Sacramento Weekly Meet Discussion (dead meet, but how the SRIC started)
10-06-2006, 04:16 PM
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Last edited by Snot Rod; 10-12-2006 at 07:37 PM.
10-06-2006, 05:24 PM
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Here's the deal. I wasn't trying to pick on Hodge, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. He seems like a good guy. All of you guys are good guys. A lot of the old-school guys are frustrated because we see people complaining about low attendance, but not understanding that it's just how stuff goes. The meets ebb and flow. In winter, sometimes it would be me, Scott, and Matt, with one other person thrown in for good measure. Those keeping score will note that Scott and I both lived with Matt and could have held the meet at home, but still came out to "hold the spot" so that it still felt like ours when bigger groups of people came out.
I think a lot of us are frustrated because there isn't a way to go back to what it was. It's not a new-school vs old-school thing, it's just gone from something that started a long-*** time ago (3 years) with a small group of people that were knit pretty tight. It may have started as a car thing, but it became close friends. People lived at clubber's houses, we had a group that was tight enough that we'd go back to our house almost every night, watch movies and crap until 2-3 in the morning. We're in each other's weddings, etc.
As groups grow, they segregate. It's a fact of life, and it's not bad, but it's tough for some of us to let go of what we used to see, and what it means. It's growing up, it's getting older, it's life changing. It's your friends from high school that you never see anymore, but you miss like hell.
That's why, at least for me personally, all the differnet car clubs showing up kind of signify the end of what it used to be. Doesn't mean it's bad, but understand that some of us have, for lack of a better description, a lot of emotional involvement with how this thing has grown and evolved. It's changed lives, it's made jobs and relationships come and go, and it's hard to communicate what that means to someone who wasn't there for the whole thing, so it comes off as knee-jerk reactions from the "old-timers" becuase it's the only response we can have other than not showing up becuase it just doesn't feel the same way it was.
Don't take it personally, and don't take it as me, or us saying stuff needs to be changed. Things evolve, and we either take part or we step aside to watch from afar. For a lot of the older guys who have been around this place for however long (****, I've been in a Scooby club for almost 6 years) it's hard to identify with how the scene changes. We get bitter. We get tired of explaining stuff to the new guys sometimes, becuase it's something we've done a thousand times, and it's almost better if we're not there bringing it down. I became friends with a buddy who owned a shop, helped out for years on my own dime, lost friends, gained friends, and put myself out there every day trying to help to grow business and to grow the club. I've watched friends lose family, I've watched dreams die, and I've watched something a couple guys worked like dogs for destroyed despite efforts to the contrary becuase of how group dynamics and target markets and everything changed. It's never been the same for me, and can never be the same for me, after watching it crumble, and knowing what it meant about how things had changed. I'll always have my friends, and I know I'll be welcome if I show up at Sac meets when I move back up here, but I'm just burned out, and tired, and I don't want to be that ******* in the club telling people to **** off or do a search becuase we went over it already or whatever just becuase of my own ****, so I'm taking a step back.
To the new guys, you don't need our guidance to make this work. There's not a way it can be like it was before, it's just a different dynamic. Do your own thing. Figure out what works. Bring new people in, start up a new meet somewhere else, do what feels right and don't be restricted by what we did or didn't do in the past.....just know that some of us still are caught up inthe way it was and it's hard to change. We've tried EG meets, we've tried Roseville meets, Folsom meets, Rancho meets, etc.......it's trial and error, so if someone wants to take the lead, go for it.
Just know for the guys that started this thing years ago, that it's tough to let it go no matter how much logical sense it makes, and that there's no way some of us can be objective aobut it because it's been such a big part of our lives.
Wow, that was long.
I think a lot of us are frustrated because there isn't a way to go back to what it was. It's not a new-school vs old-school thing, it's just gone from something that started a long-*** time ago (3 years) with a small group of people that were knit pretty tight. It may have started as a car thing, but it became close friends. People lived at clubber's houses, we had a group that was tight enough that we'd go back to our house almost every night, watch movies and crap until 2-3 in the morning. We're in each other's weddings, etc.
