Membership information

Please feel free to post any questions you may have in this forum about membership in the SouthernSxSRiders.

Forum is now open for discussion. :D

So if I dont send the app to Ronnie I cant ride in planned rides, excluding the WV ride?

How could staff be liable for others on these rides are you not just a trusted member who happens to perform tasks to keep up the forum?

Has there been an instance where a group has been sued?

As far as policing paid members at rides, would there be a roll call type senerio?

Could it be easier to have a waiver signed at the rides? Seems like that would decrease risk without slowing membership growth. Maybe one sheet with members signatures showing they understand rules and agree to the waivers.

My intentions is not to start shit and I really enjoy coming here giving and taking ideas and the occasional sarcastic comment, This is a great group of guys and gals, but this is my .02. This seems a little over the top for a forum. I dont disagree with signup fees as I gladly paid my $20 last year but the trouble of a waiver that needs to be sent snail mail is going to stunt the forum growth. Adobe format can be made where you can plug in your info via electronically and email it to Ronnie. Or even fax them. Efax aint that difficult to set up either.

I, like a lot of others, learned a valuble lessons when the original site split into two sites. If this is the way we go, I will still support the site, but needed to voice my opinion.

Thanks to all for the hard work and, I am sure long hours, that goes into keeping this site running smoothly and attractive to other SXSers.

nocerisdave wrote:

So if I dont send the app to Ronnie I cant ride in planned rides, excluding the WV ride?

How could staff be liable for others on these rides are you not just a trusted member who happens to perform tasks to keep up the forum?

Has there been an instance where a group has been sued?

As far as policing paid members at rides, would there be a roll call type senerio?

Could it be easier to have a waiver signed at the rides? Seems like that would decrease risk without slowing membership growth. Maybe one sheet with members signatures showing they understand rules and agree to the waivers.

My intentions is not to start shit and I really enjoy coming here giving and taking ideas and the occasional sarcastic comment, This is a great group of guys and gals, but this is my .02. This seems a little over the top for a forum. I dont disagree with signup fees as I gladly paid my $20 last year but the trouble of a waiver that needs to be sent snail mail is going to stunt the forum growth. Adobe format can be made where you can plug in your info via electronically and email it to Ronnie. Or even fax them. Efax aint that difficult to set up either.

I, like a lot of others, learned a valuble lessons when the original site split into two sites. If this is the way we go, I will still support the site, but needed to voice my opinion.

Thanks to all for the hard work and, I am sure long hours, that goes into keeping this site running smoothly and attractive to other SXSers.

You could scan and email. Also,fax is a possibility.

You could also use word or excell. Some will not have the ability or equipement to scan and email.

Nocerisdave, glad you jumped in and expressed your opinion. This is an issue that was brought up a long time ago. It was put to the side and forgotten about for some time. A few things have brought it to the forfront and i'll try to explain the reasoning.

When the staff of this forum ( or any forum) and the owner plan, organize, and schedual a ride, we automatically assume some responsibility for the general public that decides they want to take us up on our invitation to join us. The trails we may take them on always have some risk of property damage or injury while navigating them. We felt it to be very irresponsible to continue to do this without asking those who want to come to sign a disclaimer saying they will take responsibility for themselves, their equipment and their actions. And, hold us harmless for anything that may happen to them when they come. We felt that a membership with disclaimer was the most efficent way of doing this, than a disclaimer being signed by everyone at every ride.

Also, we felt that an open invitation to the general public may not be in the best interest of our members that travel sometimes a great distance for our events. We felt we needed to insure more organization and control over the event than that.


To sum it all up. We felt that asking someone to agree to become a member of our group in order to attend Staff planned and organized rides was in the best long term interest of the forum, the members, and the staff.

Marty You should be in politics. IMO membership will suffer greatly. Although I agree with some points, I disagree with it as a whole.

My app is in the mail BigR.

nocerisdave wrote:

IMO membership will suffer greatly.

This was discussed in detail Dave. At the end of the day, we felt that doing what we thought was responsible was not going to be compromised for possibly losing membership.

Also, If someone doesn't want to put an application/ liability disclaimer in the mail with $15.00 for membership and a shirt. We have to question whether they will spend a couple hundred dollars to travel to attend a group ride anyway.

We hope all do. We suspect some wont.

I for one would gladly pay 15 bucks for a membership and shirt. This has been the most awesome group of guys so I would be honored to contribute something, just as I did the 20 dollars last year.

Airborne LT wrote:

I for one would gladly pay 15 bucks for a membership and shirt. This has been the most awesome group of guys so I would be honored to contribute something, just as I did the 20 dollars last year.

If you paid the $20.00 last year, you dont have to pay the $15.00 this year Chris. Just need to fill out and mail in the application. A shirt for original members will be $12.00 though if you want one.

if we buy a shirt at the ride in WV will that be the membership also? or do we need to mail it.

bush wrote:

if we buy a shirt at the ride in WV will that be the membership also? or do we need to mail it.

You can fill out the application and get your shirt at West Virginia. We will have them there.

I guess opinions are like Aholes and I have one. I remember the crap on this forum a year ago. Seems like it is going the same way again. I would have never thought that it would happen twice. I paid the $20 to Nick originally so I only need to fill out an app but I do not see the purpose. The one thing I have learned through life is that denying liability through forms actually makes liability. I also learned that money in legal terms is "consideration" and thus adds another layer of liability. This group now has a form and takes money -- the two together really is not good. Makes me laugh kinda like the stickers on dump trucks that says "Not liable for damage or broken windshields".

