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Post by adamcharch on Oct 21, 2015 19:25:22 GMT 10
We need Derryn Hinch to sort this one out.
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Post by flyingspagmonster on Oct 22, 2015 8:28:33 GMT 10
Undoubtedly, but that's no reason to shout in pink The unwritten rule for shouting is using all capital letters. I used lower case, just made them larger so that you would notice. Pink? It was either that or red. But red would say I'm upset, which I'm not ... well, maybe a little bit, which is why I chose that colour. After all, it is a hue/tone of redI like your response ... hats off to you, Sir
Glad to see the fine art of gentlemanly good humour is alive and well here.
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Post by flyingspagmonster on Oct 22, 2015 8:40:32 GMT 10
Hi, I guess one good thing will come out of this. Like all stirrers that come on this forum, you will upset a lot of people quickly, then suffer burnout or whatever, & disappear into the distance. You really have nothing to add to this forum, except your opinion. From the reaction so far you must realise that your opinion is different than most. I would not expect anything useful to come out of your efforts to persuade us that you have a realistic & valid attitude to what this forum represents. But you have the right to state your thoughts. Its just I think you are wrong. HO HUM JBJ Hopefully more than one good thing. Maybe a van saved somewhere, plus giving some of you an excuse to fire up the two stroke
As for differences of opinion, clearly that's the case here. There were a few who were okay with my position, but certainly not the majority. I'm sorry for the 'mission' that that is the case, because once again, I believe the ostracism of alternative viewpoints and methods affects growth. But fear not, Grasshopper, disappearing in to the distance and/or suffering burnout are unlikely. That is to say, nothing so melodramatic
Finally, I appreciate your dignified response to something you disagree with. Another gent
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Post by flyingspagmonster on Oct 22, 2015 8:56:56 GMT 10
How many caravans have you restored FSM ? Or for that matter, how many have you owned ?? Love to see photo's of the ones you have restored, not a cheque book restoration. We all do the best we can do with our vans as skills and finances will allow. I personally have never seen any member scoff at some one else's work on any van . I have only seen helpful hints and whole hearted and genuine advice given to members. At last count, restored 6. Some from ground up - full rebuild, gilded and blessed hinges etc. Not one cheque book restoration. We do every bit of work ourselves, down to mechanics, electricals, plumbing, etc. Have owned approx. 9 vans over many decades, and have been caravanning and camping for half a century. We've done expensive restorations (rebuilds using premium materials) and budget makeovers. We have limited resources in time and facilities, so we stick to budget makeovers these days. They're just as satisfying as the rebuilds, because the end result looks pleasing to us and we end up getting more use out of these vans. The pleasure gained from a full rebuild is often tempered by the frustrations of not being able to use them, and the incredibly huge amounts of time and money they absorb. A carefully detailed rebuild which can't be used is ultimately less satisfying, TO ME, than one which has less shiny hinges but gets my family out into this beautiful country.
I have also seen plenty of generous help and advice given here, but sadly have also seen sneering and condescension.
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Post by kingswood308 on Oct 22, 2015 9:08:44 GMT 10
Love to see some of your vans. What brands and build years do you own?
Have you ever attended a V V get togethers ?
I have never seen any sneering and condescension, as I stated, all I have ever seen is a whole lot of genuine help and information from members, those of us who know each other, and have done for many years, gee each other up, (Friends do that ) Many many friend ships have been made because of this forum.
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Post by flyingspagmonster on Oct 22, 2015 11:48:57 GMT 10
Love to see some of your vans. What brands and build years do you own? Have you ever attended a V V get togethers ? I have never seen any sneering and condescension, as I stated, all I have ever seen is a whole lot of genuine help and information from members, those of us who know each other, and have done for many years, gee each other up, (Friends do that ) Many many friend ships have been made because of this forum. Kind offer, but we've elected to engage in our vintage van hobby privately - with a few like-minded friends. As regarding our various vans' details, build dates range from 1956 to 1964. No, have never attended a VV get-together. We spend a lot of time in caravan parks around the country, and would prefer not to be identifiable as a result of posting pics. We have our motley crew made up of various old vans/old tents etc, and find that's plenty for good times. We do occasionally get chummy with more interesting grey nomads around the traps, and that's always nice, but otherwise we're independents Something we've long noted is that caravanners seem to fall into four main categories .... the aforementioned grey nomads, young/ish conservative families with modern vans, VV heavyweights, and VV 'hipsters' (as in young/ish and not conservative). Given that the vast majority of guests at most caravan parks are going to be from the first two categories, there isn't much in the way of social opportunity for those in the last two. I would suggest that the least opportunity falls to the last category. That's us. We're not heavyweights, and simply choose old vans because they're nicer than modern ones.
