membership drive

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Hi All.

I dunno how to broach the topic without being overly worried about sensitivies, but I was thinking about the difference how much of a great site (and movement) this whole biodiesel is and how comparitively little activity there is.

So my idea is a membership drive.

I dunno how that translates into a electronic community but I thought maybe an email membership drive or the like might lift the profile, get some new blood asking questions and uncover some as yet dicovered biodiesel talent.

What do y'all wreckon.

I was thinking maybe if we emailed a hyperlink that went straight to a bio of biodiesel or something that talked about who we ware and what we are trying to do. I think generally people are interested in this sort of stuff, regardless of what level of involvement they want to have.

Any other ideas?

Joe

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: membership drive

Hi Joe,

I've been meaning to answer this post for a while, but I've been a little distracted with getting the Sydney Purchasing Group going (we've now got some fully "legit" fuel - yay) and more recently, with solving some of my own car problems before I can put in my first tank of biodiesel

Re "little activity" - This site has only been around for a little under 2 months now and is still not being ranked properly in the search engines, so I am actually pleased that the people who have found this site in it's early days are already starting to help each other. There are so many other sites out there, but most of them are overseas. There are also a few other forums, with some Australian members in them, though despite holding a wealth of decent information, they are hardly "high profile". Sadly, the silly and regrettable tax rulings on Biodiesel in Australia have driven what should be a thriving scene completely underground. I'm hoping that we can all change that here, so please, keep posting, keep talking, keep finding each other and building good local communities. In time, we will hopefully have more of a voice and help to promote biodiesel in Australia more.

Re the membership drive idea - hey, I'm all for it. Anything that promotes biodiesel and raises its profile in the Australian community - bring it on! Hey, that's why I started these sites! (this one for the larger Australian community and sydneybiodiesel, for my home community). I've got many search engine strategies employed to hopefully get the general public in here, but any other promotion that anyone else can offer I'd be happy with too (except for spamming people of course).

There is already a bit of media attention, with various paper and TV media reporting on biodiesel recently. The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney also published an article mentioning the sydneybiodiesel website a few weekends ago, which helped. I've got a sticker on the back of my car, but I'd like to maybe get some more stickers printed for members to put on their cars.

One other factor to consider is that I loathe the idea of charging membership fees, so any promotion done will have to be of the no money kind. I'm sure if we were all clever about this we could find great ways of doing this.

Initially, what will help in terms of search engine rankings is loads of links from other sites. If you are in any other forums (particularly vehicle or 4WD forums), a quick post on a relevant topic (no trolling please) would certainly help. Google can rank a site based on how many other sites link to it, so if you want to find a good way to "spread the Australian Biodiesel Gospel" on the web, there you have it.

Also, I'd be happy to offer regular contributors here extra status/features/abilities. For example, it is within my power to give some of you your own email addresses here (yourname@biofuelsforum.com), moderator abilities, if you wanted to get your own community area going, or private areas for your local community to discuss local logistics, swap private details without being published etc. If anyone did go down this track, perhaps you could use a funky signature like I have done in some other forums here. This sort of thing can also help out promoting biodiesel and bringing other users into this site. If anyone would like to do this, just let me know and I'd be happy to help out.

Lastly, I really would like to publish more info on biodiesel, basic FAQs, Australian Standards, real info on emissions etc. Unfortunately, I'm a bit time poor, also having a full time job and a family. If anyone would like to write up (or plagiarise) anything that they think might be useful, I'd be happy to publish it on the sydneybiodiesel site, or give you publishing access so you can log in and do it yourself. A few people (like Terry) have already given me some great stuff to go there, but I'd love to see more. Also, if anyone would like other sites (brisbanebiodiesel.com, melbournebiodiesel.com, perthbiodiesel.com etc), I'd be only too happy to assist in helping you build it. There is also the possibility that I can create a static area on this site to publish any material that falls outside of a normal forum post.

Anyway, please keep contributing, coming up with ideas and most of all, helping each other out. It restores my faith in human kindness to see this all happening. Perhaps there is hope for us all, or perhaps I've just had too much red wine tonight and now I'm rambling (I think so).

