That's all part of what's driving things like name changes, etc. I side with the idea that any (new) variation of name change involving the continued use of the letters 'V', 'C', and 'F' as part of the name will keep perpetuating the confusion. We already have the blessing of the VCF (official) Treasurer and occasional legal advisor that it's OK to use the former name MARCH as the acronym of Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists. MARCH is not a new name, as many of us older members are aware, but it is a recognizable name that we have the ability to use. Really, why would we want to add a THIRD option (on top of VCF-MA or MARCH) to the history of this local chapter that can potentially cause even more confusion? As to Ian's remarks, even this past weekend, several Steering Committee members in attendance at the Workshop were brainstorming additional event ideas that will operate at the local level, along with ways to promote outreach both for membership and the public. But it's a LOT easier as a separately defined entity to do so, especially when we start creating names for the events. Yes, we are still a part of the larger Vintage Computer Federation, but we still should have an easily identifiable, yet distinctive name. Any of you parents can relate to this... when your child was born, I'll bet you didn't just jump into planning for its future and how you wanted to raise your child BEFORE you gave your child an easily identifiable name, correct? The same thought can be applied here. We finally want to name this baby and give it a good one to boot. However, naming ourselves with any variation containing VCF is like calling ourselves "VCF Jr.", and that's kind of what the current name depicts, and creates confusion. This organization isn't looking to emancipate itself from the Vintage Computer Federation, but it can certainly be its own entity as a child of the parent organization. Jeff Salzman On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 10:13 AM Benjamin Krein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
As a new-ish member who ends up lurking more than participating, I wholeheartedly agree with what Ian just said. It's hard to know how to be part of the VCF-MA/MARCH "club" & what that means. Other than Festivus or volunteering for support are there other "club" functions, meetings, gatherings, etc.?
Ben
On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 10:05 AM Ian Litchfield via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Regardless of what we call ourselves.
The elephant in the room here is still apparent, and this is my opinion (I am sure many have seen it as well.)
We have not really acted as a club in a long time.
Besides Festivus, when is the last time we did anything club like? People show up to the Swap and leave immediately after many ignoring our post event workshops. The same 5 or so people show up to workshops monthly, barring the one right before VCF East which always has a higher turnout. Very few newcomers appear to stick around, and if they do they just lurk. How many are registered in the list again?
Hell it took me about a year to figure out how to even “join” the club because no information was out about how to get involved. I was told to talk to someone and wait for a phone call, which took over 6 months to come in. From what I have gathered, we have always regarded it as “If you are on the list, you are in” but that is a terrible way, especially for an organization that has grown to our size, as people have put it to keep a member log.
We want to grow the local community here, do some outreach, fund fixing the warehouse to protect our artifacts, and eventually expand our museum and assist the other local groups on campus at InfoAge. All of which requires having an active and informed local membership.
We are not renaming the organization here, not even the list. Specifically it is proposed to rename and restructure the local chapter that handles the local events, local fund raising, local museum, local warehouse, local artifacts, local workshops, etc.. Did I mention Local?
-Ian L.
On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 09:04 Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
We are, or were created as one in 2015, an extension/chapter/whathaveyou of VCF National.
We don’t necessarily need to remain that, but that is what we are at the moment.
Tony Bogan
On Oct 29, 2024, at 8:39 AM, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
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-- - Benjamin Krein