Meantime, you may not have seen any sneering, but I've seen it plenty of times. It's not always overt, but it's most certainly here in abundance. Please remember I'm not talking about direct sneering here, with someone sneering directly at the source of their contempt. This is observational sneering at the standards of the work of others. It's third party stuff. That doesn't diminish its capacity to alienate new blood, though. In fact it possibly makes it worse - because when an observation is not isolated to a specific context or event, it appears more pervasive. It becomes a vibe, an 'atmosphere'.
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Post by JBJ on Oct 22, 2015 13:30:46 GMT 10
What I cant understand is why, when you state that you dont want to be part of our "community", that you have to come on our Forum & have a shot at the way we behave as a group ( which you have only observed from the fringe)
Why not just go away & leave us poor uneducated peasants to ourselves, in relative peace & tranquility to enjoy what you believe are inferior ways??
I have no interest in trying to re educate you into anything at all, so why are you doing it??
You appear to be a strange person, & hope I manage to continue my life without coming across you in person. You offend me on this Forum, & I can only imagine how nice you must be in person.
JBJ
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Post by flyingspagmonster on Oct 22, 2015 14:11:05 GMT 10
What I cant understand is why, when you state that you dont want to be part of our "community", that you have to come on our Forum & have a shot at the way we behave as a group ( which you have only observed from the fringe) Why not just go away & leave us poor uneducated peasants to ourselves, in relative peace & tranquility to enjoy what you believe are inferior ways?? I have no interest in trying to re educate you into anything at all, so why are you doing it?? I appear to be a strange person, & hope I manage to continue my life without coming across you in person. You offend me on this Forum, & I can only imagine how nice you must be in person. JBJ Actually it was superior ways I referred to, not inferior. The responses to my suggestion that judicious cutting of corners ought not be demonised is a perfect example. I don't mean to be rude, but what a gosh darn silly thing to suggest - that support of the occasional bodger makes me a bad person. Not to mention it confirms my point - again. You may not personally like my approach, but this isn't personal. It's about saving old vans - however we do it. Eg, the old Globey on page 1 of this thread was used as an example of, presumably, a difficult and intimidating job. Thing is, if it's still sitting in a paddock for want of someone prepared to do a full rebuild, it's another van effectively lost. I'd prefer to see Joe/Jo Bodger take it home and throw a tarp over it, any day. If he/she manages to fix it enough to register the thing, even better, because at least it'll be maintained. Is the intellectual exercise of analysing it in its paddock helping the van? And don't worry about running into us, it's not likely you'd know who we are, even if our paths crossed. I wouldn't consider it a misfortune if they did, however
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Post by kingswood308 on Oct 22, 2015 14:21:50 GMT 10
Well for what its worth, my energy's are better spent conversing with like minded people, just the plain simple folk that are here to enjoy the friendly banter, old caravans and catching with old and new mates. Nothing more and nothing less. Got far better things to worry about someone with a weed up their Khyber Pass that has bugga all to contribute except their opinionated dribble. FSM, go troll some where else mate, no one is interested in your pedestrian dribble. Enjoy what ever life or life style you have
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Post by firefighter on Oct 22, 2015 14:30:49 GMT 10
Well for what its worth, my energy's are better spent conversing with like minded people, just the plain simple folk that are here to enjoy the friendly banter, old caravans and catching with old and new mates. Nothing more and nothing less. Got far better things to worry about someone with a weed up their Khyber Pass that has bugga all to contribute except their opinionated dribble. FSM, go troll some where else mate, no one is interested in your pedestrian dribble. Enjoy what ever life or life style you have Interesting posting.... from some body that got chucked of the forum while posting under another forum name
cheers f/f
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Post by justanotheramy on Oct 22, 2015 15:02:47 GMT 10
Hi guys. I'm going to chime here as I pretty much embody the "mum of a young child with no resto experience, few tools, no shed, not much money" being bandied around here as an example of a likely bodger. And yes, for all those reasons and more, maybe I am. I also have a lot of enthusiasm for vintage vans, and hope I have shown myself to be sincere in my desire to restore my van to the best of my ability. Key words there, eh? "to the best of my ability".