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Re: membership drive

Hi Robert,

I thought for a second that you had misinterpreted my mentioning of little activity, but then your explaination more that settled that. The activity from only two months is exceptional. I guess I shouldn't be comparing it to US sites that have probably been running for years. So we need to look at

• Promoting awareness
• allowing the site be found easily
• providing loads of solid information and links to information for when the people arriev (built it and they will come)

So I think we can safely say we are on the ground floor and we have a long way to go but to quote the words of a great failed business man "I'm excited".

Regarding promotion and lack of funds, I think we'll let the media do the leg work for us. I have uncovered loads of articles relating to local councils who are starting to take an interest and the flip side of that coin is making sure that search engines direct the heard our way. The big search engines I'd focus on in Australia are the likes of Yahoo, Google, Sensis and Ninemsn.

With regards to starting the ball rolling, a dude had an excellent idea from a US forum. Sorry I have read so much in the last 4 weeks I wouldn't know where to find it, but I guess it would most likely be at the biodieselnow.com forum and maybe at the infopop.cc forum. Sorry cant help there. Anyhow this dude has done up 2 types of post cards size cards... 3x5 I guess. One was for shops explaining why he wanted their oil, another was for friends and others who were new to biodiesel.

He explained very simply how oil can be used and the benefits and the costs involved in personal consumption. I want to make them up and when I came across diesel car owners just have the info card ready to give to them. This sort of "whisper campain" is very powerful and if I tell ten people and they tell ten people...well you can imagine the effect. Particularly if the forums in Australia are mentioned.

You mentioned and I totally understand about not charging fees. well what about making up stickers and/or shirts. A shirt that said "Biodiesel smells like Popcorn" would be outrageously funny to the insiders and promote discussion.

Regarding localised forums. I've had a bit of web experience and I'll throw my hand up to take on admin tasks if needed but I like the idea of the Australian forum. For the time being we are a small loose group but when things grow they will need to be localised monitoring etc. So count me in.

I think the idea to start publishing more info, faq's standards etc is an excellent idea. Th eone thing I found is that I was SO over whelmed (I still am really) with finding information, that a single document that had links that said; OK start here with these links. These are the benefits and basics. And next here are a set of links for when you are ready to tackle your fist batch and these are links for when your ready to make a 5/20/200lts processor. You can see where I am going. So its like a natural progression that makes all of the information thats to be absorbed more like a course if you will.

Thats the way I like things anyhow.

I normally do things like that for my self when I have information over load. I used a word document with hyperlinks with a document of my journey over the days or weeks and when I ready for another session I can open the document up and click the hyperlink where I last was. It keeps the learning logical, structured and progressive. But thats just me and I work in public servioce so I have WAY to much time up my sleeve. So it sounds like I just voulnteered my self for some stuff.

ANy other ideas?

Joe

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: membership drive

Hi Joe, great to have you on board. Sounds like we are all talking along the same lines.

I agree completely that there needs to be some easy way of helping first timers researching biodiesel with a step-by-step process. It's not like there is not a wealth of info out there. It's the wading through it all that is the problem. Then trying to organise it into an easy-to-digest manner - even harder again. I did find a few places in my web travels that did this nicely, but they were all US sites. We need an Aussie flavour!

Re the marketing with cards - totally agreed. I've actually already printed up some of my own little "business cards", with the sydneybiodiesel site on one side and the biofuelsforum on the other. I've just done these for now with my own name and number on them, so that I would have something to hand out to people at that biodiesel forum I attended a couple of weeks back. Now that I have done that, I'd also like to make some more generic ones to hand out to people who ask me about the sticker on the back of my car without giving them all my personal details. I've already handed out some of my cards to some people I've met while waiting in parts queues at my Land Rover dealership.
I've been wanting to do stickers too and possibly also number plate surrounds. I think these would work well.
I like the idea of a card made specifically to explain why we crazy people ask for waste cooking oil from shops as well. I had a very difficult time explaining this to my local take-away shop.
Perhaps we should make up some PDFs that people can download and print themselves? My artwork skills are a bit light on, so if anyone has good graphics skills out there, we'd welcome your contributions.


