<CORSA Chapters> RE: Email to CORSA chapter Presidents

Thu May 19 00:04:09 EDT 2005

Chapter Presidents.  Please take the time to read the post below from Joe
West.  He is offering a absolutely online resource to CORSA Members.  Please
forward this along to your members by any and every means at your disposal
(email, newsletter, etc).

Regards,
Joel

-------------------------------------
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 5:52 PM
Subject: Email to CORSA chapter Presidents

CORSA Chapter Presidents,

The purpose of this email is to introduce you to a new internet forum
located at:

http://www.virtualcorvairclub.com

The forum at this location is a not-for-profit forum who's sole intention is
to provide a state-of-the art internet resource for Corvair owners.
Secondary and tertiary benefits of providing such an online resource are the
broadening of the Corvair ownership base and a subsequent increase in CORSA
membership.

Before I get into the details of the forum, it's capabilities, and where we
are headed with it, I'd like put right up front what I need from you:

1. If you feel it appropriate, I'd like you to Forward this email to your
membership base, print it in your local chapter newsletters, and in
general... spread the word as far and wide as you can.

2.  I'd like you to spend a few minutes and register for the site, and
provide me some feedback on how I can make it better.

Now that I've told you everything I need from you up front... let's get down
to some details about the forum.

Registration for the forum is free, and is as simple as clicking on the
"Register" link at the top of the forum homepage.

After registering (please make sure you enter your CORSA membership number
in the appropriate field during registration since there will be additional
resources available to CORSA members that non-members will not have access
to), you will have full access to the various features of the forum.

Speaking of features... here are a few:

1. Ability to post (upload) your pictures to the forum at no cost.
2. High speed search engine (based on mySQL database) for searching both the
new forum material as well as the virtual vairs archive (more on the virtual
vairs archive later)
3. Ability to post calendar events for your chapters quickly and easily

There are many additional benefits to the forum... but rather than list them
all here, I invite you to visit the forum and simply play around with the
all the available options.

Let's go back to what may be the most important aspect of the forum for both
you and your members:

A searchable archive of the past 10 or so years of EVERY SINGLE email sent
to the virtual vair majordomo.  We are talking in excess of 100,000 posts
that can be searched for specific words and EVERY post that contains the
word(s) you search for will be displayed in an easy to read format that you
can browse at your leisure.... and all this searching takes place in most
cases, in less than a second.

Interested in searching on information concerning Corvair differentials?
Click on the search (you must be registered to see the search feature)
button near the top of the forum and type the word differential.  In .32
seconds, the forum will respond with 230 posts that contain the word
differential.

Interested in Spark Plugs?  Type in "Spark Plug" and the forum returns 180
hits in .52 seconds.

How about Spark plugs for turbos?  Type in "Spark Plug" Turbo and hit go...
the forum returns 19 results in .63 seconds.

The possibilities are endless and there are advanced search capabilities to
refine your searches even more.

How is this different than simply searching on Google or some other internet
search engine?  It is different because you are searching a CORVAIR
database... for the most part, EVERY SINGLE post (all 100,000 plus) are
specific to Corvairs.

There is not a single Corvair related website on the internet that has this
much Corvair related information.  Not Clarks, not Corvaircentral... no one.

I can't think of many possible Corvair questions that have not been asked
NUMEROUS TIMES on virtual vairs over the past ten or so years... and now
these questions and answers are available to anyone... in seconds.

Where are we going with virtualcorvairclub.com?

Ultimately, it is my hope to some day turn over the finished project as a
donation to CORSA... Software licenses, database, everything.  This won't
happen unless CORSA is interested, and until I completely finish the
project.

Right now... the forum has an archive of roughly 20,000 threads... to give
you a comparison; Corvair Central right now has roughly 2,250 threads.
I have automated scripts running which add roughly 2,000 - 3,000 threads to
the forum per day, at that rate it will be another 3 weeks or so before the
full archive is complete.

In addition to the virtual vairs archive... users are adding material
daily... you'll find this material in the other forum subsections.

Please... take some time and visit the forum.  Provide me your feedback, and
I'll incorporate the changes that will improve the forum.  If you find the
forum useful and think your members will like it... please edit this email
appropriately and pass the information along to your members.

Thanks for taking the time to read this considerable e-mail.

Kind Regards,

Joe West
Administrator
http://www.virtualcorvairclub.com