Classic Citroen Club Of Queensland

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gilberthenry

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A suggestion (by John Paas) that could be brought up at the next meeting of the Citroen Car Club of Queensland.

1.Name change:-

CLASSIC CITROEN CLUB OF QUEENSLAND (CCCQ)

2. To be a member:-

Members must own one of the following:-

Any Citroen up to 1975. Exceptions are CX, GS, 2CV, SM. If question as to why, would be that they were in the planning stage before Citroen was sold.

3. Anyone is welcome at meetings.

4. No cars other than above are elligible on club runs.

A suggestion, yours sincerely John Paas.
 
Is there two QLD clubs :confused:

The reason I ask is you don't want the stupid setup we have here in Victoria where there is two clubs with the same membership. We have CCOCA and CCCV .... It would have been brilliant if they could have combined recently... I still have no idea why they didn't, I didn't bother to renew my CCOCA membership after that ... Most likely never will again. Sheer insanity to have two lots of fees, two lots of memberships, two lots of newletters, two lots of all the paperwork and cr@p that goes into running a club etc....

The problem you have by restricting newer car is just how are you supposed to get newer members interested in the older cars. You will just end up with the same stale old members that slowly die off like CCOCA. No real new blood every comes into the club. Just because someone drives a C4 or XM doesn't mean they will not become interested in tractions or DS's if they have the opportunity to mix with them.

seeya,
Shane L.
 
Cccq

No, just the one club Shane with a more "classic" criteria. I suppose I was trying to "invigorate" an existing club rather than start yet another club.I know I'll be shot down in flames but some discussion might make something happen -----somewhere.----- John Paas.
 
gilberthenry said:
2. To be a member:-

Members must own one of the following:-

Any Citroen up to 1975. Exceptions are CX, GS, 2CV, SM. If question as to why, would be that they were in the planning stage before Citroen was sold.

4. No cars other than above are elligible on club runs.
Click to expand...

I take exception to that. My XM is a real Citroen, a classic Citroen no less. It breaks down, parts fall off it, it needs a lot of maintenance, how much more authentic can it be than that?

Seriously though John, I think the way to invigorate the club is to welcome people rather than exclude them.

Roger

PS the 1959 DS19 had pretty close to pride of place at our D display in Federation Square the other day.
 
Shane I would like to suggest your criticism of CCOCA is inaccurate and offensive. Perhaps it is in the Forum's best interest if we avoid slagging off other clubs.

Ian
 
An interesting discussion issue...

Please note that the comments below are my personal view and in no way are meant to represent the views of the CCC of NSW and/or the Committee thereof. This may sound ranty and waffly at times, but you know what - I don't care!

________

I can understand where Shane is coming from, and from my perspective (at the time of the proposed CCOCA/CCCV merger I was VP of CCC NSW) it was interesting to watch the debate.

Victoria does not have two Citroen Clubs - in reality. It has one state club and one national club. It is just that the national club is based in Victoria. I know that the desire is to have more CCOCA activities that are across states, but this is a challenge. I know of many members of CCOCA who are not residents of Victoria. I have even considered joining CCOCA myself recently.

There are similiarities in the membership of CCOCA and CCCV for members in Victoria, so it made sense at the time for the merger. I am not aware of the full reasons why the merger did not succeed, but at least the committees of both clubs followed through and put the idea to their members and got a decision.

Now for a state club to go through with a name change and implications of membership restrictions such as Qld is proposing could be somewhat testing of the future life span of the club in that it creates a definite division and therefore exclusion.

The NSW Club was formed by a group of keen Citroen enthusiasts over 41 years ago as a self help group of mostly Traction and some early DS owners. I know that there have been some rumblings over the years about post PSA cars etc, but lets face it, they have Citroen badges on them, so are still Citroens. (Shane, just stop grumbling and keep reading).