As groups grow, they segregate. It's a fact of life, and it's not bad, but it's tough for some of us to let go of what we used to see, and what it means. It's growing up, it's getting older, it's life changing. It's your friends from high school that you never see anymore, but you miss like hell.
That's why, at least for me personally, all the differnet car clubs showing up kind of signify the end of what it used to be. Doesn't mean it's bad, but understand that some of us have, for lack of a better description, a lot of emotional involvement with how this thing has grown and evolved. It's changed lives, it's made jobs and relationships come and go, and it's hard to communicate what that means to someone who wasn't there for the whole thing, so it comes off as knee-jerk reactions from the "old-timers" becuase it's the only response we can have other than not showing up becuase it just doesn't feel the same way it was.
Don't take it personally, and don't take it as me, or us saying stuff needs to be changed. Things evolve, and we either take part or we step aside to watch from afar. For a lot of the older guys who have been around this place for however long (****, I've been in a Scooby club for almost 6 years) it's hard to identify with how the scene changes. We get bitter. We get tired of explaining stuff to the new guys sometimes, becuase it's something we've done a thousand times, and it's almost better if we're not there bringing it down. I became friends with a buddy who owned a shop, helped out for years on my own dime, lost friends, gained friends, and put myself out there every day trying to help to grow business and to grow the club. I've watched friends lose family, I've watched dreams die, and I've watched something a couple guys worked like dogs for destroyed despite efforts to the contrary becuase of how group dynamics and target markets and everything changed. It's never been the same for me, and can never be the same for me, after watching it crumble, and knowing what it meant about how things had changed. I'll always have my friends, and I know I'll be welcome if I show up at Sac meets when I move back up here, but I'm just burned out, and tired, and I don't want to be that ******* in the club telling people to **** off or do a search becuase we went over it already or whatever just becuase of my own ****, so I'm taking a step back.
To the new guys, you don't need our guidance to make this work. There's not a way it can be like it was before, it's just a different dynamic. Do your own thing. Figure out what works. Bring new people in, start up a new meet somewhere else, do what feels right and don't be restricted by what we did or didn't do in the past.....just know that some of us still are caught up inthe way it was and it's hard to change. We've tried EG meets, we've tried Roseville meets, Folsom meets, Rancho meets, etc.......it's trial and error, so if someone wants to take the lead, go for it.
Just know for the guys that started this thing years ago, that it's tough to let it go no matter how much logical sense it makes, and that there's no way some of us can be objective aobut it because it's been such a big part of our lives.
Wow, that was long.
10-06-2006, 07:12 PM
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XXX
Last edited by Snot Rod; 10-12-2006 at 07:49 PM.
10-06-2006, 09:14 PM
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Nah, I wasn't trying to say that we were friends before the meet, but the small group that started the meets, and then grew, was contained to this thread, which was in BAIC. It was kind of insular, and I think it created a clique even though none of us would see it as such. Because we grew the meet from nothing, and SRIC came becuase we wanted our own place aside from this thread and distinct from the Bay Area, the group was (and is) super close-knit, with kind of an "us against the world" mentality when it came to ideas that tried to change what we saw as the fundamentals; what we were founded on, essentially.
We all met through this site, but as happens anywhere, once you get that tight group, the new guys sometimes don't.......automatically become part of it. We've always tried to be open, and compared to most other meets I've ever been to, the group is pretty good aobut coming up and introducing ourselves and trying to make people feel welcome, but there comes a point where the group becomes so large and loose that the original tight-knit feel just isn't possible. I'm sure it's been more apparent at meets in the last few months; I notice that even when the "old guys" don't set ourselves apart, we end up in our own little circle as we don't run over when hoods are popped, etc.
