The Eagle International Branson Rally is now history. Thank you to Byron and Betty for another fun-filled rally.
The total number of buses attending was somewhere around 27 or 28 with 2 "SOBs". The count differs according to the adult-beverage consumed by the counter,.
Every morning we had coffee and doughnuts, and a good time renewing old friendships and starting new ones for 2 or 3 hours (story-telling optional).
Monday we got settled in and that night we were treated to a catered BBQ. After dinner we had a door prize drawing. Byron outdid himself on the prizes. We were treated to things like an air compressor, a campstove, boat rides, 4-wheeler rides, flag pole holders, hats and too many things to remember. Everyone went home with a prize.
Tuesday nothing was planned so a lot of tire kicking and lie swapping went on.
Wednesday we went to the Dutton's show as a group. Later that night we all went out to dinner at the Fish House at Branson Landing.
Thursday afternoon we had a club meeting. We announced 3, possibly 4 rallies for next year. The Quartzite Rally will be combined with the GM group which should make it a very fun rally. I will announce the rest of the rallies as time gets closer. Thanks to Jim Shepard and Dale Houston who unveiled our new club website. You can check it out at eaglesinternational.net. Information is a little sparce but with a little help we will begin to fill it up. We have one problem with the site that was brought up and will be fixed at the earliest possible moment. The home page has a picture of an Eagle and a cat and as you all know, a feline and a bird just don't make a very good match! We will see about getting this picture removed. That evening we had our potluck dinner. We are so lucky to have so many good cooks.
It looks like Jim & Pat will be the last to leave. I haved asked them to sweep the lot and collect all the ferrous oxide for recycle. By executive order Jim, you can use the proceeds to buy one tank of fuel but the rest must be returned to the treasurer.
Thank You, Wayne
Wayne,sounds like a good rally broke my heart not to be there it was uncalled for too,I'll never serve on another jury.But with Bob Ward there you were in good hands. Who is going to post the pictures and are they going to be on our new web site.
good luck
Thanks Rusty for the report!
Sounds like everyone had a great time. Wish we could have been there, but it just didn't happen like we had hoped. I don't have a valid excuse like Clifford, just too little vacation time and the darn cost of fuel!
Looking forward to seeing the dates for next year, so we can plan on at least one of them. ;) Gotta have TBR you know. ;D
Hope the new website goes well too, we all needed a better place to hang out! ;D You know, birds of a feather flock together!
Paul
, Paul at the next meeting in Quartzsite I am going to ask for a vote to make Teke an honoree member so he can use our forum on the new site do you think that would pass Good luck
Clifford,
I'm not sure, but we can give a try! Whoops, sorry, he doesn't like birds......
;D
P.S. Who took pictures? Are they going to be on the website soon, so I can see how much fun I really missed? :'(
I'm glad everything went well, and I am glad we can finally talk about the website. Anyone who has pictures can send them to me and I will post them on the website.
Dale, Wayne took quite a few pictures and he is still here. I will get them from him today and get them to you for the website.
As Wayne said, Byron and Betty did a great job! They host this rally every other year at Branson and it is a fun place!
One last comment, take a look at the Eagles new website. Dale did a beautiful job. While it is "under construction", there is still a lot of good photos and other information. Now that the website has been approved, we will begin to send more information to Dale so that it can be placed on the website.
The direct link is: http://www.eaglesinternational.net/
Jim
Jim or Wayne after the years of waiting for a site when are we going to be told how to post and use it is my question are we to register or what don't leave us in the dark here if everything has go through Jim are Dale that not going to fun and please don't put a price limit for Eagle items for sale on the classifieds Good luck
Clifford,
We didn't add all the goodies to the site yet because we wanted the approval of the club members. Apparently that was gotten at Branson. I spoke briefly with Jim about what we are going to do but full details are not known yet. It is my understanding that we are going to have a forum. I don't know yet if it will be members only or public.. or maybe public with a few members only sections. I don't want to talk out of school yet since I am just the flunky putting it on the net.. but just letting you know that the 'goodies' are on the way. I just needed approval before adding them.