What makes a club? Cars, money, buildings??? Well actually no, PEOPLE make a club which is a mantra I have worked on especially with CCC of NSW for all the time I have been a member. It is sad when a new member comes up to me and says "I only have a {insert model here}" I don't care whether it is a pristine Big6 H or the latest off the floor C4. The fact that someone has expressed an interest in the marque and has made the effort to come along and join in with people with a similar (sometimes obsessive) interest in the marque AND join in with the activities of the club is what makes the club.

When I joined CCC of NSW I had a BX19Tri. OK, not then a classic (9 years ago) but I had an interest. That interest expanded a few years later when I was finally able to fulfill a childhood dream and own a DS. Without the support and encouragement of club members AND knowing that I had backup I would still only be dreaming about a DS or may have fallen into that trap that is classic car ownership without the backup of a club network.

Also when I joined I had never heard of Cit In. A few months later I heard about all my new friends from the club disappearing for a week or so to Victoria or Qld (can't recall exactly) for some mystical cult experience.

In 2000 Deb and I went to our first Cit In at Jindabyne. I met all these new people from all over Oz. We have not missed one since and are currently organising next year's Cit In (By the way, where are your registrations you slackers?!). I have now driven a Citroen to every state in Aus. I probably would never have been to WA or Tas by now.

Better still, because of Citroen club membership I have met many people from overseas AND been generously loaned cars for use in two countries. I have now travelled to Europe twice because of Citroen club membership and I will never forget the recent experiences in Paris with the DS anniversary.

Now, maybe to get to the point.

If I had been excluded from being a member of CCC of NSW because my then car was not deemed to be "a rool Sitrun" then I may never have continued being a Citroen owner and most certainly would not have had the experiences I have had so far.

Club committees need to recognise, as Citroen themselves seem to in recent years that:

1/ Owners of modern Citroens often have an interest in older models and frequently they invest their time and money to preserve and restore older models. Without these type of members, who is going to preserve the models as older members inevitably lose the ability to do so?

2/ Owners of older Citroens usually have a need for a modern car for normal use, and with their brand allegiance are more likely to buy a new(er) Citroen. Of course this leads to Citroen selling more cars and staying in business.

Personally I think any move to split an existing club is a retrograde step. If that type of suggestion is being brought up, then perhaps the club members need to investigate why such a division is being suggested. Is there some reason for dissent in the club?

Any, much more than my :2cents:
 
UFO said:
Personally I think any move to split an existing club is a retrograde step. If that type of suggestion is being brought up, then perhaps the club members need to investigate why such a division is being suggested.
Click to expand...

Well said - personally I fail to see what real value could be obtained from splitting the club. You shrink the size of the club, thereby reducing the efficiencies of scale you can have from having a larger club (how many people would you have in this new club?). You shrink your future potential membership, and hardly paint a long term future full of activity.

If owners of older cars want to feel more 'exclusive' within a club, why not create certain registers/chapters within the club (if they do not already exist)?

PS: Why does the Citroen Car Club of Queensland have "http://www.shannons.com.au/" listed as its homepage address on the Citroën website, rather than a proper direct link?

Invigorating a club certainly has merit, but there are better ways to do it than split and divide a club.

At the moment, this is all I get for a Citroen Club of Queensland webpage, when Googling [hint, it's a webpage of nothing]. Get Citroën Australia to update the weblisting, get the webmaster to improve the website's ranking under Google searches, get the link out there - I just found this address via the Citroën forums - http://www.citroenclub.org/
 
SuperFrogger said:
Shane I would like to suggest your criticism of CCOCA is inaccurate and offensive. Perhaps it is in the Forum's best interest if we avoid slagging off other clubs.

Ian
Click to expand...

Hi Ian,

I did not mean to be offensive. That's just my personal opinion. We two clubs that have:

--club runs
--tech days
--monthly magazines
--concours (shared)...

ie: they are identical... and have mostly the same members. I personally fail to see why anyone would want to double the paperwork of:

--club officers
--club presidents
--club editors
--etc, etc, etc....

