[CLIVE FENNER]

My main frustration with the Moulton Club is the lack of shared knowledge. This is the reason I joined Facebook.
Questions on the clubs website forum go un answered for weeks, if at all. There are a lot of very experienced club members sitting on a lot of information. Share with club members or risk loosing them for ever.

[Simon Painter]

Hi Clive, I’m a recent returner to Moultoneering. I was most active in the noughties, when I used to go to the BoA meetings and owned and maintained a number of F frame & TSR Moultons. Back then, I found that the Moulton Yahoo group was a veritable fount of all things Moulton, with a large membership including some very knowledgeable veteran specialists. I found that even quite technical questions coukd be answered within a couple of hours. The spread of accumulated knowledge was really most spectacular. However, things change over time and I don’t think it is quite the resource that it used to be. A blunt observation might be that some of the original characters, for whom a discussion group was a nautural fit, may be getting on in years (I know I am!) and of course, priorities change as the decades roll by. I wonder if it is possible to access and search the Yahoo group posts. Over the years, any number of topics were discussed, some with humour and some with great authority and it must form an absolutley awsome resource if only it could be accessed. I remember for example, reading what amounted to a step-by-step lecture on exactly how to build a pair of wheels for a particular F frame restoration! Likewise I received a lot of encouragement when I decided to attempt to brazing, which I’m glad to say worked out well. It was only bottle-bosses, but all the same, gave me a great sense of satisfaction once I’d included them in my latest F frame restoration at the time.
I hope you find that the Facebook page suits your needs – funnily enough, I’ve just deleted my Facebook page, a decision come to reluctantly as it was a very useful way to keep up with friends & family who live and work abroad.

[Rod Laver]

i agree with Clive on this topic, when i started out I asked a few questions but got little response. More recently I contacted the parts service and only got one reply, thanks to Doug Pinkerton.

The club site could have one big advantage over FB, it could store and host knowledge. FB is actually too ephemeral, something is posted and an hour later the discussion has moved on.

[Simon Painter]

I wonder what happened to the Yahoo group archive – is it still accessible? Could it be saved, somehow, for use by future generations of Moultoneers??

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