Directory of members willing to check out items for others

[MordEth]

Abe brings up what I think might be an interesting idea for something we could put together in another thread, that I am starting as its own thread in case anyone is interested:

I guess the best thing is if you cannot go see it yourself-deal with those you know or get someone who is in the area to go look at if possible. That brings up another thought-we do not have a directory of members by name-but could we produce one that lists where we have members for just such purpose?

And a follow-up post:

O.K.-so is the group wanting to or willing to form a directory of some form and if so how do we proceed?
Abe

I have no clue how many people would be interested in doing this, but if there is interest in the idea, I would be willing to help organize it (even though no-one in their right mind should request my opinion of machines).

I think that for something like this, while it would only need to have the general area where each participant is located, we might want to restrict access to it, either specifically to members who wish to participate, or perhaps to the membership of the forum.

I have a few ideas of how to implement this as a list that members could opt into and be able to update their location and contact information (if this is desired; e-mail or via private message may be preferred), as well as be able to opt out at any time, while properly securing it. I think that a lot of us prefer to protect our privacy, at least to some extent.

If there’s interest, please share your ideas/suggestions in this thread.

— MordEth

[need4art]

I have belonged and do belong to car club now that has gone though a lot of girations about how it set up its directory. 5 years ago it had your name, address, phone # and the years of cars owned. Then because of the FEAR of theft-never realized they created a directory that had name, interests, and e-mail address. Now it is just a listing of names and email addresses. If you want help on a question or project you can post it on the message board and you may get an answer. I had made many friends and gained much information by picking up the phone and spending some time going over the needs I had with another party. The longer you have been in the club the easier it is to make contacts. But for new members the process with such limits for contact makes the process much slower and in some cases they have left the club because it takes to long to create a contact base.
I also belong to a Rotary club which is a member of Rotary International-a service org with 1,300,000 members. Each club has a complete roster, all clubs, provide that info to their District,and then all districts provide that info to R. I. you log on to the R.I. website provide info-name.Rotary club and membership # and they give you a pass word and you can find how to contact any Rotarian in the world.
We can make this as informative or restrictive as we like-But I would like to see as a start-Name, city, state phone# email and fields of interest-we could later add machines owned,repair and restoration abilities, and for those that are dealers company name and website.

I think that all the people on this sight are doing a great job of making it work-and work well. I think this will only make it better.

thanks for letting me go on.
Abe

[Valecnik]

Abe, David,

I'm onboard for most all you are proposing. As long as it's voluntary, any member who chooses not to provide certain information would not need to. Much of this information is already available, (if people would take the time to fill it out) in the member profile. I would imagine David could figure out a way to extract profile info into a membership directory. I would gladly provide name, interests, website, city, state town, email, and telephone number. In fact I think I've provided all of the above info in my profile already except for tel. number & name as I don't think there's a place to put it.

Many of us already provided the same information for the MAPS and CAPS directories. I think at least MAPS, maybe CAPS already posts it online too.

So, for those of you who don't have the MAPS or CAPS directory its:

Bruce Johnson
Tel (USA NUMBER) +1 612 605 5242 This is a normal US phone number that rings at our house in CZ. It costs you the same to call us here as to call any number in the American 612 area code.

I would love to get a few calls. As long as you want to talk phonos call away! Just remember the time zones thing and that central European time zone is 6 hours later than the eastern time zone of the US and we put kids to bed ~ 8:30pm.

[richardh]

This is a normal US phone number that rings at our house in CZ. It costs you the same to call us here as to call any number in the American 612 area code.

Is it just me or is that kind of neat? I think so anyway. BTW Bruce, don't forget if you are over in the UK (Bracknell area) don't forget to look me up - just give me a call (if you have skype then its freeee!) I will PM you my skype ID.

RJ

[Valecnik]

This is a normal US phone number that rings at our house in CZ. It costs you the same to call us here as to call any number in the American 612 area code.

Is it just me or is that kind of neat? I think so anyway. BTW Bruce, don't forget if you are over in the UK (Bracknell area) don't forget to look me up - just give me a call (if you have skype then its freeee!) I will PM you my skype ID.

RJ

Richard, the same goes for you. If you get over here, let us know in advance. We'd be glad to meet you.

The service I have for the US telephone number is great.
1) Telephone number in the area code/country of your choice, (limited to US, UK, DE, IT & some others)
2) People in the US (or in your case UK) call you almost for free
3) Uses normal telephone plugged into your router.
4) All for ~$15 monthly

It allows fellow collectors and family/friends in the US to call me and me call them very economically.
Company is http://www.vonage.com

I'm not selling or promoting this company. I just think it's a great tool.

I use skype too, as some of you know. It's another great tool for allowing us all to keep in touch on matters related to the hobby.

Cheers, bruce