Citroen Car Club

This is the Forum for all your Citroen Technical Questions, Problems or Advice.

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tomsheppard
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Citroen Car Club

Post by tomsheppard »

Having spent the money and received the first Citroenian, I have to say that I am very disappointed. I would not advise anybody to join an organisation such as this. They seem to be less technically informed than us and interested only in raising large sums of money so that the club can buy headquarters. The proof reading of the magazine is poor and the article about BX cooling system faults was laughable. Save yer money, guys and gals; I wish that I had done so.
Stuart McB
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Post by Stuart McB »

I really don't mean this as it sounds but having looked at the web site and met the club at the classic car show last year I know what you mean. The wife said pipe and slippers, Land Rover owners club. Sorry mate.
Jon

Post by Jon »

I have not read the Citroenian recently, but used to receive it every month when Andyspares advertised with them, I used to find it quite a good read.
I'm sure that Simon Canfer and David W will have some comment to make on this. I'm staying out of the topic from now on unless any moderating is required.
oilyspanner
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Post by oilyspanner »

I have read some issues of the Ciroenian with interest but was always put off joining by the high subs, I was a member of the BMW motorcycle club which was excellent and at the time was only twelve quid per year, shame really but it makes you appreciate what a good resource this forum is, I suppose we could form a splinter faction.
Stewart
Stuart McB
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Post by Stuart McB »

when I met them I just got the feeling that they thought newer Citroens weren't true to the build philosophy of years gone by. This put me off. Still a good source of info for those that want / need it for they're own Citroen. I'm not having a go please belive me.
cheesesliceking

Post by cheesesliceking »

I totally agree, its a mildy interesting read, i subscribed for a full 12 months & each issue was pretty dull. I didnt re-new the subscription. They need to get more younger members otherwise sadly the club WILL die.[B)]
And they NEED an online forum which i sugguestd but got no reply.. [B)]
Stinkwheel
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Post by Stinkwheel »

As i said to Tom on the phone, a club thats lost in time, its neither one thing or another. 2CVGB on the other hand, fun, knowledge, info, spares and more fun. All car clubs could learn from 2CVGB. (not a plug and not a gripe, just my point of view, Im a member of CCC and 2CVGB
cheesesliceking

Post by cheesesliceking »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Stinkwheel</i>

As i said to Tom on the phone, a club thats lost in time, its neither one thing or another. 2CVGB on the other hand, fun, knowledge, info, spares and more fun. All car clubs could learn from 2CVGB. (not a plug and not a gripe, just my point of view, Im a member of CCC and 2CVGB
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
ahh lost in time... Igot lost in time once.. or wsa it lost in music.? hmmm
alan s
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Post by alan s »

Well I suppose I'm far enough away from the action to put my two bobs worth in without appearing to have any direct association or actual ideas based on knowledge or association of what goes on to know what it's like, but I can speak of Clubs in general associated with motor cars in particular something a bit out of the norm.
I have been in sporting car clubs, Citroen car clubs and politically motivated pressure groups as well as a Community Radio staion. All have a few things in common.
There are the handful of members who are the backbone of the club; these people are there 7 days a week if necessary, will forego work or things for financial gain 'for the club,' are always at the forefront when the hard work needs doing and can always be relied on to do something, get something or pay for something the club needs to stage an event. They live for the club.
There are members who turn up to every meeting for the social aspect; own a car that is 'acceptable' and are well thought of. They don't say much or do much when at the events but are usually good company if you decide to share an ale.
There are the ones who are "well healed" who bought a restored or unusual car for an astronomical amount or paid someone an astronomical amount to restore one for them as an interest. They are either too busy for any DIY or simply don't want the hassles or are totally mechanical dunces and are the first to admit to it, so keep the cars running well by keeping a local garage 'living in a manner to which they've grown accustomed' as they want the pleasure of driving and owning the cars without the pain of having to service them, and anyhow, they can afford to sowhat a way to go.
Clubs have committees that handle various facets of car ownership and club activities, hence they become a typical "jack of all trades" type of organisation.
A bit of DIY, a social at the end of the month, Christmas Party to organise, awards night, Club magazine to compile, sponsors to chase up, raffles and fund raising and so on. We here by contrast just concentrate on the cars and associated advice and info so this becomes a more specialised type of association with a common interest.
There are members who become club "Icons" almost, as a result of their long association; I met one a while back who had been longtime associated with a local car club when I was involved 20 years ago. Guess what? They still are!! Another ex work mate who was involved in Racing/Rallying back when I was in my home town that I left over 30 years ago and he still is too. (I told the silly old bugger he should be thinking 'mobility scooters' by now not lap times.)
I personally quite like being involved occasionally with the various car clubs if for nothing else meeting people with a common interest and admiring the cars.
I've never been a regular attendee because I'm not a "Club person" as such, it's not my scene, but for anyone who has that inclination, they'll find it an enjoyable experience and one where a lot of good friends can be made and good company had. You might not get along with the majority of those there but for sure you'll find someone with the same temperament as you and through them will meet the part of the group that think like you do; it always happens this way regardless which part of the World you live.
Alan S
David W
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Post by David W »

