sure the club can provide links to the minutes of the meeting if it's requested.

but to answer Anxious' question, usually these unsolicited ads like the handphones for sale from a US based websites are all done by what the IT ppl call "bots". It is a program that has sufficient amount of AI, to seek out loopholes especially in forums to create advertisement threads. Similarly, there are also 'bots' that gather ur email addresses in the Internet for the bot creator to do his spamming business.

Wonder y u receive spam emails even though u did not sign up to any or visited these kind of websites? This is bcos you may have release ur email address unintentionally especially in forums like this. Selling email contacts is big business and these are the kind of 'bots' that infiltrate our forum to post this kind of messages. We might not be able to stop ads posted by these bots altogether, Im pretty sure we can identify such ads and ignore these threads til it's close by a moderator in due time.

 

[jarance]

justin, it true that there are some company who disclose their finaicial standing in the dailies but NOT all of them does it.. Please do not compare us with public listed company. We are nowhere near their status.

The affairs of the club should be limited to the members of the club. If we allowed non-members to interfere, then we might as well do not have this club. Members and only members have the right to dictate the affairs of the club. This is done via "member lounge" which by the way is accessible to the members only.

In addition, all affairs of the club are usually dealt with during the AGM where members can put forward their motion or question the managing committees about the affairs of the club.

FYI, In the AGM, the club have to present the following:-

1. General Affair or activities of the club.
2. Annual Financial or Accouting Report (certified by independant Auditor)
3. Other Affairs

Some of you may think that there is lack of transparency due to the lack of information in the open forum. However, I would appreciate if you could check or PM any members who have attend the AGM.

Anxious, I am sorry that you feel that there is lack of tranparency. If you happen to be in KL or PJ during the friday, you are welcome to join our TT. Some of the committes or members would happy to provide you with the information that you need.

Yes, we are the BMW Official Club of Malaysia and we are proud to say so. This club have evolved over the number of years and i believe it is still evolving. We need support from all of you. Without you all, there is no club... Changes can only comes if the members want it. We cannot be complacent about the club affair.

FYI, the club is planning to have an AGM during the month of March. In addition, there would be also an Election for new committees.

Please sign up now as an Official Member to vote for your committees.

 

[astroboy]

Just to share what the industry is doing:

UMW Toyota has a forum for Toyota owners which they call it "Tribe Toyota", free of charge but condition is you need to own a Toyota. There's even a log on your service history, parts changed and expense paid. Very useful, and reminders or calenders can be set to remind us of next service due date, driving license and road tax.

They even part sponsor at least one event a year.

2006 was a Club Med outing where they book the entire Club Med for this function. Participant need to pay only around RM300 per person for the multiple days event. All other expense is taken cared of.

2007 was the Driving Dynamic day where participant need to pay only RM75 per person (lunch + snack incl.) to join the advance driving course conducted by the YS Khong family. Auto Bavaria's one cost RM1,700 per person.

I am also a moderator for another car forum for more than 2 years now. The moderator don't get paid, we do it for pure hobby, voluntarily, for the love of our cars and friendship, about 2,000 members there. The domain name only cost us RM50 a year and that's paid by the Administrator, while the hosting? I dunno. Administrator never collect any fee from member, he did not get any local banner sponsor.

So I am of the opinion that the Google auto generated banner is funding the forum while we are bound by their forum owner's rules and conditions. The server is in US and one rule we must follow is no complete Bahasa posting is allowed. Foreign language posting are limited to no more than 10% of each posting's content..

Imaging if we were to collect RM150 per member for say 1,000 members, we would have a cool RM150,000/year for many of the charity activities.. and I'm pretty sure many would not pay. :stupid:

I will read more about Club Membership in this forum before commenting further.. hopefully it will convince me.:smokin:

 

[jarance]

well said astroboy... :top: :top:

I sincerly hope that you will be convinced to join as official member. :rock:

 

[XXX]

Wah if we can have RM150000 in membership fees then alot of things can be done we can subsidise for driving courses, track days, Annual Dinner for free to members, petrol for drives, subsidy for Hotel... but this all is not impossible if we all have the right mentality and not ask what the club can do for you but what you can do for the club....dont forget this is an enthusiast club so be enthusiastic as well in making this club how you want it to be.

Astroboy,

UMW allocated many many $$$ as Marketing budget for tribe, we here NGO only no backing from BMW, need $$$ from people like you and me to make this club happening...were you at the Dynamic Driving course organised by Tribe, I was there too... I was the fastest in the Slalom Competition.

 

[Bailey]

jes be an official member as we need people like u in order for us to achieve the RM150,000-00 maaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

 

[redbaron]

BMWCM is a club on it own. It is not part of any BMW car company. We are register with Ros and we stand on our own. Want to know more joint the club.As for you justin i think you are to young to understand between public listed and car club. Go and learn more my friend.

 

[ah lian]

i think if you really had intentions to join a club, you would have joined from the day the club launched, or very soon after that.

if you have many doubts, and this club isnt really a multilevelmarketing company... in fact itsa non profit social interest group. if there was so many "i'll only join if(s)" in your head, anxious.... then its time for you to clear them once and for all....

i have seen great many good suggestions from you, anxious. but they are good for you becos you expect someone else to do things for you. you have never offered to do any thing for the club except point your fingers asking "why does the club not... " and i think the only appropriate answer for the club is "anxious, why don't you join as a member?"

the club affairs and information are exclusive to the club. this exclusivity is provided for in the ROS rules. non-members are not admitted to its meetings nor provided with constitution, accounts or minutes.