[richm]

The project that once started as www.SkySouthwest.com has officially been expanded to include both Skys and Solstices, and our first club was officially formed last Saturday night in Phoenix where twelve members agreed on a set of bylaws and officially signed up for the club.

The new website is www.sky-sol.com (or www.sol-sky.com). Our previous web efforts, www.SkySouthWest.com and www.PhoenixSolstice.com, have now merged and are redirected to the new site. The mission for the site, however, is the same, to create a state-of-the-art car club website which can eventually be shared by several independent car clubs in the Southwestern US. So far, there is only one club using the site, the "Phoenix Sky & Solstice Club" but there is talk in the air about groups in Tucson and Las Vegas forming something soon.

So, if you have a passion for the Saturn Sky or the Pontiac Solstice and you are interested in what is happening in the Southwest, please join us. Registration is free, although if you want to join a local car club, dues may apply (each club acts independently with separate bylaws and independent local leadership).

 

[Axel]

Looks like a great start... but why limit yourself to just the Southwest? With the great name and idea of your web sites, perhaps some day you could be the central meeting spot for THE nationwide umbrella Sky-Sol club.

 

[richm]

Looks like a great start... but why limit yourself to just the Southwest? With the great name and idea of your web sites, perhaps some day you could be the central meeting spot for THE nationwide umbrella Sky-Sol club.

The answer is that I am willing to help anyone who wants to develop a club anywhere for these wonderful cars, but I don't want to engage in a national turf war. I like having some autonomy (and giving autonomy to others), and that is why, even though our website may support many Sky-Sol car clubs, each will be completely independent, operating by their own rules. We could even have five in my hometown of Phoenix, one for racing, one sponsored by a dealer for their customers only, one just for car shows, and I would be delighted if we could all share the same website with different but overlapping objectives.

I am not a big believer in nationwide car clubs with standardized bylaws, rules, structure and oversight. I have been involved in several clubs, and my experience is that the best car clubs take on the characteristics and interests of their leaders and most active members, and they need to adapt and change over time, not be forced to conform. If the most active members are into racing, then the club may serve racers well but not others, so it would then be up to others to form a more social club in the same turf. So, I think small grass-roots clubs are definately the way to go, supported by national forums (like this one) and national magazines (coming soon, I hope).

That being said, I see no reason why other clubs couldn't share web resources, and for now, the main reason I am focussing on the Southwest is because I do not want to step on other's toes. There is already a West Coast Kappa Car Club with 60+ members, and a SouthWest Solstice Club in Texas (TX, OK, LA, AR ) with 80+ members. Plus, a couple of other regional clubs are beginning to develop, including a Rocky Mountain club and a New England club, and lately some talk of a Great Lakes club. These other clubs have the ambition to be large regional clubs, with districts or chapters, but all under one umbrella. In fact, the West Coast Kappa Car Club hopes to create a national umbrella organization under the kappacarclub.org domain, although when I first explored it, I wasn't sure that I want to be constrained as one of their "districts."

At this stage of the game, I wouldn't presume to encroach on what others are doing in other regions. My personal "reach" and limited time are constraining my car club ambitions at this time. Personally, I want to get to know everybody who has a Sky or Solstice within a one day drive of Phoenix, Arizona, which includes Arizona, Southern California, Southern Nevada, New Mexico, Southern Colorado and Western Texas. To that end, I am willing to invest time and energy helping to organize clubs in these areas, and others in our Phoenix club feel the same way -- let's help other clubs get going within our "reach."

So far, the only people who have asked us to support them in creating a local club are in Tucson and Las Vegas. If people in other parts of the country really liked our domain and our website capabilities, however, I see no reason why we couldn't support clubs anywhere, but to date, no one has asked.

P.S. I should clarify that ANYONE ANYWHERE is invited to "join" the website and participate in the community and discussion. I think that our profile-driven website is amazing, especially if you have never seen a Joomla/Community Builder site in action before.