Tom,
I think you know I have looked after the CCC magazine BX column for years and now write/collate the BX and Xantia column. I have never held any official management position within the CCC and hence these following comments are my own and should not be taken as an official CCC response.
I'm bitterly dissapointed that you feel it appropriate to be so negative after receiving just one magazine and having only joined a few days ago.
Perhaps it would be more fair to say that the CCC doesn't appear to suit your needs from first impressions...but that you will give it time.
To warn everyone else off based on your brief contact is a little harsh.
Of course there are others who give mild support for your position in following posts and that is fair enough...it is perhaps true that many who find this forum a perfect place to be may not be a typical CCC member. Surely you realise diffent folks are looking for different things from a "vehicle support group".
It is true we (CCC) do not have the fast turnover of ideas seen here on an hour by hour basis but you go too far making the snap decision that the CCC folks are less able in technical areas.
I watch some threads here with folks stumbling towards a solution via potentially damaging and drawn out methods of investigation...but I would never dream of concluding that the forum was "rubbish " because of that. Far from it I always praise this place highly.
Rather unkind to call a members nicely detailed descripion of cooling system issues as "laughable". We encourage members to submit their own ideas and have a policy of publishing them "as is" unless they contain seriously misleading information. This is just the same as on this forum where not every bit of information is spot on but you rarely ridicule fellow posters for this.
That snipe about the CCC just wanting to raise money to build a headquarters is *so* far from the mark. The CCC subs are as low as they can be in the current climate given our substantial costs, particularly the magazine (you may not like it but many members are full of praise for its content!). There is very little surplus each year and there is no intention to make huge sums from the members.
The idea of a possible central "reporting" location was really to give us a base that would be some kind of home for the organisation and its resources....and this came as a request from the members as much as the CCC officials....it is very much a long term wish.
Had you joined with a more positive attitude Tom, and then made contact with me, I would have been more than happy to discuss "contracting out" the BX section of the magazine for you to write (and do the member phone/mail tech support). We are always looking for quality input and willing members with these abilities. That is not a dig, I mean it absolutely seriously, that is how the CCC works...finding the qualities in our members that will maintain and extend the club services to our fellow members.
I have to say Alan S treats all the issues in a very fair way....thank you Alan.
BTW please excuse me if I haven't proof read this reply...too busy ;-)
David
alan s
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Post by alan s »

If there's one thing that sets Citroen owners head & shoulders above the rest it's the mature way we can discuss our differences of opinion.
I am a moderator on a board out here that has all 3 French marques and a disagreement of ideas such as this would turn into a full on flamethrower in no time.
However, it seems that Cit owners are a lot that can disagree without resorting to these extremes; again the common interest takes over.
We find that our problems on the multi brand forums arise due to a mix of young guys wanting to do performance modifications and not seeing the heritage and engineering values clashing with the more traditional owners with their ideas of what constitutes French car ownership.
As I pointed out in my previous post; there's "Club people" and "Citroen enthusiasts" and some who are both.
Now all we need is a common ground; the Internet perhaps??
Alan S [;)][:D]
Richard Gallagher
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Post by Richard Gallagher »