It comes back to what I was saying........for those of us that have been around for a long time, it's not really a car meet. It's hanging out with old friends on Saturday night. Now, that's not at cross-purposes with a car meet, but it's a different mindset, and the very nature of that difference is what I think a lot of you guys see as us being aloof, or negative, or uninterested........we're not trying to be dicks, we're just out there for what sometimes seems like a different reason, and then every week, that gap grows wider, people start perceiving it more, change their attendance habits becuase of it. It's also what makes us respond differently in situaiotns like this, where we're trying to communicate what we feel and becuase it's a different frame fo reference it can be misunderstood. In our minds, the other clubs showing up are like the punk concert that got out of control at your old spot........where it caused a change that you could never really recover from. Instead of trying to beat up the new kids (metaphorically speaking), you chalk it up to life moving on and you do so as well. Guys get married, guys move away, and it's deceiving especially on a forum becuase we all stay in touch even though we're not at the meet together.....the meet signifies the bond that brought us together, so changes to it almost serve to remind us that stuff isn't like it was becuase life moves on.
I'm sad that you guys weren't around in the "salad days" as well, when we'd have 15-20 cars out each week, when everyone was on a first name basis with everyone else, their wives, their kids, when we'd caravan to karting, where we'd go shoot pool at someone's house, etc. Where we'd start out with 6 guys hanging out at the shop on a saturday afternoon, then wash our cars in the parking lot and head out to the meet for a night of ****ty pizza and bull****ting and chilling with the friends we were closest to.......but there's no way to do that with a huge group with new people all the time, and you can't pick and choose who you ask to roll somewhere post-meet, it just makes it worse, you don't want people to have their feelings hurt because they're new but because someone's wife isn't comfortable with a ton of new people at their house or whatever............
So we stand, in the parking lot, doing a circle jerk until 10 or 11 at night because the central location and proximity to our post-meet spots don't mean anything anymore, because there isn't a house we go back to to drink and pass out and get breakfast at ****ty taquerias the next day with everyone who crashed on a couch instead of driving home. You guys never saw that because the meets grew so much that we had new people all the time and just couldn't do it anymore.
Like I said, dynamics change, and it can't ever go back to the way it was. It sucks. I wish people could share in what we felt were the "good times", but all it means is that it's time to look at how we can do that now.......not in the same way, but somehow.
I'm not around anymore, I'm living in the east bay. Matt works and has school, and a wife. Mike's married and doing remodeling on his house on the weekends. Dz's got family obligations and pets to take care of. Ed's even farther away than I am. Rich and Dave are down with me in the bay, and have work and play schedules that don't accommodate the meets or an hour drive to get there. Josh and Deede live way out of town. Paul's working every day at his shop and coaching soccer and shooting wildlife. Nick's lived in Reno for well nigh 2 years. Kevin too. Scott's married and has a new baby. Lance has new kids and a new house. Eric has a wife and a restaurant and a mortgage business that take his time. Ben too. Jason's never on shopping trips on Saturday nights. Larry's got kids and nasty work schedule and should be sleeping on Saturday nights. Cohn is away on business half the time and lives in deepest EG. Chuck is god knows where. Russ A has other **** going on. Dan and Kath are busy with home improvements and work. Davis kids won't make the drive.
You get the picture. Everything's changed for a lot of us, so even if it isn't realistic, seeing the meet change drives that home, and it's hard to look at it objectively.
I don't know what the answer is, I just know that stuff has changed. Where it goes from here, it's your guy's call.
Personally, I see more special events kind of filling the void. Call a dinner meet. We call Rancho lunch meets. Meet someplace for dinner and drum up attendance. The meet isn't the singular draw it once was, so you just have to come up with new incentives. It feeds on itself. Make a post. Someone bumps it. Someone else says "I'll come out if we do that." Other people join in. That's how this all started. That's how we got EGKK going again for a good year or so before the numpber of regulars who moved away pulled down the numbers a bit. Make a bi-monthly meet. Break the monotony of parkinglotdinnerparkinglothome every week, in whatever manner you see fit. It doesn't take a revolution, just takes a simple idea.
We all met through this site, but as happens anywhere, once you get that tight group, the new guys sometimes don't.......automatically become part of it. We've always tried to be open, and compared to most other meets I've ever been to, the group is pretty good aobut coming up and introducing ourselves and trying to make people feel welcome, but there comes a point where the group becomes so large and loose that the original tight-knit feel just isn't possible. I'm sure it's been more apparent at meets in the last few months; I notice that even when the "old guys" don't set ourselves apart, we end up in our own little circle as we don't run over when hoods are popped, etc.