Dale, how are you coming on the bus move,I am not trying to give anybody a hard time if indeed it has go through you or Jim I will abide but won't like it I think the all club members should have some input and most of the board open to our fellow bus-nuts ( but no Eagle bashing) Good luck
If the forum was open to all fellow bus nuts, regulating Eagle bashing is simple, remove the member after one warning. Not sure if we as a club would not just want to keep it simple, Eagle Owners only, dunno. Although, like Dale said, two forums, but that might get complex. What do the other members have to say?
A feature that you may have already thought of is Club Member Locator map, or list by state.
I agree with Clifford on classified, no limit.
If either Dale of Jim could use some help, I'm available.
Can't wait to get all the bells and whistles on the site so we can have some real fun! ;)
Paul
Paul, I think the forum should be for Eagle owners only past and present and the classified for Eagles and conversion parts
Well!
I don't know about birds and cats not mixing, but I do know
of one Cat and Eagle that gets along just fine.
Also I think the Home Page pictures are the best.
Dale you did one Hell!of a job.
Catskinner!
Sonnie and Patti Gray
72 0/5 Eagle 3406 CAT
Pottsboro, Texas
Sonnie, could that be because your Bus is the first one on the left LOL one thing I would like to see if possiable would be a how to do and fix(rust) section, then Sonnie you and Wayne could show us how to flip the axles on these birds
At least his is on the home page! ;)
Ours might be the last one pictured on the last page! ;D I keep telling myself I looked OK at 40, although not as many battle scars as Dreamscape.
At least with the new site, Clifford you can start selling all the stuff you have collected!
Paul
Ahoy, Eagles,
When / where is the Quartzsite Eagle rally? (I don't have a recent newsletter).
Enjoy /s/ Bob
Hang in there Bob the last news letter was March and nothing in it except the 2008 Quartzsite rally you were at good luck
Wow, lots of good website input.
As Dale said, this was only a demo to show board and the Branson rally attendees.
The board approved the website and the members seemed to buy into the concept very well
Now the fun begins. Everyone has their thoughts about what should be on the website. Some things can be implemented fairly easily, others may have to wait a while.
If you have been to the classified, you know that it is not implemented yet. There would be no reason to put a limit on the value.
Like it or not, there will be a members only section and that will have to include some sort of approval process. I will volunteer for that assignment. We will make it very simple to become a member and I will work with Dale on that process.
At the meeting, a straw vote indicated that the members want the forum to be in the members only section. There will be a contact for the general public to get in touch with one or more people, but we just don't want to have to spend a bunch of time moderating the forum with trash posts (rust comments? ;D) by non-members.
The member section will likely include the roster, and the bylaws in addition to the forum.
We need member input, but please understand that Dale is volunteering his valuable time(he does this for a living) and we have very limited resources.
We do need good how-to-do articles. If you will send them to me (jim at rvsafetysystems dot com) I will make sure they get on. Any digital format is acceptable.
We also have some members who have project pages like mine that will be put in the link area so others can find how some of us have done our crazy projects.
We need a good history section. I think Clifford have agreed to coordinate that effort. We talked about two levels of history. The first is the company and the second is the club. Bill Pratt volunteered to help with the club history.
Gary LaBombard (who no longer posts on this board >:() has a great set of CDs that he sells with very detailed information on how to repair Eagle rust (and other good information). We somehow need to get a strong link to his product.
So, keep the ideas comming, but be patient.
Bob, my calendar show Quatzsite to be Jan 15-17
You can send your suggestions to me (jim at rvsafetysystem dot com) if you don't want to post them here.
Jim
BTW, I just mailed Dale a DVD with the photos of the Branson rally that Wayne took. If others have photos from the rally, please let me know and we will find a way to get them to Dale.
Quote from: Dreamscape on October 04, 2008, 10:45:25 AM
At least with the new site, Clifford you can start selling all the stuff you have collected!
