News from the Board episode 1

Hey BeLUG'gers and intrested people in our LUG.  Starting today, we got something brand new, and highly irregular, on this little corner of the internet, and that is "News from the Board".

Now, this sounds like a hefty title, but it truth, well, it's just a catchy title and nothing more than that  ;-)

One of the things at this years General Assembly was that there would be better ways, or smoother at least, to communicate with little this and thats inside the club, and after yesterday's meeting, I can finally come out with some news about how we hope this will be tackled.

What this series also will cover is when some small things are pushed through to me through social channels, and I take those points along to the board meetings.  If it's something that is meant for everybody, then from now on you can read that here.
Okay, so if someone asks if we can sponsor bricks to build a Lego birthday cake for their boss, you won't read that here; we'll answer that directly (and no, that will most likely not be sponsored ...)

The Contact e-mail adress

Now, the biggest issues we had recently, and we recognise that, is that the Contact mail didn`t always get replied swiftly.  This is going to change, as we are implementing a new, well, let's call it "system" for handling the questions. In the future, whenever mails are dropped in the BeLUG mailbox, they will (as before) be forwarded to all board members but one member is directly assigned to respond to that mail. If he/she is not able to answer within maximal one week, he/she forwards this to another board member for reply. The reply is given directly to the person in question, from the BeLUG mailbox or from the board member’s own mail with a copy to contact@belug.be.

It might take us a bit of time (and good behaviour) before we are all  stuck to this approach, so give us some respite ;-)

Questions about membership cards

On that matter, I would like to point out the procedure for new members.  Questions we receive often is when the membership card is being sent.  Well, these are always sent at the end of the month in which your membership fee has been received.  Unless, like on Brick Mania Antwerp where your card is printed on the spot...
Your LUG brick and the AFOL sticker (you MUST request these mind you!) are also sent to you with the mail, or you get them at a Brick Mania when you register on the spot.

Making cuts

The way our LUG is growing, we realize that sooner or later we will have to cut requests for Brick Mania.  For now, we can still give everyone a spot, but in the future (we estimate about two years from now if the grow keeps going like it is currently), we might be faced with making choices.
We already had a chat about that, and we have a rough first guideline sketched out.

As a rule of thumb, it will be something along the line of MOC <- regular set builds <- private seller.

This generally means that if we have like 1 square meter left of space, and we have three candidates, one wanting to bring a moc, one bringing only a UCS Slave 1 build and one bringing only some old Lego Movie sets to sell... the person with the moc will get the table.
And if we have to choose between candidates with moc’s and members who have a combination of a moc and LEGO sales, we’ll also give priority to the member with the moc's.

Now, I can`t stress enough for now that
1. It hasn`t been necessary to do this yet
2. It's only a first draft and will be worked out deeper

But at least you know in which direction we’re thinking.

Describe your MOC field at registrations

Now, I also would like to repeat once more that it is important you actually fill in the field on a registration sheet for Brick Mania where you are asked to "Describe your MOC".
Just putting down Star Wars is getting us nowhere, just type a few lines of what you want to bring, how big it will be, and the other details we are asking.  This makes the planning of the event venues that much easier, and it will prevent from placing for example two UCS Star Destroyers right next to each other...

Non-BeLUG organised events

I have been talking with a fellow member and ex-board member about this the past days, and took it up with the current board.  There are a lot of events all year round which aren`t organised by BeLUG, and in which we have totally no stakes, but where a lot of our members are doing excellent work.  Modelspoor comes to mind for one (check the calendar), as does Open Bedrijven Dag the 2nd of october.
We will try where possible, and I know this can only happen if those present co-operate a little in providing picture material (or even a whole report), as well as announcing them in time so that intrested people can contact the member responsible if they want to join.

More on that once I worked all the details out with said ex- board member ;-)


So there we go, I hope all the general intrest questions and complaints that I received have been handled this way, either you find your answer here, or you will have already received it through a private message on Facebook in case of "unique" situations.
Feel free to poke me over on FB for that matter if you have any questions for the board, preferably send them to the Contact e-mail adress of BeLUG (on our main site), but if really needed, gimme a line.  I personally *promise* (okay, unless I`m in hospital or on some french mountain top... he who knows what I mean will now look away) that I`ll answer you within 24 hours, and if needed take the issue at hand up to the next board meeting.