It comes back to what I was saying........for those of us that have been around for a long time, it's not really a car meet. It's hanging out with old friends on Saturday night. Now, that's not at cross-purposes with a car meet, but it's a different mindset, and the very nature of that difference is what I think a lot of you guys see as us being aloof, or negative, or uninterested........we're not trying to be dicks, we're just out there for what sometimes seems like a different reason, and then every week, that gap grows wider, people start perceiving it more, change their attendance habits becuase of it. It's also what makes us respond differently in situaiotns like this, where we're trying to communicate what we feel and becuase it's a different frame fo reference it can be misunderstood. In our minds, the other clubs showing up are like the punk concert that got out of control at your old spot........where it caused a change that you could never really recover from. Instead of trying to beat up the new kids (metaphorically speaking), you chalk it up to life moving on and you do so as well. Guys get married, guys move away, and it's deceiving especially on a forum becuase we all stay in touch even though we're not at the meet together.....the meet signifies the bond that brought us together, so changes to it almost serve to remind us that stuff isn't like it was becuase life moves on.
I'm sad that you guys weren't around in the "salad days" as well, when we'd have 15-20 cars out each week, when everyone was on a first name basis with everyone else, their wives, their kids, when we'd caravan to karting, where we'd go shoot pool at someone's house, etc. Where we'd start out with 6 guys hanging out at the shop on a saturday afternoon, then wash our cars in the parking lot and head out to the meet for a night of ****ty pizza and bull****ting and chilling with the friends we were closest to.......but there's no way to do that with a huge group with new people all the time, and you can't pick and choose who you ask to roll somewhere post-meet, it just makes it worse, you don't want people to have their feelings hurt because they're new but because someone's wife isn't comfortable with a ton of new people at their house or whatever............
So we stand, in the parking lot, doing a circle jerk until 10 or 11 at night because the central location and proximity to our post-meet spots don't mean anything anymore, because there isn't a house we go back to to drink and pass out and get breakfast at ****ty taquerias the next day with everyone who crashed on a couch instead of driving home. You guys never saw that because the meets grew so much that we had new people all the time and just couldn't do it anymore.
Like I said, dynamics change, and it can't ever go back to the way it was. It sucks. I wish people could share in what we felt were the "good times", but all it means is that it's time to look at how we can do that now.......not in the same way, but somehow.
I'm not around anymore, I'm living in the east bay. Matt works and has school, and a wife. Mike's married and doing remodeling on his house on the weekends. Dz's got family obligations and pets to take care of. Ed's even farther away than I am. Rich and Dave are down with me in the bay, and have work and play schedules that don't accommodate the meets or an hour drive to get there. Josh and Deede live way out of town. Paul's working every day at his shop and coaching soccer and shooting wildlife. Nick's lived in Reno for well nigh 2 years. Kevin too. Scott's married and has a new baby. Lance has new kids and a new house. Eric has a wife and a restaurant and a mortgage business that take his time. Ben too. Jason's never on shopping trips on Saturday nights. Larry's got kids and nasty work schedule and should be sleeping on Saturday nights. Cohn is away on business half the time and lives in deepest EG. Chuck is god knows where. Russ A has other **** going on. Dan and Kath are busy with home improvements and work. Davis kids won't make the drive.
You get the picture. Everything's changed for a lot of us, so even if it isn't realistic, seeing the meet change drives that home, and it's hard to look at it objectively.
I don't know what the answer is, I just know that stuff has changed. Where it goes from here, it's your guy's call.
Personally, I see more special events kind of filling the void. Call a dinner meet. We call Rancho lunch meets. Meet someplace for dinner and drum up attendance. The meet isn't the singular draw it once was, so you just have to come up with new incentives. It feeds on itself. Make a post. Someone bumps it. Someone else says "I'll come out if we do that." Other people join in. That's how this all started. That's how we got EGKK going again for a good year or so before the numpber of regulars who moved away pulled down the numbers a bit. Make a bi-monthly meet. Break the monotony of parkinglotdinnerparkinglothome every week, in whatever manner you see fit. It doesn't take a revolution, just takes a simple idea.