Hang on now! I want to go over there and raid Clifford's storehouse of parts before he starts selling stuff off!! :D
I've been making a list of needs all weekend!
We have a fairly large amount of space on the server and can get more cheaply, so I want to encourage people to post pictures and project threads once we get the forum online. I also might suggest that having these kinds of threads in a public section that anyone can see would likely attract more people to Eagle buses and to the club. But I think more sensitive stuff should be in a section that only members can see. I can do that with only one forum. It is all about setting the permissions and is very easy. But in the end, I will set up whatever the powers of the club want to have there. In the end, there will be several people there moderating to keep the boards friendly.
Jim, I can't wait to see the pictures. I'll be posting some my my adventure tomorrow as well.
In another post, Greg Roberts talks about posting some of his project pictures on one of the Eagle Yahoo groups (there are several).
That got me to thinking that we should have a project tab and then let folks show pictures of the progress of their projects.
When I downloaded Wayne's pictures of the rally, the chip had a ton of great pictures of his new project (almost beyond description).
We need to get Greg to sign up as a member ;D and get his pictures on the "real" Eagle website ;)
Wayne is still here, so I will see if we can get the title of this thread changed to reflect the website discussion (only originator can change the title).
Jim
JIM, where do find the email address for the Eagle web site
Hi Clifford. Great question
As you page through the website (http://www.eaglesinternational.net) you will note that Dale has put "place holder" standard text in the pages where we have not developed the page. That is the case with the "contact us" page.
Dale and I have discussed how to deal with this issue and not post our email address and phone number in a very public place. I can't recall exactly how we decided to handle the situation. I believe we were going to have a screen come up that will allow the reader to enter his/her comment/question and then have that response sent to one of our email boxes. That way, the address looks something like: "response at eaglesinternational.net " and that message will be forwarded to someone.
Now that we are "public" we need to get that page done.
Dale, if I am correct in remembering our discussion, will you make that page active and have the mail sent to me at the address you use for our correspondence? Later, we might choose to redirect it to someone else, but for now I will be glad to handle the correspondence. If programming a pop-up email form is a big deal, just place an email address with the suffix @eaglesinternational.net and have it redirected to me.
Thanks
Jim
Hey guys. Just got home. The Eagle has landed as they say! Pictures coming in another thread soon.
On the subject of this thread, we talked about several options. One was for officers of the club to have personal e-mail addresses. These could be the person's name or the person's office. If we do the person's office, at the end of their term the e-mail address passes on to the new person. The benefit of this system is that bookmarks people have for club e-mail never go bad.
The other option was to have a standard club e-mail, and possibly for officers, that when you click on the link you want to send to, it opens a form for you to type your message. You never actually know the address of the person you are writing... until they write you back.
With this second option, the officers could opt to use their own personal e-mail instead of having a separate club e-mail address. This does make it a little easier for them, but personally I think it looks professional when the person writes back and their e-mail address is "-------@eaglesinternational.net".
For myself, I have set up 'dale at eaglesinternational.net' just to accept photos and information people want to send me. Just a note for everyone, if you need to put your e-mail address on the net, do it in this format so bots will not pick it up and start spamming you. That is one of the goals of the Eagles International website in addition to promoting the club.. We want to protect all of those who participate from being spammed, and also ensure that their personal information is secure. We can make sure it is done in the software for the site, but each individual must also be sure to protect themselves in what they post.
Great information Dale and Jim,
If you need any help with anything now or in the future, let me know.
It will be nice to finally have a place to call home for Eagles International!
Paul
Dale, make it easy on yourself and set up at least a temporary address so that we will have a contact.
I can set up a mailbox with the address you set (using redirect), or you can guide me on using the email from the ISP. I assume it will be via POP3.
Of course, we want you to take time to recover from your adventure!!!!
THANKS
OK folks, good news/bad news.
The good news is that Dale has now updated the contact page -- we now have a contact. If you have loaded that page in the past, you may need to hit the "refresh" tab to get the new page.
