Next meet location

OSI

Alright lads, the last meet thread didn't get a lot of traction as a lot of the details seemed to be up in the air until the end. Hopefully if we can get some options suggested and picked early enough, we'll have a more successful take up.

With that in mind, the first bone of contention with these meets is always the location. Traditionally this has always been held in Portlaoise, but I'm open to hearing of other suggestions that perhaps might suit better. If we get a few suggestions together, we can set up a poll to decide on the location before considering a date. I'll leave this up until Monday before we start the poll.

CiniO

Clifden...

Nice location and maybe we could use the opportunity to look around what's wrong with local cars that they all fail NCT.

fancy pigeon

Colon. We can go outdoors go karting

Remember the boards meets that were karting....?

Supergurrier

The Moon

NickDunne

Ardgillan Castle, Balbriggan/Skerries. Deadly views, loads of parking, BBQ's welcome Drive includes the skerries TT road for the "enthusiastic" driver

Foxhole Norman

Midway. It is genuinely a good spot, the problem is getting enough notice/interest!

CiniO

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

Midway. It is genuinely a good spot, the problem is getting enough notice/interest!

246km for me.

Foxhole Norman

CiniO wrote: »

246km for me.

171km each way for me, Mayo is a small bit further alright though!

Ded_Zebra

I've no interest in doing Midway again. People just don't show up there. A few times I've driven the whole way there for there only to be people from Dublin there.

From the end of the last meet thread it was determined that most people wanting to attend meets were in the north west and the east. I suggest we give Athlone a shot. People are often suggesting it.

Foxhole Norman

Athlone would be out for me and I'd imagine most of the South, I wouldn't fancy spending near 6 hours travelling for a meet.

quadrifoglio verde

The best boards meet I was at was the Phoenix park meet. I was home in 20 odd mins and it was a very enjoyable evening...fair play to gvidor for coming as well

Midway works fine location wise as its quite central for everyone, a bit of a trek from Dublin and from cork. However it's annoying at the same time when most of the people there are from the greater dublin area and the one straggler from cork and galway.

One thing that I could see working is having regional meets say in May and June and then a midway meet in July/August. There's a few who are pissed off with attendance at midway, so location isn't going to get them back on board if it's at midway or athlone or Timbuktu. A trek is a trek to realise you'd have been better meeting up in Dublin.
If it's 30 minutes down the road from them on a Wednesday evening however they might be more likely to give it another chance though.
They go to one, they go to another and you know what, they might just be up having an annual/biannual midway meet again
Likewise the lads down around cork have a meet or two and same for the chaps west of the Shannon.
With a bit of notice I'd even go to the cork meets (most of our Alfa ones happen down there).

Another option could be trips. Yeah midway is handy location wise, but from a driving point of view it doesn't have much going for it. The m7 isn't exactly car enthusiast heaven

Stuff like dungarvan to the vee, molls gap, military road, west cork, clifden to louisburgh are much more appealing to me anyway than standing in a car park in portlaoise and eating subway.
I don't think the forum is at that stage at the moment where we could get at six people committed to do dungarvan to the vee but with a little bit of time and effort I think we could

CiniO

quadrifoglio verde wrote: »

The best boards meet I was at was the Phoenix park meet. I was home in 20 odd mins and it was a very enjoyable evening...fair play to gvidor for coming as well

Midway works fine location wise as its quite central for everyone, a bit of a trek from Dublin and from cork. However it's annoying at the same time when most of the people there are from the greater dublin area and the one straggler from cork and galway.

One thing that I could see working is having regional meets say in May and June and then a midway meet in July/August. There's a few who are pissed off with attendance at midway, so location isn't going to get them back on board if it's at midway or athlone or Timbuktu. A trek is a trek to realise you'd have been better meeting up in Dublin.
If it's 30 minutes down the road from them on a Wednesday evening however they might be more likely to give it another chance though.
They go to one, they go to another and you know what, they might just be up having an annual/biannual midway meet again
Likewise the lads down around cork have a meet or two and same for the chaps west of the Shannon.
With a bit of notice I'd even go to the cork meets (most of our Alfa ones happen down there).

Another option could be trips. Yeah midway is handy location wise, but from a driving point of view it doesn't have much going for it. The m7 isn't exactly car enthusiast heaven

Stuff like dungarvan to the vee, molls gap, military road, west cork, clifden to louisburgh are much more appealing to me anyway than standing in a car park in portlaoise and eating subway.
I don't think the forum is at that stage at the moment where we could get at six people committed to do dungarvan to the vee but with a little bit of time and effort I think we could

I can commit to that one

dar83

I'll get flamed for this and I understand that completely, it's not a personal swipe or dig at anyone at all, but...

The problem with the meets these days is not location, it's that there just isn't the same level of motors turning up to them that there once was. I remember the meets of 4-5 years ago where you'd genuinely see some amazing cars turning up to them and stuff you wouldn't see every day on the roads, that's what made them appealing to a lot of people, especially the new people or people that weren't involved in a group of forum buddies etc... already.

Nowadays what will turn up just isn't really of interest to most, yes your car might be your pride and joy and you keep it/restored it well but for a lot of people that's not interesting enough. I include myself in this too now really as I currently drive a standard Golf, nothing special or interesting to most as you see them regularly and I've not done anything interesting with it (yet), so I wouldn't expect many to be interested in going looking at it, definitely not to drive 2-3 hours each way to do so.

Dord

There was always a bit of a mix in the cars that attended. I've seen everything from clapped out vans to Audi S4's. Heavy BMW presence also.
It looks like cars & coffee might be what you're interested in more.

That Phoenix Park meet a few years ago was a nice one. Good turnout and it was a laugh.

Ded_Zebra

Maybe I missed the meets when exotic cars used to be in attendance. The most "exotic" thing I would have seen would be an M3 so never anything stand out. For me it's more about meeting people and talking about cars face to face for a change.

I think midway does exclude posters from the north west and I think Athlone would be more suitable for them. There seems to be an increase in regular posters from out that direction too so it would be nice for it to be easier for them to be involved more.

Supergurrier

All my cars smell exotic.

Does that count ?

Foxhole Norman

I'll pretty much make an attempt to make a meet with a decent showing if people were guaranteed to show, I was off and I could afford to.

shietpilot

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

I'll pretty much make an attempt to make a meet with a decent showing if people were guaranteed to show, I was off and I could afford to.

People wanting should meet should pay a €10 deposit. They can have it back if they arrive. Anything left over gets spent on grub :pac:

robbiew

Any motors meet coming up.. sick of doing city runs, would like a chance to clear out the cobwebs. :cool: