Fellow Poggers,

A few weeks ago there was a long thread mostly about the booting off the site of a member. This concerns me very much, and since no reasonable explanation has been forthcoming, I have decided to cancel the automatic renewal of my $100 annual dues when it comes up in mid October. This is a sad occasion, as I have met a lot of friendly and knowledgeable people in POG, as well as a few clowns and religious or political zealots. I think I have contributed my fair share of useful information, humor, and snide remarks over the past few years. Joe C's posts on the conversion of his coach and some of his other projects were among the more interesting threads we have had lately, and without them POG is less valuable to me. But the underlying reasons for his departure are much more important to consider.

It is now 10 days before the OKC rally, and rather than just disappear from the group I thought I would bring this up again in the hope it might spark some discussion at the rally for possible improvements to POG. Perhaps as you drive to OKC you can consider the issues and a meaningful dialog can ensue while many members are together. I am all in favor of working to make POG better but I can not continue with POG as it is now. Let me know how I can help.

My concerns are as follows:

1. Either we are MEMBERS or CUSTOMERS. If we are members, then that infers we have some say over the operation of the group, by providing input to a manager or board of directors, or by participating in the creation of a document that governs the operation by a manager, bylaws if you will. If we are customers, then we simply take what is provided for the price charged, or not. The home page of POG calls us members. But there is no mechanism to affect the operation of POG by members. All we can do is call or email Skiff and he decides without recourse. As it is now I feel I am being treated as a customer, not a member, and I know how to act as a customer if I am not satisfied.

2. The home page also states: "The Prevost Owner's Group (POG) is an open group dedicated to sharing in-depth information 24/7 on the internet, and at occasional rallies. Anyone who has an interest in the Prevost ownership experience is welcome to join, current owner or not. Members are people who are interested in learning more about Prevost ownership, lifestyle, mechanics, finances; the entire range of topics essential to full
enjoyment of a Prevost coach."

There is no mention anywhere about membership being denied to anyone. The only comment made by Jim Skiff on the site about removing Joe is that he needs to have insurance, but that is not a requirement to belong to POG. Is it required that we all have insurance? What kind? What limits? Surely this is absurd.


3. There is a list of sponsors on the home page, but the sponsors rarely if ever post any information on the site. I think we would all benefit if the sponsors participated in the discussions concerning their products. In my mind, the big 3 are Prevost, Marathon and Liberty, but many smaller suppliers like the inverter manufacturers or the tire companies as examples would be a welcome addition to thread participation. What is POG doing to address this?

What benefit do us "members" derive from having the sponsors at all? I know they pay higher annual dues to advertise on the site and to fatten the Skiff coffers, and they occasionally pay for something at a rally, but really, why are we better off having sponsors at all? If you work for Marathon say, can you not simply be a member as an individual? What "rule" requires one to be a sponsor instead of a regular member? What benefit does a sponsor derive from paying the extra money each year?

4. There is the issue of private messages. If 'private' means they can or will be read by the webmaster, then that should be noted in the FAQ section under private messaging. The cat is already out of the bag on this, but future members might not get the history.

5. Lastly, it has often been noted on the site that there are no rules. Under why one should join POG, it states: "There is no hierarchy, boss, politics, everyone enters as an equal."If there are no rules, fine, then no rules have been broken and no one can or should be booted off the group. If there are rules, they should be published so we all know what they are, and what happens when they are broken.

I am dismayed that when this thread was running so many POGGERS just wanted this whole issue to go away rather than address it publicly once and for all.

I would like to continue to belong to the POG group. I hope that some progress can be made on some of these issues to make me change my mind. I am not saying Joe must be "re-membershipped" but there must be some momentum within POG to clean up this internal mess before I will continue.

For those who plan to flame me for bringing up this dirty laundry again, thanks in advance for your fine upstanding morals. For those who want to address these issues let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Looking forward to everyone's comments!