Don't get me wrong. I think both clubs do an exceptional job... A near identical but good job... Why double up on the work.

seeya,
Shane L.
 
OK, sorry about the wrong link on the other Bulletin Board site - I haven't been to club meetings much since going back to uni last year and then starting a new job, and hadn't heard who was to now adminster such things. No-one had alerted me to the problem. Not the Secretary tho, so not in a position to inform Citroen Australia.

But, hey, I would only by exception scrape in as a member of the new club anyway - have owned 15 Cits over 22 years, been a club member for 20, yet never had a Citroen older than a GS (and three of them are 76 models), so I would only just qualify.

Hmm, suppose it's time to go to the "other" board and change the link.
 
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Hi Shane thanks for clearing that up. But you can understand my response when I read your earlier comment:

"You will just end up with the same stale old members that slowly die off like CCOCA".

My story is similar to Craig's. Since joining CCOCA a number of years ago we have been welcomed into a friendly and suportive envronment. We have worked hard with the club but as always you get back far more than you put into anything. While we havn't travelled overseas, we have travelled about a great deal around the country as part of the citroen movement and made new friends wherever we went.

I think there is plenty of room in the citroen movment for all citroen enthusiasts regardless of whatever model they drive or identify with.

Personally, I'm reluctant to comment on the CCCQ. I think as a club they should be able to decide their own identity and direction without external intrustion. Dont think that this is either tacit support for or against their proposal. Rather I would rather they made up their own minds.

regards
Ian
 
UFO said:
An interesting discussion issue...
If I had been excluded from being a member of CCC of NSW because my then car was not deemed to be "a rool Sitrun" then I may never have continued being a Citroen owner and most certainly would not have had the experiences I have had so far.
Click to expand...

Hear, hear! This is one of the most considered posts I've seen on the matter of keeping clubs involving, interesting and relevant to all members, rather than an arbitrary few.

Keep up the good work!

thanks,
Andrew
 
I know from my involvement with forums particularly overseas, that there's "Club people" and there's "non Club People" and we've seen a couple of pretty hot discussions that have had to be carried on beyond the gaze of public view on more than one occasion due to both meeting head on when discussing matters relating to clubs on the forums. It seems the UK Cit car club is having much the same problems and due to the same reasons that have dogged the Queensland club for so long, that being that there's a nucleus of people who have been the driving force for in some cases over 20 years and these have worked and continue to work tirelessly for the club. In some ways, the club is their life and many people benefit from their heavy personal contributions. Unfortunately, they are in there for so long, they start to believe the Club is their personal property and that anyone who has a different taste in models to them should be made to feel unwelcome.
There as here, there are some in there with agendas that may seem genuine on the surface that tend to be quite offensive to a genuine enthusiast once the true reason for their enthusiasm is revealed and these agendas don't necessarily mean that anyone driving a late model car under warranty with the intention of buying the new model next year will be greeted with open arms, nor that anyone with the ability to do most repairs and upkeep will be accepted to the "fold," in fact "made to feel as popular as a fart in a phone booth" has been said to me on more than one occasion from people wanting to become associated and with all due respects and without trying to be argumentitive or looking like the od man out, I personally think that the suggestion to split the club is probably the best thing that could happen to the CCC of Qld providing that it was a clean split and didn't leave the door open for some of the ones responsible for the environment that exists to be able to be involved in both clubs; they are either in the pre - 70s club or the post 70s.
The only exceptions being someone like the Gayndah people who could be members of one but honorary members of the other due to their long term association and committment to the marque. Anyone with a vested interest in sales or service be kept to one club or the other but not both.
I think Bruce outlined his position in an earlier post and I could see no problems having Bruce or someone as suitable as Bruce running the show, in fact a club full of "Bruces" would be very successful as he has the attitude that would make a club of say post 70s cars work well.
Let's be honest, drive into a meeting in say a BX; do you expect to have a bunch of D and Traction owners drooling over your car? By the same token, arrive at a new car showroom in a D and see how many of the staff will ask you if it goes up and down. :mad: Or a more typical example that sticks in a few minds; turn up in an almost new Xsara that has had its cost doubled mainly on presentation put up on display at a club organised "do" and the young owner spends loads of time 'presenting the presentation' so it becomes the star of the show; would have done any car showroom proud, but when it comes to the "peoples choice" of the best displayed car, a club stalwart (and one for whom I hold a sizeable amount of respect) has their car judged as the best which is fair enough apart from the fact that this was really just a well maintained everyday driver parked in with a bunch of cars of similar model. To me I couldn't have picked the car out from the bunch apart from knowing whose it was and to me and a lot of others, that just about said it all; you're either "in" or you're "out." For the record, the young fellow sold his car not long after and bought something else.
I'll leave it at that; I've probably said too much already, but if I were having a vote, I'd be all for splitting it and letting the ones who are into the earlier models go their own merry way and form into a "classic" type of group and give the ones who appreciate the later models for what they are become a force in their own right. Combined, I feel the club can only deteriorate further but will begin to turn around its fortunes with this split providing they can do it in such a way that the destructive influences are kept within the old club; they seem to have learned to live with them.
I think it's long overdue that the Queensland club took a long hard look at itself to sort its problems and ask itself why there are so many Queenslanders on this forum that aren't in the Club and why are there so many Queenslanders associating or members of the NSW Club and not Queensland particularly when many of those live North of Brisbane?
Maybe a split and disassociation from some of the incumbents may be the answer.
Probably not what you're wanting to hear, but at least, perhaps now a few more will grind their axes and hopefully give you a dissenting view to consider. :cheers:

Alan S :2cents:
 
Some excellent points.

I agree with Shane, Alan and Craig, when it comes to acceptance of prospective members who own a newer model Citroen.

If they've taken the time and effort to seek membership to a Citroen club, it's obvious they have a soft spot for the marque and will be interested in keeping alive, some of the revolutionary older model Cits.

I haven't joined a Citroen club yet, but i do have plans to do so in the future, especially if i manage to get my hands on a nice DS 23 Pallas :wink2:

I don't mean to make it sound greedy, that i'd join a club, only to seek help, but you do get the feeling, that your membership wouldn't be so authentic, unless you own a real classic Citroen :headbang:

However, this doesn't mean that i will ignore newer model Citroens, just look at the C6, Citroen hasn't changed, when it comes to revolutionary designs. Citroen is still very independant from other manufacturers, even tho, it's owned by Poogoe :cry:

I think the main mission, for all Citroen enthusiasts, is to keep older revolutionary models alive, the more, the merrier. I can just imagine the joys, of explaining the features of the DS to friends, whilst showcasing the car, i know, they wouldn't believe the year of manufacture... considering, most of their heap of thrash modern cars, don't have the same innovative standards! That is the fun part of owning a Citroen, only a few weeks ago, i had a chat to a nice elderly bloke at the traffic lights, who was asking about the C4 (he owned several DS's up near Tamworth) and he commented on how the C4 is a stunner and head turner - Citroen hasn't lost its touch!
 
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"Classic" Citroen Club of Queensland.

After reading John Pass's comments on changing the CCCQ to a "classic" club I rang him to discuss this matter with him and I can appreciate his frustrations with the CCCQ at this point in time. I do fully agree with him that this year the club appears to be in decline with very few members attending meetings or events and routine "housekeeping" matters not being attended to.
However I am not in favour of restricting membership to people with pre PSA cars,as other correspondents have noted this would only hasten the demise of the club.
Perhaps an answer regarding "classic" Citroens would be to form a sub branch of CCOCA in Queensland.
Regarding CCOCA,I too was offended by some of the comments made earlier.
It appears to me that there are still some people that will not accept that CCOCA is a NATIONAL club not just a Victorian one.
When I attended my first Cit-In in 1979 I was speaking to a couple of members of CCCV and when I mentioned that I was member of CCOCA
I was sneered at for being a member of the "Coca Cola" club and was informed that the club would not survive for "5 minutes".How wrong they were.