The bad news is that that contact (for now) is me ;D.
Dale is working on several of the pages. I am amazed about how much work and thought process this site involves!
We will try to keep the MAK board posted about major "events" that occur at http://www.eaglesinternational.net/ as the website develops.
Jim
Well now we have a guy to complain to huh? ;D
Just kidding! ;)
Great, Dale is making strides on this important website for us birds.
I'm really looking forward to the classified section up and going, Dale said he is working on it. As I have some stuff to sell. You go Dale!
Paul
Paul, I was originally going to have a separate classifieds section as just a web page. I have since decided that it would a lot simpler for me and everyone else to just have it as a part of the forum. The forum is almost ready to go as soon as we iron out a few more wrinkles.
There will be no charge or limit for the classifieds, but we do stipulate that only Eagle parts or bus conversion items be listed.
Hopefully just a couple more days...
By the way... we will have a place for chapter members to show off their Eagles, and there will also be a place for people to keep a running history of their conversion. So everyone start digging up your pictures and let's make this a showplace right off the bat.
Dale, paybacks are going to be hell I can see it coming when you are ready to install the feathers on you Eagle, are you ready for that Paul, Van and me are We have to pay this guy back someway as cheap as he works LOL
Quote from: luvrbus on October 03, 2008, 05:46:36 PM
, Paul at the next meeting in Quartzsite I am going to ask for a vote to make Teke an honoree member so he can use our forum on the new site do you think that would pass Good luck
Sure would be nice if I could get a honoree membership! After all I do own Setra's (which are modified or refined Eagle's since Kassbohrer designed and built both originally! And it is said that the Setra has the same radius on the front as an Eagle! Think I could put one of those big shiney chrome Eagle bumpers on my Setra's and trick 'm out with chicken light's?), and I even have a place for them to park when passing thru!
Not to mention I happen to know of a stash of new/used parts are! (like an 01 rear axle hub-to-hub and etc.)
;D BK ;D
Dale,
What else would I have but Eagle and conversion parts? ;)
Sounds good to me, I think that for us bird owners that will work out just fine. You can always change or modify it as time goes.
Clifford,
I thought we already paid him! ;D
Let's keep smiling, it's getting closer and closer to E Day!
BK,
You been holding out on us? What parts? ;D
Quote from: Dreamscape on October 08, 2008, 04:20:05 PM
I thought we already paid him! ;D
Oh you guys! The best pay I could ever get is your friendship.
Unless you want to come over here and hang sides and caps on my Eagle! hahah
Or unless you happen to have some good steel bumpers.
Or unless....
Nah... the friendship works just fine! :)
I can see it all now....
Dales coming to Quartzsite and we're gonna have an Eagle Rasin!
Quote from: Dreamscape
BK,
You been holding out on us? What parts? ;D
Acient Hickabilly secret! LOL! If I told I wouldn't have any barganing power! ;D BK ;D
(non-member knowledge could be useful sometimes too! LOL)
They had that GMC 'Eagle hybrid' on eBay the other day. Maybe all you need is to tape an Eagle to the front of that Setra.
Quote from: Busted Knuckle on October 08, 2008, 04:35:48 PM
Quote from: Dreamscape
BK,
You been holding out on us? What parts? ;D
Acient Hickabilly secret! LOL! If I told I wouldn't have any barganing power! ;D BK ;D
(non-member knowledge could be useful sometimes too! LOL)
BK, And I thought we were bus buddies! :'(
From an Eagle Nut who loves Setra's............ :D
alright I've heard enough,where's the beef(parts)LOL WE need the parts ,gotta have them parts,oh we need them parts come on dale feel free to jump in on the chant . Maybe if we sing long enough(off key LOL)they'll give in.hey dale you know you can count me in on the re skin buddy I'm there for ya
Okay fellas (and ladies!)...
We've got approval and I have MOST of the cosmetic changes done. It is time to try out the new Eagles International Forum.
