First of all, I have to say it's good that we are starting to focus on the most macro issues and leave most minor stuff for later, as David explained. While I have to admit I am quite pessimistic after the league's 2014, this is definitely a step forwards.
1- TOA/ISR Club
I think the most important thing here is that we are careful with what we want to do. I read some suggestions from people wanting to, in a way, kill the Club and just have a strong leader who organises FSR. I believe that would be a death sentence. The ISR Club is one of our greatest strengths, which separates us from any other simracing league. We have a Club with a purpose, a mission, with a structure, an organisation, those are big assets. We shouldn't get rid of those.
What we should do is bringing the Club up to modern times. If the Club's documents and structures are outdated or impractical, let's update them, let's simplify them if necessary, let's make them practical and realistic. But we really need a structure and then to follow those documents, instead of ignoring them. We need to have a structure if we think long-term, because people come and go, so we cannot base our survival on a few leaders, we need the Club to be strong on its own, without any indispensable members. I still remember at the beginning of 2005 when the Club was very close to death and the work of two guys, Dennis Hirrle and Joel Roux, on our current structure, was what allowed FSR to survive until today.
As for opening to the public, all Club documents were always supposed to be public and should be easily accessible to anyone. I would also be definitely in favour of allowing Ace and Pro representatives to participate. It would be difficult for all of them to become fully voting Club members due to the amount of teams, but maybe independent (non related to any WC teams) Ace & Pro teams could elect a few representatives to make their voice heard in the Club/TOA.
2- Lack of volunteers
Personally I would look at how do we make helping FSR more attractive, what incentive can we give to volunteers, rather than a scheme were we oblige teams to do so, although it might not be an easy thing to do.
As David said, lack of volunteers in the press area (website is almost completely empty of content) and lack of people making highlights and promotional videos (Edu had shown great talent here) are two of the most serious issues. We really need to increase the league's exposure. The good number of social media followers were practically wasted, even my FSR Fantasy League could have been better used. We are wasting too many opportunities to create exposure to the general public. Currently, most of our traffic and broadcast viewers are FSR drivers and teams themselves.
The volunteers problem doesn't only apply to exposure though. While FSR was getting the racing basics right traditionally, there were some quite serious issues this season. To have no issues, we need a group of Race Directors who understand the responsibility they have and are able to produce consistent and unbiased results, following the rules. The same applies for COA members, who should also be active, independent, fulfil the requirements of the COA Statutes and not serve the interests of the directors.
3- WC Sister Teams
If we want to get rid of sister teams, the solution would be easy. Where the rules say
one related team we change to
no related teams. Done. Unfortunately, the problem is the side consequences it would have, which is what we should focus on attacking as an issue. The main side effects could be difficulties to fill the grids (as we had in past seasons) or top teams taking their drivers to Ace. While if that happens it would still help avoiding those team-plays between 4 drivers, it won't help new and smaller teams.
4- Business aspect
Not my area of expertise, but I agree with Jonny that having dedicated business people would definitely help. We need to have a lot more marketing if we want to have more sponsors. Unfortunately, with our current exposure levels, we have zero value to any potential sponsor, but if we can improve on that, it could make our chances a lot better and get us a tiny bit closer to the dreams the ones who created the Club many years ago had. I think the main marketing challenge is how to market simracing, how to make them see value in it, instead of just dismissing it as a videogame for a hardcore group of people.
I really hope we can continue a productive discussion! Also, as long as it is organised with and by serious people (John-Eric and/or David, probably, as President and VP), having a chat might also not be a bad idea, it was something which was supposed to happen annually among Club members, according to the documents, if I'm not wrong. Sorry for the long post!
