Club for mainland Europe / EU members

[badhex]

Hello all,

This is a question partly for the mods, but also to our numerous members like myself who are based in mainland Europe and within the EU.  After it came up a few times in PMs and other threads, @Ags, @Victor Boesen and myself have briefly talked about ways to facilitate finding EU members, for topics such as buying/selling which is unfortunately quite difficult, as well as other relevant conversations about vendors, local clubs etc. As there are fairly small number in comparison with UK members, a single group / club for all of Europe mainland in the 'Clubs' section of SGL seems a sensible option.

Hopefully it goes without saying that there's no kind of political angle to this idea, purely a way to more easily find members in mainland Europe, and make buying/selling etc a bit easier.

• Firstly, does this sounds like a good idea?
• Secondly, mods - how would we go about creating such a club?

If there is a better way to achieve this goal, I'd also love to hear suggestions 🙂

Thanks everyone!

Edited July 25, 2022 by badhex

[Ags]

This would be really useful for us continentals!

[Ags]

@badhex have you found out how to start up an EU club?

[badhex]

Nope, I was waiting for the mods to reply. I'll tag a couple of mods and see what they say. 

@Stu and other mods, any chance you can advise on the above? 

Edited July 25, 2022 by badhex

[Stu]

Thanks @badhex. I will raise it downstairs and let you know.

Only concern with this sort of thing is that it removes you guys and your contributions from the main forum which is not what we want.

I’ll come back to you.

[Ags]

5 minutes ago, Stu said:

Only concern with this sort of thing is that it removes you guys and your contributions from the main forum which is not what we want.

I don't think that there is any chance of that happening!

[badhex]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Thanks @badhex. I will raise it downstairs and let you know.

Only concern with this sort of thing is that it removes you guys and your contributions from the main forum which is not what we want.

I’ll come back to you.

Thanks Stu. I think it would in the first instance possibly used for a quick way to ping club members to alert them to topics around buying or selling in the main forum, although I admit I don't really know how the clubs part of the forums works, as I'm not in any! 

I guess it won't be likely that people would want to post content that would normally live in another part of the forum. 

 

[badhex]

Just now, Ags said:

I don't think that there is any chance of that happening!

Haha snap

[PEMS]

For AGS I would have thought this one was relevant: www.astroforum.nl

Dutch based, has a For Sale section (Te Koop). I had it recorded as I thought I read of a star party north of Alkmaar some time ago. Thought I might attend at some time. Then Coronavirus hit. Never found further references, so may have got it wrong. Also the description seemed wrong - forested area north of Alkmaar. Didn't know of such.

Must be one for Germany, however never had reason to look for such.

[Ags]

Hi, yes I am a member of astroforum, but not that active. I am a frequent user of te-les-koop.nl for buying and selling.

[globular]

On 25/07/2022 at 22:11, Stu said:

I will raise it downstairs

real work = downstairs
playing with toys = upstairs

[SthBohemia]

Nice concept as Buy/Sell UK is useless to those within EU.

[badhex]

Hi @Stu, wondered if there had been any feedback on this idea, or suggestions for any better ideas? 

[Stu]

3 hours ago, badhex said:

Hi @Stu, wondered if there had been any feedback on this idea, or suggestions for any better ideas? 

Some positive feedback yes. You can start your own club using the button at the bottom of the club page here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/clubs/
 

Please note that this should not be used for buying and selling kit, same rules apply as for the main forum. There is some discussion about something which may help European members in this respect but can’t say anything currently as nothing is agreed yet. Will be back with an update when I have one.

[badhex]

Thanks @Stu and SGL for making this happen!

Just had a look, but I don't have any additional button for creating a club 🙂

Re buying/selling, I think the process will be something like posting in the main buying/selling section but perhaps just alerting EU folks via the club itself, assuming this is within the rules?

Also, looking forward to the potential European announcement you mention - exciting! 

Edited July 31, 2022 by badhex

[Stu]

11 hours ago, badhex said:

Thanks @Stu and SGL for making this happen!

Just had a look, but I don't have any additional button for creating a club 🙂

Re buying/selling, I think the process will be something like posting in the main buying/selling section but perhaps just alerting EU folks via the club itself, assuming this is within the rules?

Also, looking forward to the potential European announcement you mention - exciting! 

I think I’ve set up a club for you now. The settings should allow you to join but let me know if you can’t. I’m a beginner at this too so please be patient  

 

 

[badhex]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I think I’ve set up a club for you now. The settings should allow you to join but let me know if you can’t. I’m a beginner at this too so please be patient  

 

 

Great, thanks! Just joined.

To clarify, as long as the actual buy/sell posts are in the buy/sell area, we can post a notification thread in the EU group right?

 

EDIT: I have joined, but can't seem to post anything. To save you having to mess about, is it possible to make me an owner/leader? Looking at the other clubs there are a usually couple of people in the *Leaders* section.

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by badhex

[Stu]

I’ve created an Astro Chat forum where you should now be able to create topics.

I’ll see if I can add you as a Leader.

[Stu]

@badhex I’ve made you a moderator of the group, so you should be able to manage content, setup new forum sections etc

[Stu]

23 hours ago, badhex said:

Also, looking forward to the potential European announcement you mention - exciting! 

As you will have seen, Grant has set up a European Buy Sell section which hopefully will be useful to you all 👍👍