Brian Wade CCOCA,CCCQ
'40 Light 15
' 70 ID 20 Break
'74 D Special
'04 C3 Exclusive Auto
 
It seems silly to me that a club would define itself as NOT being for cars when the manufacturer was owned by X. What about the time when the company was owned by Michelin after Andre Citroen? Do you exclude the post-Citroen cars (ie anything newer than the Traction)?

This is crazy and arbitrary. I want a DS sometime in the future when time and money allows me to look after the car properly, but I would never be part of a club which excluded one of my cars just because it's arbitrarily *not* a "Citroen" by someone's strange standards.

Honestly, CCCQ would be better off as a generic Citroen club as we're all interested in Citroens, and let the members who want to be part of a more specialized subset join CCOCA rather than creating yet another exclusionary club.

Andrew
 
The answer should be simple.

Keep the existing club, but have 'sections'. Have the enthusiests group for each 'section' seperate. Much like the Citroenian have a GS/CX/DS sections, a traction/rear drive section and a modern section. All can be catered for.

There is probably some underlying issues here I have no idea about.

With the Victorian clubs it's different. I've never met a more enthusiastic helpful bunch in my life as members of both the CCCV and CCOCA. But lets face it, you not going to ask someone Bob King ( a very knowledgable 'D' expert) questions about buying/working on a Xsara and expect much help. You would simply ask around the club members and find who knows about Xsaras.

It's a shame the Queensland club appears to have such problems :disappr:

seeya,
Shane L.
 
DoubleChevron said:
The answer should be simple.

Keep the existing club, but have 'sections'. Have the enthusiests group for each 'section' seperate. Much like the Citroenian have a GS/CX/DS sections, a traction/rear drive section and a modern section. All can be catered for.

There is probably some underlying issues here I have no idea about.

With the Victorian clubs it's different. I've never met a more enthusiastic helpful bunch in my life as members of both the CCCV and CCOCA. But lets face it, you not going to ask someone Bob King ( a very knowledgable 'D' expert) questions about buying/working on a Xsara and expect much help. You would simply ask around the club members and find who knows about Xsaras.

It's a shame the Queensland club appears to have such problems :disappr:

seeya,
Shane L.
Click to expand...


Take a look at the members roll 20 years ago, 15, 10, 5 and now and look at the numbers as a comparison. Look at the cars they had at those points in time and compare with what they've got now; that's the starting point and as I say, time to do a good self examination.
Look at the things the NSW club gets up to and the benefits they offer members and do a comparison; I use NSW because they are to my knowledge as successful a Cit car club in the country, if nothing else, the most high profile anyway, and ask why has there been so many members who either never participate, have joined and then haven't renewed their membership or have suddenly disappeared from the scene?
Until they take a good honest look at themselves and admit to where it's all going wrong, it will always be in strife.
I know of quite a few who visit this board who keep the club at arms length as well as several others who aren't on the internet forums and the same stories for the reasons they stop associating always sound the same.
In a 2 words; too cliquey and the only way I can see it ever being broken is as John suggests; split the club and leave the clique to its own devices.
That way it either all sorts itself out, or given time, one falls over and the other then has to regroup to accomodate the left overs and change policy in the process.


Alan S :2cents: :cheers:
 
A perfect world

Personally I think any move to split an existing club is a retrograde step. If that type of suggestion is being brought up, then perhaps the club members need to investigate why such a division is being suggested. Is there some reason for dissent in the club?

__________________
Craig K

A suggestion (by John Paas) that could be brought up at the next meeting of the Citroen Car Club of Queensland.
I must make it very clear that this idea is mine and I take full responsibility for any flak.
The Citroen Car Club of Qld has been cruising along happily and had absolutely no idea of my “high fallutin” suggestion before I posted the suggestion.