As for search engine listings, I'm sure you know that this can be a long and arduous battle for some engines, easy for others, and difficult to list without cash for some others. My current targeting for "sydney biodiesel" and a few variants of that work brilliantly almost instantly for MSN, which is easy to do gets listed right at the top, whereas "australia" searches are more generic and only list on the 4th page. More work is needed here, but most of all content is the key. The more useful content a site has, the better it is listed - plain and simple.
The real engine that I am focussing on is Google. This one is the hardest to fool, but it is the best one to go for I think. Google rankings are not easily earned or tricked and they can take a long time to get listed, but in the long run are the most worthwhile. Currently, both sites get a google page rank of 5, which is pretty high considering their "new release" status. Many other well established sites are much less than this. Additionally, I've put up an "advert" page from my own personal website, just to snare the searches (this site has been around longer so google will list it first). Try these searches in Google: "sydney biodiesel", "sydney biodiesel users" and "sydney biodiesel users group". You will see that my targeting there is working either directly, or via links from more established sites pointing straight back. The other thing that can help is some sort of "web ring". Currently sydneybiodiesel.com and this site cross link heavily between each other, which helps search engine ranking. Perhaps if other locations also had sites they we all interlinked, using this forum as a central place, then every site would lift the other up - strength in numbers.

Anyway, seeing as none of us are doing this for any money, there is a lot of work in this, but the flip side is that we have nothing to lose either, so no need to worry about a failed business. I think that we could all get more satisfaction from promoting a clean green fuel and seeing it change our society in some way than we could ever get from money.

The last idea I had was to run some sort of biodiesel making workshops for the home users. I was hoping to get a uni involved. People bring in 20L of used cooking oil, everyone pays a small fee for the day that would cover an instructor, use of the lab facilities and the chemicals. These could be run every so often, either regularly or as demand dictated. The notes/instructions and findings from these would be published and free to all, but for those who want some "hands on" help, they could offer valuable assistance.
These could also be run as a backyard BBQ style thing, but there could be legal issues involved, which I have not even started to consider yet.

I think the first step is providing people with a legitimate means to buy biodiesel first (even if it is not from the bowser), as we have just done here with our Sydney Purchasing Group. Once this is in place, there will be people who are not afraid to speak out in public and say that they are using biodiesel because of our stupid tax rulings on it here. Once there is a good userbase of "legit" users, then maybe some more of the "backyard enthusiasts" will also be less afraid to show their faces in public.

This last point, the issue of Australian Tax laws on biodiesel has been the biggest stumbling block to the Australian biodiesel scene, so it would be great to find some way around it and uproot the large army of undergrounders out there and let us all promote ourselves in a more open manner.

[Peda Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Peda]

Re: membership drive

I have seen some discussion about biodiesel on the Nissan Patrol forum that I am a member of and have posted our forum for their reference.
This is the link on their forum
http://www.patrol4x4.com/forum/t2536...sel-again.html

This might get some interest from diesel users and it seems a fairly large and active forum so we might get some additional members from there.

Peter

[91GQ Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 91GQ]

Re: membership drive

Hey there Robert,

In regards to the biodiesel how-to guide, I have a copy of one of these at home(yeh I am using the work system) hehe.... if you like if you wanna I can post this for you if there is a place on this site to be able to do this, or what forum would you prefer to get this placed in. (Maybe setting up a new thread or forum).

Give me a holler if you want to do this and we can chat about this a bit more.

Adrian.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: membership drive

Perhaps if you sent it to me directly for now. Some other members have also sent me some stuff and I still have to find some time to go through it and decide where it fits best in the structure, or make a new structure for it.
I really do appreciate any contributions from you guys as it will all help to make the site better for everyone.
Once I've got more of an idea of the structure, it should become easier for you guys to find the relevant area and post up your own stuff. Just for now though, please run it by me first and I'll work out a good place for it.

Cheers,

[91GQ Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 91GQ]

Re: membership drive

Yeh no problems Robert, could you supply me with an e-mail address and I will get it to you asap, it might take till sometime next week as my computer is currently on the blink, but I am getting it back up and running and I am going away this weekend, to Janowen 4WD park out near warrick.

Thanks
Adrian.

[Fat Man Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fat Man]

Re: membership drive

Maybe I can help, I'm a sign writer and have equipment that makes vinyl stickers etc...

any one interested ??

submit a sketch or artwork as vector art as an EPS file.
Don't know what a vector file is, go to corel.com and read up.

any other suggestions ??

The Fat Man

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Re: membership drive

Hey Fatman thanks for your offer. I think Robert has a few designs and might want some stickers done on a small to medium scale.