In addition to being a beginner, I am also by temperament and by training an extremely anxious perfectionist. This is frequently not a happy combination. I can only speak for myself, but I have been beset all my life by the conviction that "to the best of my ability is inadequate, and that I should be ashamed for even wanting to inflict my incompetence on the world.
I have been lurking and reading and asking questions on here for years because I greatly respect the collective knowledge of forum members, and am grateful and appreciative of your willingness to share it so generously.
And yet… Even though my Carapark has been sitting in my backyard for around 5 years, slowly getting worse, I'm only just now getting stuck in and tackling it, because my fear of losing it to the elements has tipped over to become greater than my fear of making a mistake or doing it wrong. My fear of making mistakes and getting things wrong is huge. HUGE.
The desire to preserve and restores and protect things, and a sometimes debilitatingly strong need to "get it right", are I suspect often close companions. I feel like that's a lot of what we're seeing in this conversation.
But it's precisely because of this overlap that some of us need a reminder that the world will not actually literally come to an end if we don't get absolutely every single thing perfectly exactly right. I know that's how I feel, often, and I know there's very little I would accomplish in life if I didn't have lovely supportive friends urging me to go the bodge because it's better than nothing, and because that way I will at least get started, and from there obsess about it enough that it will end up meeting a normal human standard of quite good.
So please, if I may… The request I'd like to make of all of the staunch defenders of accurate restoration contributing to this thread is that you step back a bit and take a private trip down memory lane. Think back to the first project you ever attempted. If you came to your first van project with professional trade skills, maybe think back to when you were acquiring those. We all have moments, when we're learning, when we feel daunted and discouraged, doomed by the scale of the task in front of us, and the seeming impossibility of ever being up to the job. If we're lucky, we have someone around to remind us in theses moments that we'll never learn if we never start, that we need to willing to give it a go and make a few mistakes along the way, that it doesn't need to be perfect to be good enough and worth doing. Please try to remember those forgotten moments when a mate or a mentor urged you to roll your sleeve up and just bodge it, and in doing so helped you keep going.
Sometimes, even for perfectionists — especially for perfectionists — it doesn't hurt to be reminded that it's okay to do what you gotta do to get it done, and in a way that allows it to still be fun.
I sincerely hope that in 10 or 20 years I'll still love old vans, and that by then I'll have the space and the skills and the tools to let my perfectionist self loose without going completely self-destructively bananas in the process. Meanwhile… I might bodge a few things so that it actually gets done, and I may occasionally open my chequebook to solve problems that will remain well beyond me for at least a few more years (TIG welding, anyone?). And that's okay. More than okay, since if it wasn't for that, my Carapark would be a rotting pile of salty rust and moldy ply scraps with a scrubby forest growing through it.
I can only guess how many other lurking nervous not-entirely-competent beginners on this forum felt cheered and encouraged by the post that started this thread, but I'm guessing that if they're out there they're scared… umm… shirtless… (excuse my implied language) by the staunch defence so quickly mounted by the "con" position and aren't exactly going to volunteer themselves for target practice. When you say you're not intimidating to beginners? This thread is not really demonstrating that. The standard it sets, and the tone of judgement towards anyone who is perceived to fall short of it, is out and proud and rather scary. Just sayin'.
Oh, and serious period accuracy obsessives, I love you, but please… respond to my thread requesting upholstery fabric samples for reproduction! Conservation starts with you posting me source materials so that these wonderful prints can stay available!
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Post by kingswood308 on Oct 22, 2015 15:03:32 GMT 10
Lets stick with the subject at hand Geoff.
If the Mod had of given me a reason why he deleted a post..............
Water under the bridge.
FSM has nothing to contribute to this forum, unlike those of us that do.
As well as support the V V site as I did and still do.
Cheers.
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Post by kingswood308 on Oct 22, 2015 15:59:31 GMT 10
I have one single current name.
If you wish to continue to continue this conversation, please do it via a PM.
Thankyou.
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Post by akeepsake on Oct 22, 2015 17:14:38 GMT 10
Ladies and Gents I'm amazed this thread has had 38 (39 with me ) comments in two days ! The best way to put out a fire is to not pour petrol on it !
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