AlfaBits – June, 2025
Steve Davis – AROO Prez
Introducing the new AlfaBits! After a lot of planning and working out the issues, we have arrived at this new evolution of AROO’s outreach to its members.
But first, the good stuff! Please visit the Event Calendar page to look at all the great events coming up in June and July! Selfishly, I want to invite all of you to our house just outside of Eugene for our annual “SummerFun Picnic” (link) on June 21.
And here is something VERY important… AROO will have a Corral at the Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance on Sunday, July 20! It’s only open to about 15 cars, so if you want to have your car included in the Corral, you need to register NOW! Registration is FREE, but registration closes on June 21 – that’s two weeks away! Here is the page to register (you MUST use the class 1F8-Alfa-Romeo Club Corral when you register!), and please drop Steve Hunker an email (HERE) to let him know, once you have registered!
So, what is the new AlfaBits? Mostly, it’s more like my “blog post” than anything else. All the other things that were in the e-magazine are now incorporated into the AROO website – in fact, you may actually be reading this on the website, rather than on a PDF you download. The important contents of the AlfaBits – upcoming events and short blurbs with RSVP, the AROO Resource Page, photos of recent events, and more – are now or will be soon incorporated into the website and are accessible on the site. Even better, we are able to give some of these topics, such as the AROO Resource Page – more room for reviews and comments, and I’m no longer limited to page size or count when it comes to including photos of past events.
Here’s a good example: about 40 people showed up at the Celebration of Life for Dave Beach. It was a wonderful day, with the stunning skies that only come when it’s threatening rain. Close to 20 cars showed up for the caravan over, and we were invited to park for “max exposure” on the main road as others came in. I saw lots of red – hats, jackets and shirts. And there are lots of pictures of cars and people and memories of Dave. Rather than show you only a few – you can see them all right HERE in the Gallery.
Our Calendar of events page (HERE) will soon become ‘info central’ for past and future events. We now have pre-event write-ups and RSVP’s for every event through July, so you can go in and RSVP for a lot of events all at once. Post-event, we are committed to posting lots of pictures, plus recaps and other stuff after each event. Our goal is to stay 3-4 months ahead of all events, so you have a good idea of all the events. If there is one page to bookmark for AROO, make it the Event Calendar – and check it often!
By the way, we will still be utilizing email blasts to keep you all aware of upcoming events. One of the reasons for this change is because we’ve determined that email blasts generate more RSVP’s than from the AlfaBits. Hopefully, with the emphasis on the Events Calendar page, our membership can just go through the entire calendar and RSVP for many events all in one “sit-down” session!
We are working to make it easy for you, or members to add your own content. For example, right now it’s difficult for members to add their own photos to an event, as the membership only has “view” access. I (or another admin) would need to specifically grant you “edit” rights to upload your photos, then revoke those rights later after the upload. That’s just no fun for either of us! We need to make that easier, and also for you to post your own classifieds, or shop recommendations, and more. With all the invasion of privacy and hacking in cloud data these days, we don’t take any chances.
And, in case you are wondering, we do NOT post the club roster in the Cloud or anywhere where it can be hacked or downloaded. Only AROC keeps the cluster, and they send it with updates to Frank Filice, our membership chair, in a spreadsheet, once a month.
So, give us a little while to work things out! Feel free to send me your thoughts and comments at steve.davis@alfaclub.org.