Rebooting What

In the post titled Target of Opportunity, I railed at the publisher of Cruise Maine Magazine for a "fee" to be paid for the privilege of having your event published in his glossy paper little guide to the universe. I also mentioned the old book that was put forth by a car club  that basically got run out of town by the same glossied ass wipe publication.


Now here is the thing. Do we rebel against this affront to our wallets by not attending the "All Clubs Social" or do we react by attending and having a good time and eating some potluck? I say go. By doing so we are showing our support for the event. We are showing that there are reasons to attend other than Direct Display. I attend the event because of the event not because of the sponsor. We all know that an untrained monkey with a checkbook could sponsor an event.


The subject of rebooting the old book has been kicked around a bit and could be viable in theory. It would take some planning and more than one club. It is not cheap to publish, distribute and will be man hour intense. Expecting one person or even a small group to get this done in a few hours is asking the ridiculous and a task of this importance will be a weeks long or even a months long endeavor. The question is are we willing to step up and work on this as a many faceted team for the long haul or are we just venting our rage over the "fee".


We need to look at the bigger picture and see that printed publications are not the wave of the future but are possibly the next thing to get flushed down the technology toilet. Alternatives are mobile apps and web sites posting your event for free. Free web sites are abundant or some are cheap with most yearly fees deductible if you are a registered non profit. These can be built by your organization so that you can post yours and others events with a network of sites sharing information. Road Scholars, Hemmings, Old Rides and yes even Cruise Maine provide free listings for all your events.


We need to show our disdain for the "fee" without showing our hand and we need to look at the odds before playing that hand. A poster of the 60's Anti-War movement read "Suppose they gave war and nobody came ?"


Suppose they published a book and nobody read it.


Better yet maybe I'll send him a bill for all the years I helped distribute his publication free of charge