How far are you guys from Summers County...Hinton...Pipestem State Park?

I'm the prez of a Ruritan Club in Pipestem and we've got a nice big piece of land with a big club house and an outdoor covered picnic area and an outdoor stage just begging for a band...

Any body ever thought about getting all of us together for a day and show off our toys? I've got a source that can roast a pig pretty reasonable... Heck we could do it as a fund raiser for the Red Cross and ask for admission donations.

Just a thought....what do you think?

I can see us doing this around Water Festival time and putting the trucks in the parade too. Hmmm, gotta stop thinking now...getting caffene deprived and I'll have to go and resolve that issue.

 

That sounds like a GREAT idea!!!!!!!!! We could announce it on this site and have people come from all over. Lets see how much interest there is, and go from there.

 

Sounds good to me too, Im about an hour from hinton. Hopefully the 55 will be ready.

 

I concur, let's monitor interest and I'll start looking at potential dates to be able to co-incide with a local festival...Water Festival...Train Days...something like that!

Nothing like a little party!

 

Fitter, what's your take on a timeframe?

My question is do we want to try this in conjunction with a local festival (Hinton is a 15 min drive from the Ruritan site) or would we be better off doing a separate gig?

WV Water Festival runs for a week in August...Train Days is two concurrent weekends in Oct.

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Sounds like a great idea. Let me know what I need to do to make it happen!

Rod

 

Rod, I think we just need to get some more of us saying "yes" on the post. Once we see that happening we need to narrow down a date.

I'm an analyst by trade and my wife says I think about things too much...

If we have this during a local festival weekend we'll get more participation and more exposure...but lodging could be an issue if folks plan on staying over a night or two in this area.

If we have it during a non-festival weekend, lodging becomes easier but we won't see the # of folks that we could see if there is another attraction in the area.

As I've mentioned before, Train Days happens in October...tends to be chilly and sometimes rainy. Water Festival happens in August...could be too close to school start if an owner wants to bring kids. State Fair in Lewisburg is about an hours drive and it happens in Late Aug/early Sept.

I'm easy. My wife and I live 5 minutes from the Ruritan facility. There are multiple campsite locations within a 10 minute drive from the Ruritan facilty. Hinton is a 15 minute drive...Princeton is a 20 minute drive...Charleston is about 1 plus 45 drive. Our Ruritan facility has a clubhouse that seats 80 to 100 with kitchen facilities. It has two outdoor pavilions with picnic tables, it has an outdoor stage with power, it has an area for kids with playground equipment. There are a couple of BBQ pits on the site. I have connections with a guy who roasts a pig for our company picnic every year...he does this on site with his own cooker. The only potential drawback I'm aware of is our facility is a no alcohol/no drug facility, so that may turn off folks that want to have a 'cool one' during the day. There are three small convience stores within a 5 to 10 minute drive.

I'm planning on going out next week and mapping out a grid so we can figure out how many 'spots' we can support. I'm planning on a 10 x 20 spot per truck...what do you think? Is that sufficient? I figure some folks will want a canapy beside the truck to get out of the sun. I'd recommend a canopy and a couple of chairs.

I'm open to suggestions and ideas here folks.

Since I'm new to the site and our group, I really have no clue how many folks would actually participate. Off the top of my head, we could easily accomodate 50 to 75 trucks on the grounds.

I've got all sorts of ideas...we can turn this into a 'recruiting' event to get more folks signed up as FTE members. I'd like to see us take a 'run' through Hinton...parade style. We'd be the talk of the town for a while! And if this is successful, we could potentially make this an annual event.

This would cost us some money....we'd have to rent the grounds for the day. This would cost us $180 per day to use all of the facilities. I'm sure we'd have to spend some advertising money. I'd want to spend some on signage to make it easy to find the grounds from each of the possible directions a person can come in by...I-64, I-77 etc.

Waiting to hear from all of you!

 

sounds pretty good -- i don't know that you will get enough people from just the wv chapter to make it an "event" -- may have to try and branch out into other chapters or maybe contact local car clubs or ads at local ford dealer -- i would attend and depending on the weather would like to camp overnight

OUTLAW

 

I've already thought about contacting a local dealership to provide a couple of displays...the new 08's would be cool. I also figure to ask for their assistance with some coin to cover signage costs.

I'd really like to keep this a truck event...but we gotta do what we gotta do.

Since I'm new to the site, I'm a little concerned that we wouldn't have much participation but it's really going to depend the chapter leadership. Like I've said before, I'm the new guy here and I'd just like to see a fun event.

 

I looked you up the other night, you sure are down there.

On our first meet and eat we had several people that were going to come.
Three turned up and I was late at that.

I taked to a guy from the NC chapter last night on the phone.
You are actually closer to him than you are to me.
If the timing is right, he would like to attend.
I think you may be able to draw from Va. and NC chapters if you contact the leaders in those chapters as well.

I am all for it, but I will also have to see what gets picked for a date and where I am working at the time.
Summer and fall can get rather hectic in the excavation business.

We do need to do something to liven this place up though.

 

My concern is not wanting to set up a big gig and nobody shows. I've talked with a couple of locals and they're excited at the prospect...but if it isn't supported by chapter membership then I guess we just continue on...status quo.

I certainly have no problem opening it up to other FTE members...but how do we do it? Who whould we contact? I guess we really need more input from Fitter as this chapters lead.

I'd like to see us do this in nice weather...but like you the date is gonna be important. The facility already has a couple of weekends in Jul and Aug booked so we can't wait too long.

 

Since there is some time, not a lot but some, I would contact the CL in the NC, Va. and possibly the Tenn. and Ohio chapters to see if they would mind if you posted an invite in their forums.

I think there will be people in Tenn. that are closer to you than the northern part of WV is.

I think Mapquest had a trip from Clarksburg at 3.5 hours, I am not home right now to look again.( My laptop is to old to open a couple browsers at once.)

How far into Tennesse could you be in 3.5 hours?
How far into Va.?
How far into N.C.?
Can you be in south east Ohio in the same amount of time?

With the way everything and everyone is these days, the more people you can reach, the more people that may show up.

At our original meet I think we had about 15 people that were planning on going.
So three people was a 20% turn out.
Actually we had 7 people, the Ga Chapter leader and family stopped in on her way home from Parkersburg to Ga. so it was a 45% turn out even though she and family were not in the 15 original people. That meet was at Sutton Lake (Flatwoods) which is almost in the center of the state.

 

I would be interested in a truck show or cookout. Only problem is I`m in Berkeley Springs, long ride with 4.56`s.

August is real busy for me but with enough notice might could work something out. Maybe could get some others from up here to tag along.

 

Guys, the date is looking like the 15th of Sept. I've been hoping for more feedback so we can made a go/no-go decision on this show.

I've been holding off on notifiying folks (local dealer for displays, radio and newspaper for awareness, and other nearby chapters for invites. I really don't want to go past Sept because of weather concerns.

How does 15 September sound to you guys?

 

Sounds good to me, I really think we might not want to go to big for the first year until we see how much participation we are going to have. Start out small and get bigger each year? What do you all think? I'm worried that if we go to big and only a few show up, we might eat allot of money. It would be a good idea to invite other chapters. Even if only a few from each show up. Just my 2 cents.