Me I cant draw to save my life and I have about as much artistic talent as I do boobs. (yes I'm a bloke)

Joe

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: membership drive

Hey Fat Man! I was just thinking of looking for someone with a vinyl cutter! I worked for a sign maker for a short time many years ago and was thinking of finding him and asking him about cutting a logo out for me, but have never gotten around to it (like so many other things ).

I've made a simple logo for Sydney Biodiesel. I'm not much of an artist either. I used a stencil font, so I could print it out, cut out the pieces by hand and use it to spray stencils. The cardboard stencil was such a hassle, I kept thinking that there must be an easier way.

I've also been given some "powered by biodiesel" stickers as well, but I'd like to get some stickers that mention the web address. I've attached a png of the logo I made, but I can email you the eps if you want. What do you reckon?

[Cameron Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Cameron]

Re: membership drive

Hey Fatman and Robert,
What a great idea! great stencil too by the way Rob!

One idea might be to print them out as black on clear and/or white on clear?

I would be very keen to get a few extra bd stickers on my car. I have dark tinted rear window on the canopy opf my landrover ute so white lettering would probably be needed to see the image and text.

The other thing we should consider if we are all driving around with biodiesel stickers on our vehicles is to make sure that our cars/vans/utes/4wd/trucks etc are all kept well serviced as we don't want people to see heaps of black smoke pouring out of the back of any vehicles with "I run on biodiesel - the environmentally preferred fuel choice" sticker geting obscured by the filthy pollution!

Would people be interested if I was to try to organise some workshops on self maintaining your diesel engine? I am no expert in diesel engines but I am always good for knowing someone who is an expert in just about anything!

Cheers,
Cameron

[kando Member Find all posts View Profile Close kando]

Re: membership drive

G'day folks,

I have thousands of vector clipart from my sign writing business days, I also have one vinel cutter and a few rolls of vinel, white, yellow, green, red and blue, all sitting doing nothing. The vinel cutter is a "vinel cutter" and will not print anything on vinel, it simply cuts out the vinel lettering that you can stick on glass on metal.
Anyway I'm sure I would have a vector clip that could be adopted to any club, I have about 7 CDs of vector clips so if anyone wants something, give me a Hoi! Then perhaps The Fat Man could print and cut the vinel for you

Bill from Corio.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: membership drive

Hi Bill, thanks for the offer. A few folk in the forum have now said that they've got vinyl cutters, but we've collectively not yet got around to doing anything.
ABG have made a bunch of "powered by biodiesel" stickers, which are available to those of us who are in Sydney and can get to The Biodiesel Station, so the need to cut letters has diminished, at least for me.
That is not to say that others would not still need this. I've got an eps of the sydneybiodiesel logo which has been made in stenciled letters so it can easily be cut out/sprayed on etc. Can you load an eps image into your cutter? I'd guess you could if you can do vectored clip art...

Cheers,

[Sauman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sauman]

Re: membership drive

G Day Folks,
"No Business Like Show Business".
Live green,keep the planet clean.
For our tommorow...a better tommorow.
A simple Dream.!!!
I would love to get the Kids in school involved in this forum,the councils and the media.Like talking to a few schools and letting the kids know all about bio diesel as well as the social responsibilty that we all share.
Focus being on the kids.They r our future.The nations pride.
With an Aussie flavor ...oh yeah!!!oi,oi,oi.
I volunteer to share well reserached info with out the commercial edge as is probably what a lot of Sites from the US advocate.
This bio diesel revolution is happening world wide is just on the tip of the ice berg.
This movement has the potential to wipe out many under developed countries poor economic status. In India alone it is aimed at generating about 12 million to be employed within 2012.It could wipe out the power problem of cambodia and many remote communities world wide.

Please visit www.pcra.org
The site answers a lot of question in a very simple manner.
I understand our taxman is short visioned.But we gotta find a way around it.Build it and they will come ...sorta thing.
Australia has to start doing her bit and take advantage of CDM and keeping the earth green and clean.This forum sure can be a very active voice in the whole thing.

I am for the idea that membership should be kept free(after all the best things in life are for free).
I liked the idea of getting a few uni's involved as that gives the forum a lot of back up.

Have a great day folks.It's sticky hot and humid in kolkata....
Cheers
Sauman