Having been a member of the CCC for a few years now I must offer my support to David W for his BX/Xantia section of the club magazine. He focuses on the more technical side of the cars, for example, just a couple of months ago giving a very detailed description of a Xantia clutch change which I'm sure many people on this forum would find very useful.
As far as I'm concerned, keep up the excellent work David, well done.
I think that using this forum which has a number of very knowledgeable contributors, where you can get answers to technical issues within minutes, makes it easy to be over critical towards a car club using 'snail mail'. To this end the club have now opened forum, which at present does lack input compared with this one but then it is new etc.
The CCC is not the best car club I'm sure, but it is constantly looking for ways to improve, so all 'sensible' suggestions accepted.
ghostrider
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Post by ghostrider »

I have been a member of the CCC on and off for more than 20 years, I am not a member at the moment. When I first started owning Cits, CCC was almost the only source of knowledge, some of the articles on CXs, DSs GSs and later on Dave's excellent stuff on the BX enabled me to continue to actually use Cits,I suspect that without CCC I would have simply switched makes. I don't remember any of the names from the early days, but as Alan says, clubs like CCC are essentially run by just a handfull of members, I include myself in that as one of those who did not contribute, the immediacy of this forum has encouraged me to contribute, hopefully some useful bits and pieces from 25 years of owning one of these B****Y cars, it requires significantly more effort to put pen to paper, and I did so very infrequently for the CCC and I feel that I never put back into the club what I got out of it. I dont know if CCC runs an online forum like this one, but it should and I just hope that some of the people who contributed in the past to the mag would come forward again, because despite being a slightly "pipe and slippers" some of those original contributors have probably forgotten more about Cits than most of us ever knew. I know there were various internal political upheavals, no different from any other club, and a visit to Nigel's Church is a truly amazing experience as his almost encyclopedic knowledge of all thing cit going back to the light 15
Pete
________
Zx14 Vs Hayabusa
Last edited by ghostrider on 22 Feb 2011, 05:56, edited 1 time in total.
cheesesliceking

Post by cheesesliceking »

Nice how you all totally ignored my comments... pretty much like CCC did...
As I mentioned.. I subscribed for 12 months & all but one issue of the magazine was pretty dull despite Kathryn’s monthly articles for the smaller cits, AX, Saxo etc that brightened it up quite a bit. But I know form talking to her that she became disillusioned with the club & the magazine & her suggestions for the club fell on deaf ears.. Pretty much the same way mine did.
The CCC are a nice bunch of people but somewhat stuck in the dark ages, they need to realise they will have to modernise the way they run their club or it will fall deeper into decline & eventually be impossible to run at anything other than a huge loss.
alan s
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Post by alan s »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by cheesesliceking</i>

Nice how you all totally ignored my comments... pretty much like CCC did...
As I mentioned.. I subscribed for 12 months & all but one issue of the magazine was pretty dull despite Kathryn’s monthly articles for the smaller cits, AX, Saxo etc that brightened it up quite a bit. But I know form talking to her that she became disillusioned with the club & the magazine & her suggestions for the club fell on deaf ears.. Pretty much the same way mine did.
The CCC are a nice bunch of people but somewhat stuck in the dark ages, they need to realise they will have to modernise the way they run their club or it will fall deeper into decline & eventually be impossible to run at anything other than a huge loss.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Could I suggest that you contact David W directly via the contact facility on this forum and ask him to put that suggestion to the CCC or ask if it has ever been coonsidered.
The downside to an online forum is that they need to be monitored almost 24/7 as there's some very strange things go on in the wee small hours that most forum users would not be aware of which is why this forum has moderators who can keep an eye on things right around the clock. They also don't come cheaply if an efficient system is to be run.
I do hope however that this topic does not become a divisive one on this board as it has the potential to cause some ill feelings.
By the same token, if the suggestions made are done in a respectful manner and the Club prepared to accept constructive criticism, then it can be to the mutual benefit of all concerned, although as I said previously, there's "Club people" and "Non Club People" and on a forum with as many members as this there's bound to be both.
All users be advised, I'll keep monitoring this topic so if it gets abusive or too hot, be warned I'll delete any offendsive messages and lock the topic, so a message to all; don't waste time stirring it any further.
Alan S
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