The decision has been made to let non Eagles International members join the forum. Originally this was going to be a member's only forum but we feel like we would be missing out on a lot of knowledge and experience if we did that. The goal of this forum is to be a resource, not only for members, but also to anyone who is thinking of buying an Eagle. We won't be bashing Eagles on this forum. (The forum will be moderated and that will not be tolerated.) All bus conversion projects should be a pleasant experience regardless of the type of bus you own.
If you are a member of Eagles International, please have your FMCA number handy when you sign up. There will be 'club member only' sections of this forum that you will not have access to if you don't sign up with your FMCA number.
We have an unlimited classified section there. But we do ask that your for sale items be Eagle or general bus conversion related. Also feel free to post Wanted and Trade items there.
If you have any problems or questions, please feel free to contact me at 'dale at eaglesinternational.net' or you can go to the contact page on the site.
Since we have to approve each person individually based on whether or not they are a member of Eagles International, your forum membership is not immediately active. But we do check for new sign ups several times a day. I am off to lunch now but will approve new signups upon my return.
Oh yeah... go to http://www.eaglesinternational.net and click the Eagle Forum button.
We need to discuss a few items here.
First of all, there will be a public side of the forum. Eagle members AND the "general public" should post Eagle/Bus Conversion related information on the public forum. Eagles members should remember that anything they post on the members only forum will not be seen by the "general public" and good information exchange will be lost.
We established the "general public" level so that anyone can read the threads. Both members and non members may POST in that forum AFTER they **REGISTER**.
I will monitor the threads for any abuse.
Please understand that we want constructive information exchange. We opened the forum up to the "public" because there is a wealth of knowledge outside the chapter.
I don't want to be a hard nose (actually I do ;D), but the forum is not the place for Off Topic threads. It is also not the place to be bashing any kind of bus or making derogatory comments about individuals Posts containing unacceptable content will be removed and the poster will be put on probation. The key words are CONSTRUCTIVE INFORMATION EXCHANGE
For now, I am the only moderator (although Dale obviously has that right as webmaster). I will try to check the forum at least twice a day. However, if any post offends you, there is a "report" link on every post that will send a note to me flagging the situation.
I really don't think we will have any issues.
Lets have fun!!
Jim
We were having a bit of a problem with members entering their FMCA number and it not showing up in their registration. Turns out that the members having the problem were trying to enter the 'F' in front of their number. If you just enter the numeric part of your number as seen on your plate, it works just fine.
Thanks to Sunchaser Art for helping figure this one out.
Oops! I didn't realize there were two types of membership we might be dealing with - Family and Commercial. All of the ones I had seen so far just had an F at the beginning.
So I have since redone the entry so that it will accept the F or the C. Edited the above message to take out the instructions and the new instructions are 'You DO NEED to enter the F or C at the beginning of the number.'
Songman there is also an (L) member for life time members not many of them but a few are still around.
Songman, they also have a letter for your family member same number but different letter my daughters is the same a mine but has a D instead of F something else for you have a great day
S for son.
There are also old FMCA members that have no letter at all in front of the number.
Learning all the time. Thanks for letting me know all of these options. The entry on the forum is set up to take the different letters now. I just need to update the instructions to show that ANY letter can be entered. Thanks.
Quote from: Songman on October 14, 2008, 07:04:59 AM
Learning all the time. Thanks for letting me know all of these options. The entry on the forum is set up to take the different letters now. I just need to update the instructions to show that ANY letter can be entered. Thanks.
Cool, but I tried and it won't accept my
"B R 5 4 9" LOL!
Now are there any oldtimers out there that remember where that came from? LOL!
I'm sure there are as I AIN'T very old yet and I do! LOL! ;D BK ;D
Heeeeeee hawwww ;D
Call me, Junior Samples, at B-R-5-4-9.
Younger folks will think it is a retro country/rockabilly band from Nashville.
Thanks guys. I changed it to this:
If you are a member of Eagles International, please enter your FMCA member number. This number MUST be entered to gain Club Access. Please enter ALL letters and numbers.
That should cover just about anybody.