Okay folks,

As some of you know, there was some talk a while back of starting a world-wide 4-runner Owner's Club (4ROC). Some great ideas were passed around, but thats about where things have stood for the past couple of months. What began as a recent effort to start a 4-runners club here in the Northwest has now changed into starting the first chapter of 4ROC here in Washington (4ROC-Washington Chapter). There is enough interest locally to get this started, but if 4ROC is going to be something larger than a single club, then it obviously necessitates the beginning of more than one chapter. Therefore, I need people to take some initiative and consider organizing a chapter in their own state. It doesn't have to be huge, a minimum of 5 members would be enough to be an "official 4ROC" chapter.

As the name suggests, you must be a 4-runner owner to be a member, there are already clubs for other vehicles. Exceptions will be considered once a couple of chapters are put together, and the general rules of the larger organization are worked out.

In order to avoid confusion about people trying to get different chapters all started in this one thread, I propose the following:

1) Use this thread as a means of discussion for general 4ROC purposes. Mods may move this to the 4ROC forum that already exists.

2) If you're considering starting a chapter in your own state, then post a thread such as "4ROC-California Chapter." People who are interested in joining the chapter for their particular state can respond to the thread that pertains to them. Perhaps the Mods could make stickies for the various state threads to minimize confusion.

3) If this thing takes off, we will probably have to hold some type of discussion about club rules, etc. etc.

I think this is a great idea, and based on the number of people that hang out on Yotatech, I think we've got the critical mass to get this thing started.

 

I'm glad to see this moving forward again. I think spelling out the "state chapter" is cumbersome IMO. Maybe WA4ROC or 4ROCWA? I say this being from P-e-n-n-s-y-l-v-a-n-i-a....ugh.

 

I know there's plenty of members in california, who wants to head up the Bay Area Chapter??

 

Cebby-

The abbreviation idea sounds good to me! I would think it'd be easy for Washington and California to get chapters together, since there appear to be alot of yotatech members from those states. Eventually we need to get a website for the "national" organization that will be more easily find by people doing web searches, but thats a little ways down the road.

 

lets get this thing rolling this time guys!!

 

I would caution against the abbreviation thing until the clubs are more established. 4ROC can be pretty distictive but you risk diluting the whole effort when you start seeing 4ROCID, 4ROCWA, 4ROCMA, 4ROCCO (that's actually cool!) 4ROCLA, 4ROCUT.

You see what I mean?

Maybe 4ROC:WA, 4ROC:ID?

 

I'd be willing to head 4ROCCO (4ROC Colorado).

 

Yeah, sign me up to get a CA chapter moving. I imagine we would at least want to break it down by NorCal/SoCal, instead of one huge California chapter. Whaddya think?

 

Willing to join/start 4ROC-NY here.
But would we have NYC and NYS separate or all one?

 

I think you have one chapter for each state, period. If individual chapters want to have separate meets, foums, etc. for different parts of the state, then so be it... but I don't think we need 4ROC:CA:NorCal, 4ROC:CA:SoCal, etc.. Gotta keep this stuff as centralized as possible for organizational purposes, especially this early in the game. If 4ROC ever gets as big as TTORA or TLCA, then maybe things will be restructured then, but for the time being, K.I.S.S.

 

Good point Jackson. Another approach is, for example, Washington State Chapter, Western District.

 

K.I.S.S.


Yes I agree, I was just thinking about those same issues. It would definitely be easier, at least in the beginning, to have one chapter per state.

 

I'm in for the 4ROCCO chapter...

And yeah this is a LONG way from being to the TLCA level, just start small and go from there.

 

I would like to see some decals to sport in the back window.
I can have some made locally for anyone who is interested in joining the Colorado chapter.
Also, I would be interested in setting up a website dedicated to the Colorado chapter.

Lets get this thing off the ground! Maybe we need to schedule a Live Chat to discuss everything.

 

yeah the live chat thing would be a good idea. maybe do one for each state that is interested. then from there, each state picks somebody who will "head up" or be the president or something like that for the state, who will then attend another live chat to talk to all the other "presidents" or whatever you wanna call them. or maybe just have everybody get their state 4ROC thing started and then later merge them all into the national 4ROC. i dunno just some ideas.

 

I'd like to see a general chat first. Something to discuss all the basics of 4ROC - fees (if any) decals, meets, etc.

I've been thinking about setting up a website through DarkFiles. They're inexpensive so I could foot the bill for the Colorado chapter. I'll check domain names when I get home. I like 4ROCCO. I was also thinking 4ROC.Co, 4ROC.COLORADO. Any other suggestions?

I'm getting carried away here...
A few other ideas:
I'd be willing to visit some of the local dealers to spread the word about 4ROC and setup some discounts. Similar to TTORA and Romania Toyota. If we got a large enough membership count, I'm sure we could try to swing some discounts with Performance Products or anyone else.

 

Ideally, each chapter website should be a directory under the main 4ROC site... i.e. the main site would be at http://www.4ROC.com, and each chapter site would be at http://NewYork.4ROC.com, or http://Colorado.4ROC.com, etc.. That way we would only have to deal with one host, one DNSS, etc.. Getting permissions worked out might be harry, but I wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal. As this thing gets big, and there are lots of chapters, I'm not sure how realistic it is to think this type of structure will hold up (bandwith, data management, etc.).

I have a good friend who does website hosting. He's got top notch equipment, and is very reliable. But he's not cheap. I'll ask him if he'd be interested in hosting this type of project, and see what he'd want for fees, etc. I'll also ask him about bandwith/space limitations, etc..

We'd probably have to charge some very small membership fee to cover the hosting fees etc., unless we can raise enough money via advertising. Seems like that might be a very important topic to discuss before this thing gets too far along.

 

SoCal and NorCal would definately be a good idea.

 

Me too, I'm in for the Virginia 4ROC Chapter or VA4ROC with my fellow VA 4Runner owners. How many Virginia 4Runner owners do we have on the board? I'll help out setting up a VA Chapter.

 

If we are going to do this, i really think we should model after the TTORA club. They really have good chapter organization and it seems to come together well as a national club as well.