Is there some reason for dissent in the club? -------- There is no dissent. It is only me. Over the years I have seen many people lose interest in Citroen clubs over Australia. Sometimes I put in my two bob’s worth just incase there is someone who has thoughts similar to mine.
This has brought up some vigorous debate which can’t be a bad thing but please realize that my suggestion was only that.
I might have even agreed to Roger’s XM if only for mate’s sake but seriously, my suggestion would have only been one out of 120 or so members and should be looked at in that light.

Personally I don’t think that, for example a Holden Barina should be officially recognized in a Classic Holden club in the hope that the Barina owner will become interested in maybe an EK. People join the Classic Holden Club (if one does actually exist) because he or she wants to own a classic Holden. That person might get to ride in a rally with a mate or buy some old bombed out FC from the back paddock just to get in.
We had our DS 50th here the other Sunday. Nearly 40 D’s turned up. Many of these owners don’t go to other meetings etc. I asked myself why and came up with a whacky suggestion that I MIGHT put to the club.
I thought that maybe there would be a bigger turnout if a different criteria was met. There might be more challenge to the day than whether the jam on the scones was good enough at morning tea or whether the computer was doing the right thing on such and such a bump.
So while there are many Citroen clubs, there is not one that is “just right” for me. I am only a spec in a crowd.
I only know that the other Sunday there was no talk of whether a C4 or Xantia was “a real Cit or not”. I just had a fun time with cars of an earlier age.
Many years ago I, and brother Michael thought that the CCOCA club was the ideal club to be a classic Citroen club. We arrived at Yarrawonga after a gruelling drive in a ’62 ID. Pretty good we thought, only to be dissilougened (stuffed that up good and proper) by the fact that there was a lot of fuss and merriment made over a Visa which arrived shortly after we did. Suffice to say we didn’t bother going on CCOCA runs again. Now this is not to say that CCOCA isn’t a good club,----- it just wasn’t the classic club we thought it to be.
On Brian Wade’s 50th D run a Queensland member bought a D Special as the criteria for this run was that only D’s were allowed. He is now in the process of selling that D.
We all have our reasons for being in a club and going on club runs etc. In this age of the internet I question whether some things could do with a change.

If the Qld club did what I directed (in a perfect world and because of my Dutch heritage of always being right) we would kick all the badge engineered cars out, drive real Citroens, get the odd spanner out and get a bit dirty, drag cars out of the back paddocks ‘cause there the only cars that meet that fu—ing awful criteria, get heaps of people on runs having a great time and have all these interstaters saying that that’s just not on.-------- Oh for a perfect world ---- run by, -- better not be me, John Paas.
 
gilberthenry said:
If the Qld club did what I directed (in a perfect world and because of my Dutch heritage of always being right) we would kick all the badge engineered cars out, drive real Citroens, get the odd spanner out and get a bit dirty, drag cars out of the back paddocks ‘cause there the only cars that meet that fu—ing awful criteria, get heaps of people on runs having a great time and have all these interstaters saying that that’s just not on.-------- Oh for a perfect world ---- run by, -- better not be me, John Paas.
Click to expand...

How many people would you have in this proposed club?
 
CCCQ "too cliquey"

Having just read John Paas's response to comments made regarding his suggestion I was interested to see that he referred to the 50th anniversary rally as my event.
When this rally was first proposed 2 years ago it was agreed by the club that it would be the CCCQ's way of celebrating the event.
However for reasons unknown to me the "events committee" decided to schedule an "offical" club event to celebrate the anniversary and as a result the "official" assistance that I was given was minimal.
Fortunately the event was well supported by non Queenslanders which contibuted greatly to its success.
The comment by Alan S regarding the club being "too cliquey" may be true, but I am sure that this problem exists in the majority of clubs regardless of what sort of club it is.(Is Alan S a member of CCCQ?)

Brian Wade
 
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