Last edited by sybir; 10-06-2006 at 09:20 PM.
10-06-2006, 11:24 PM
MILF Hunter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Sacramento
Posts: 1,242
Car Info: 2005 Legacy GT
"The Don" always says it best.
I started coming to the meets in March of 2005 (which really is not all that long ago). I started coming to the meets to hang out with other guys that have Subarus and check out there cars and to just meet new people. Soon after i first started coming I found that besides Subaru we had a lot of things in common. And I saw that people in the club really actually cared about how eachothers lives were going.
I consider a lot of the SRIC'ers to be real friends, and yeah I do miss them and I care a lot about the people on here. I used to come to as many meets as i possibly could. But lately it has been very rare for me to make it out. But when i do come out I try to make the most of it. Now with my new job its going to be even more difficult to get out to a meet. People have other obligations besides going to some meet to hang out at (you know, such is life). And I don't need the Meets to stay in contact with my friends, they are all easy to reach on this board. Just like everyone is easy to reach.
For the record I don't consider myself an "old schooler" or a "newbie".
oh and btw i will not be attending Saturday evening.
I started coming to the meets in March of 2005 (which really is not all that long ago). I started coming to the meets to hang out with other guys that have Subarus and check out there cars and to just meet new people. Soon after i first started coming I found that besides Subaru we had a lot of things in common. And I saw that people in the club really actually cared about how eachothers lives were going.
I consider a lot of the SRIC'ers to be real friends, and yeah I do miss them and I care a lot about the people on here. I used to come to as many meets as i possibly could. But lately it has been very rare for me to make it out. But when i do come out I try to make the most of it. Now with my new job its going to be even more difficult to get out to a meet. People have other obligations besides going to some meet to hang out at (you know, such is life). And I don't need the Meets to stay in contact with my friends, they are all easy to reach on this board. Just like everyone is easy to reach.
For the record I don't consider myself an "old schooler" or a "newbie".
oh and btw i will not be attending Saturday evening.
10-06-2006, 11:32 PM
Father Time
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Originally Posted by sybir
.......but there's no way to do that with a huge group with new people all the time, and you can't pick and choose who you ask to roll somewhere post-meet, it just makes it worse, you don't want people to have their feelings hurt because they're new but because someone's wife isn't comfortable with a ton of new people at their house or whatever............
So we stand, in the parking lot, doing a circle jerk until 10 or 11 at night because the central location and proximity to our post-meet spots don't mean anything anymore....
So we stand, in the parking lot, doing a circle jerk until 10 or 11 at night because the central location and proximity to our post-meet spots don't mean anything anymore....
10-06-2006, 11:54 PM
Token Toyota Mod
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bah I should move back 
I do miss alot of you crazy girls.
Ya I really moved even further then before. I should be making an effort to come out one of these saturdays. Hell I'll roll in my tacoma.
TRD BABY!!
I do miss alot of you crazy girls.
Ya I really moved even further then before. I should be making an effort to come out one of these saturdays. Hell I'll roll in my tacoma.
TRD BABY!!
10-07-2006, 01:45 AM
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Originally Posted by soggynoodles
bah I should move back
TRD BABY!!
TRD BABY!!
And Sybir Im not trippin dude i feel where your getting @ i just wanted to add my 2 cents : )
10-07-2006, 02:20 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Sacramento
Posts: 1,242
Car Info: 2005 Legacy GT
Originally Posted by T-cel89
W3RD^ I'll be there hopefully sporting my new rims thanx to Aaron (that new legacy)
you mean That One Legacy
10-08-2006, 02:17 AM
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meet was okay. not too good of a showing from i-club, but a couple random subie and DSM people showed up (and then quickly left), but hodge and i were there. good thing we stuck around because the actual DSM crowd showed up later on, and we had a good time.