“AHRMA Members Only” Group on Facebook
Earlier this year the Board approved the “AHRMA Members only” group on Facebook as a venue for our current members to discuss AHRMA related issues. To date, the group numbers over 550 members from all disciplines. The members only group is a great place to share stories and photos, get to know the racers you’ve never met or get help with that new project, and discuss topics that affect us all.
To join, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/188161041791287/about/ (or click button below), click on the join button and answer the questions provided. Your membership must be current, and your member number is required to check your member status.
In response to Ginger Hilgenberg and Reese Dengler, and being the administrator of the AHRMA members only group on Facebook, some clarification of your concerns is warranted. The AHRMA members only group is a closed group. It is only available to AHRMA members who choose to join. it is, in fact the only communication venue offering a secure place for members to share without the typical noise generally associated with social media gathering places. By approving the group, the Board of Trustees offered members an opportunity to share experiences, stories and photos, discuss AHRMA related issues, get help on projects, share their cumulative racing knowledge, and get to know members who share the same passions but in a different discipline. Other “official” AHRMA Facebook groups, and even the “official” AHRMA web site did not afford members anything similar. Things could be shared, but the ability to start a conversation was not possible and no attempt was ever made. Facebook groups were for information only, and nothing related to AHRMA on the internet was secure.in the sense of requiring a password.
The members only group has never been portrayed as an official, exclusive source of information or as the primary venue for members to express opinions, nor should it ever be.True to the statement each of you have written, not everybody is on Facebook or any other social media platform. I suspect some members may not use computers at all. Then again, I believe we can all safely say the same is true for print media, email, or any other form of communication. Rarely will we ever get more than 25-30 members to attend a Board meeting even when we go to lengths to hold meetings at a site where an event has been held. Here is a fact, we are fast approaching 600 members who have joined the members only group. They were not forced or coerced to join. That is nearly 50% more members than members who vote in our elections. It is a representative cross-section of the organization. Their opinions matter, but are certainly not the only source of opinion, as we are demonstrating here. Yet only two members out of 3,500 have chosen this page, completely open to the public, as their venue of choice, and half of you are active in the members only group.
Can I be curious as to why the administrators of our web site never thought enough to build a password protected section for members to use freely? Can I ask why members were never given an opportunity to freely communicate with each other in a forum-like environment? The members only group is not the be all, end all source of opinion as you seem to believe. It is, however a viable addition to all the other venues our membership has at their disposal to express themselves in all things AHRMA. The group is merely a slice of AHRMA populated by members with a desire to associate with other members where they have the opportunity to freely associate and participate in civil discourse. It is not and never will be THE voice of AHRMA. But it will add it’s voice to all the others who take the time to let the Board know it’s opinion.
“The members only group has never been portrayed as an official, exclusive source of information or as the primary venue for members to express opinions, nor should it ever be.” That seems to be exactly what is being portrayed and intended. See above post by Ahrma Communications: “Earlier this year the Board approved the “AHRMA Members only” group on Facebook as a venue for our current members to discuss AHRMA related issues.”
There is already significant last minute event information only provided through facebook which makes it the de facto official club information source. There are several different options here in 2018 to work around this (IE open source club software (Big Tent etc), forum software (Xenforo…See multiple other racing orgs), plugins for current site to make member only portion)
Scott,
Cindy McLean here – yes,it is my goal to convert our site so that we have a member log-in and will be able to have ahrma.org be the central dispenser of information. As you no doubt know, converting to a member based web site is not trivial and can’t happen overnight. That being said, I am working very hard to release information as soon as I am authorized to. Thank you for your interest and feedback.
Ginger raises some good points. We have remember that not everybody that is on the internet is on Facebook or wants to be. Also let’s not bypass the regular AHRMA web site in favor of Facebook for news or press releases. I’m seeing more groups doing that these days. The PNW VMX club, of which I am also a member, is starting to favor Facebook page for getting out information rather than their web site. The Puget Sound Trialers, (PST), has also been headed in that direction. We also have to remember that we have some AHRMA members that don’t even use the internet, we still have many old timers in AHRMA.
Not all AHRMA members want to join Facebook. As of October 30, to my knowledge, even our Executive Director does not have a Facebook page!
By using a social media company to have an organizational forum (the “AHRMA Members Only” Group), you are excluding members who do not choose to share their personal information with an outside source from AHRMA that is not of their choosing OR share their AHRMA member number (even if it is with “one Trustee”). Social media platforms openly admit to using algorithms to track their users and provide their marketers with information. Why should our members have to be exposed to this in order to share their opinions?
It is unfair to AHRMA members that don’t use any or all social media by having this sort of forum on Facebook, and I am disappointed in the Board of Trustees if they truly approved this.
An official forum should be through an official website, with a password and not on a social media platform.