Anyway I'll have a seperate issue with the group rides. I have a few people I ride with often and they are generally welcome to go where I go. I ride alot and count on the local friends I have to include me as well as i try to include them. I guess the below rule will pretty much knock me out of the group rides:

Friends and guests will not be allowed on group rides that are planned and organized by the staff of the SouthernSxSRiders, and announced in the Members/Upcoming rides forum. These rides will be reserved for members and their families only.


Anyway -- I am looking forward to the March ride and I guess I'll see where it goes after that.

roamerr wrote:

I guess opinions are like Aholes and I have one. I remember the crap on this forum a year ago. Seems like it is going the same way again. I would have never thought that it would happen twice.

You are more than entitled to your opinion, and the members here have many on this issue. Some are pro and some are con.

As far as what happened last year vs. this year. There is only one comparison. The group last year while disagreeing about many things, agreed with the Liability and membership issue as we do now. They just never got it done.

Yank, first let me say I appreciate the fact that you, and the other mods and admin, dont get pissed at opinions that differ froms yours. As Romerr said we all have opinions and folks will never always agree. I think this dialog is important IMO to get anyones opinion across without pissing matches as a result. Since the split of the forums last year both seem to be more agreeable to members.

I will probably never have friends coming along with me on "planned rides" as long as they are as far away as they have been. However, I agree with Romerr that not allowing friends to ride with us is a rule that puzzles me. How would this rule be enforced, if at all? This is where I will go back to taking waivers to rides in case some of the members local friends want to ride with us.

Is their a model that you guys are trying to follow? Are other SXS, ATV, or other off-road forums doing this?

One more question. Who owns the forum, a single person or many?

I used to dig a big mud pit behind my house for running wheelers and had a bunch of friends and friends of friends come. No fees involved.

I wrote up a waiver and had it signed by those riding (fortunately no issues) but talked with my insurance man later about it and he said the waiver is ok but in reality it will boil down to who can afford the better attorney.

Just my 2 cents.

So, when you guys ride Evarts in the future, is the club going to pay the fee to ride the area for the member that paid his membership fees? What about Brimstone, Windrock, Hatfield-McCoy.....so on and so on. If you need money to keep up the forums and portal just ask for donations. Fees Suck!!!

looking forward to March ride .just wondering if a group talk could take place over some issues to see where this is going and try to get better understanding of pros and cons

I paid $20 last year so do i have to pay it again, hell I just wished yall would ride somewhere closer than you do.

nocerisdave wrote:

I agree with Romerr that not allowing friends to ride with us is a rule that puzzles me. How would this rule be enforced, if at all?

Admin wrote:

New rules and why we are applying them.

Below are the rules and recommendations we want all of our members to agree to before they join. If you cant live with them, please do not ask for an application for membership.

Guests

Friends and guests will not be allowed on group rides that are planned and organized by the staff of the SouthernSxSRiders, and announced in the Members/Upcoming rides forum. These rides will be reserved for members and their families only.

Dave, we will have no control over who brings someone with them on the rides. All we can do is make the rules we ask members to agree to clear so they know what they are. The whole idea of moving the upcoming rides forum into a members only forum is to make sure only members and not the general public can read about the ride planning information. If a member decides to ignore the rules and bring non members to the rides, the only solution will be suspension of membership. That would only happen if it was a blatant disreguard for the rules.

Believe me we struggled with this decision also. Every one of the staff members have friends that they would like to bring on the rides from time to time. The question is, how do you pick and choose who can and who cant. It opens way too many cans of worms to deal with. To keep things simple with the Liability and guest issue, the membership route was the only logical way to go.

nocerisdave wrote:

Is their a model that you guys are trying to follow? Are other SXS, ATV, or other off-road forums doing this?

We looked at many, there are not many out there that plan and organize rides like we do. Most do it in a more informal way. There are some Jeep clubs that we looked at also. We structured our liability disclaimer from some of theirs.

nocerisdave wrote:

One more question. Who owns the forum, a single person or many?

Only one person has ownership of this forum Dave

Triple J wrote:

I wrote up a waiver and had it signed by those riding (fortunately no issues) but talked with my insurance man later about it and he said the waiver is ok but in reality it will boil down to who can afford the better attorney.

This issue has been brought up here several times. The bottom line is only the staff and the owner of this forum have anything to worry about on this issue. The owner and staff feel comfortable that the disclaimer as written, will serve it's purpose.

Gary wrote:

looking forward to March ride .just wondering if a group talk could take place over some issues to see where this is going and try to get better understanding of pros and cons

Discussions are always good and welcome.

Disaster wrote:

So, when you guys ride Evarts in the future, is the club going to pay the fee to ride the area for the member that paid his membership fees? What about Brimstone, Windrock, Hatfield-McCoy.....so on and so on. If you need money to keep up the forums and portal just ask for donations. Fees Suck!!!

People will still be responsible for paying their own riding fees at places we ride.

As far as money to keep up the forum. This owner makes no money from running this forum. We have had been contacted in the past about paid sponsorship and have declined it. Our current sponsors provide gifts for the Photo of the Month winners only. The new $15.00 membership fee will not generate any profit. The shirt and associated expenses with it will use all the $15.00 charged. The idea of charging a $15.00 fee for a Lifetime membership is to have the member make a commitment to the group, not to generate any profit from it.

GODAWGS wrote:

I paid $20 last year so do i have to pay it again, hell I just wished yall would ride somewhere closer than you do.

You do not have to pay again. Those that were the original paid members only have to fill out the membership application/disclaimer and mail it in. If you would like a shirt it will cost you $12.00. But shirt purchase is not mandatory. Just your application submitted is. As soon as we get your application we will activate you as a SSXSRiderMember on the forum.


We are talking about a possible ride at Wilborns in Alabama this year.