More info on ACNA?

[flintoid]

I've been browsing these boards for a few weeks, did I miss a sticky with information about ACNA background, organization, etc.?

[scottydl]

What exactly are you asking? Are you wondering about changing visible background colors and such... or by "background" do you mean a history on the club, and how it got started?

[flintoid]

Sorry for the ambiguity . . . I just mean, what is it?

[JimW]

Essentially ACNA started almost 2 years ago on automotiveforums.com. One of the Aurora forum regulars named Amanda Holland wanted something a little more Aurora specific. She set up the first ACNA web forum with Proboards. I helped her set up the site by naming forums and general admin of the site since I had experience with admining www.bonnevilleclub.com.

From there ACNA was born. We toiled briefly to find a site name, and Aurora Club of North America sounded ok. The site started with the Aurora regulars for automotiveforums.com and grew from there. We had hopes with setting up a site on a dedicated server and our own URL. At that time, Aurora40 and Scottydl were named admins along with Elan (erw38) and myself.

Amanda sold her Aurora to her mom and get a Lincoln Continental....we don't often hear from her anymore.

The ACNA v2 site didnt work out to well as our host was really lousy. We migrated back here and Custom88 was recently added to the staff.

The "club" held its first multi-car meet at GM Nationals at Carlisle last summer. Dan (Letitroll98) took home the award for Best in Show!

I've held several little regional mini-meets on my own.

I think that about covers it.

[Aurora40]

Here's the first ACNA site I can recall: www.geocities.com/aurorapride/ACNA.html

The intent initially seemed to be to have a club. However, expressed interest was much higher than actual interest. For our national meet, we had 5 people come out. I believe that is still the largest gathering of ACNA folks, though. So it's really settled into just a forum. Heck, even getting some stickers made up hasn't taken off!

[Letitroll98]

aurora40 said:

Here's the first ACNA site I can recall: www.geocities.com/aurorapride/ACNA.html

The intent initially seemed to be to have a club. However, expressed interest was much higher than actual interest. For our national meet, we had 5 people come out. I believe that is still the largest gathering of ACNA folks, though. So it's really settled into just a forum. Heck, even getting some stickers made up hasn't taken off!

Judging from the sign my guestbook page it looks as if Steven, Marc, Bob, and Jim are the four original members that are still with the club. There is a Scott on there as well but I can't be sure if that's our scottydl.

We seem to have a fairly healthy web forum that doesn't generate an interest in a real 'having meetings' type club, even for regional members. However the site does have a very clubby atmosphere to it suggesting there is more, or perhaps the possibility of more. The paradigm for a club with regular meetings would be the ones who are successful at it now. The major national Olds club seems to be focused on classic models, 442's, Cutlass's and the like, with some regional chapters devoting their interest in antique Olds. The OC of A guys at Carlisle were very cordial, but did view us as 'those Aurora guys'.

I would, unfortunately, predict a dip in active membership here as the mark ages and the car becomes more of a beater or first teenagers car. If the ACNA can stick around long enough, there should be a resurgence as the car becomes more of a true classic and joins the ranks of the aforementioned 442's and Cutlass's in Oldsmobile lore and collectability. I think we could jumpstart this by joining your local chapter of the OC of A and bring the presence of Auroras to a higher level nationally and regionally.

[JimW]

Agreed there Dan.

We'll do our best to maintain that clubby type atmosphere. For me, personally, its an expanison of a social circle with people that have similar vehicular interests. I enjoy meeting up with club members here and there, however its been difficult to generate a large scale meet. We're pretty small potatoes at this point.

[stevensolds]

Man, if we even have another carlisle meet this year (im going regardless who here is), there has to be more members that can make it. Who else is within a 2 hour drive? Blondie? Jason?

And dan i didnt remember them mentioning us like that at the OCA booth. Then again i wasnt really paying attention to much. This time i will. We missed the free tshirts and everything.

I hope you all who made it last year come again though at least. I'd look pretty lame by myself.

[95mushroom]

Yep, some more history:

Thanks to Bob and others, current(me) and post-current members have found their way here from different, old Aurora forums, the ghost-town edmunds town hall board, and the there one day, gone the next gmforums forum. Some made it here, some haven't.

[95rora]

I came over from OF and havent been back since. Jim made strong recommendations to join ACNA and there was alot of talk about it so I finally joined. What a difference.

[MBowen574]

Gosh. I've been an Aurora enthusiast since the 2001 debuted. I don't really know what attracted me. My mom had looked into purchasing a Classic before (as in, before they were Classic) but never went forward with it. I joined originally several years back, probably two or three, but lost my login information. I didn't post until I re-registered earlier this year, because I was cleaning out my Favorites folder in prep. for reformatting my hard drive and found ACNA in there. It's been crazy fun ever since. ;D

[flintoid]

aurora40 said:

Heck, even getting some stickers made up hasn't taken off!

Couldn't you just take the club's 'logo' and upload it to cafepress?

[macadamiaman]

I would, unfortunately, predict a dip in active membership here as the mark ages and the car becomes more of a beater or first teenagers car

Going on that, I've seen an increasing number of (mostly classic) Auroras on ebay with the bigger chromes, subs, tints, stereos, etc... You know, typical teenager stuff. I always liked the car, ever since '95 when my dad opted out of buying one since it was a first-year model (good choice, 95 had problems), and got an Eighty-Eight. I think I was around 9 years old then... hehe.

Anyway, as the mark ages, and gets more affordable, and Aurora ownership shifts from the old to the young, I think the younger crowd will be a lot more into the Aurora name, mods, knowing others with the car and whatnot. Not to mention the younger crowd uses the internet a lot more than the older.