Re: Rebirth of the HunterDOG Club? Phoenix, or Progeny?

[TopDOG]

I might be able to roast some ribs and as we all know doggies do love their bones and ribs are full of them!!!

[TopDOG]

So did anyone get keen to make our club run great again apart from me, vince and the baby jesus himself? I have a large deck space, a new BBQ, a table with seating for 6 and lots of handrail leaning area and time off work until i die!!!

[TopDOG]

Great to meet you too mate, we will  stay in touch over the course of the coming months around some DOC activity.

Stephen Couri 
General Manager

[TopDOG]

I also dropped into Frasers today while I was in town getting an injection and chatted with Stephen Couri and i offered my help and support while im not working anymore and hopefully turn us into a proper Ducati registered club!!! But as he said its going to need a group of willing active members which unfortunately most of the dogs are me not included in the clubs rides but im looking / hoping here daily that people will be involved

[TopDOG]

I know of this former great active Ducati owners group that would benefit from his help and yes this is that club as its already got its own website and forum with keen former committee members like me who cant really afford to ride anymore (but wants to desperately) but still wants this group to be the club it should and can be again!!!

[VinceS]

Here's a news flash. WE'RE BACK!!!!!


Well, we can see the chickens inside the eggs anyway, yet to hatch. But serious chance they will. So, what's happened, you ask....?


In short, Steve Couri is recently back running the Newcastle Fraser Dealership, and he really wants to see an active, interested, genuine Ducati Owners Club happening in the area, and is prepared to support it. Steve is a pretty active dynamic kinda guy who ran the Newcastle outlet a couple of years ago or so, before moving to Perth to do the same thing. He fostered starting up a Perth WA DOC, from scratch, and loves what happened there, and how well it works. Now he's back, he wants to see if it can happen here too "Why not, Newcastle sells more Ducatis" is a pretty interesting indicator...


Have you been into Broadmeadow lately? I was there yesterday, and half the front was full of Ducatis, about triple what I've seen before. And nowhere near the volume of rising sun annoying trip-hazards I saw last time I dropped in. Didn't get to ask Steve if there was a new stocking policy / whatever, but he did say that pretty often they sell 25 Ducatis a month. It would have been 4 or 5 last time I knew. Interesting. And good!!!


To flesh out the details, about a month ago Steve rang me and we had a great chat about getting a club going again. He promised to ring back 'with more details' later. So, given the silence, I dropped in to follow it up. What we decided is Steve is going to prepare an invite to look for expressions of interest to get a genuine club going; he'll pass this to me and maybe we'll edit it a bit. Then Steve will issue it to the "2,000 new owners of Ducatis in the last 5 years" and I'll do the same for the 200+ forum mailing list here, so some will get it twice.


If we get a decent response with people saying how they would love to be involved, then we'll 'do something'. Like an inaugural bbq at Frasers, or whatever (suggestions welcome) to kick it off. What we need is to get the initial committee going, and they will take it from there. And about 30 financial members to get over the entry bar to have an 'official Desmo Owners Club'.


One aspect is that Ducati Italy have started charging for 'official status' now, which gets the club a plaque and a bunch of goodies for all the formally listed financial members. I still have the plaques from 2007 and 2008 hanging on the wall from when we did this before. No cost back then; apparently its $2,000 or so now, so that means annual membership fees are around $80. Which the Perth experience was nobody had a problem with as it is an elite club they were happy to be a part of.


Once a few of the chickens have hatched we'll know what's going on. When? Dunno. Last q I had for Steve was "So, Steve, when can I expect to see the first draft of that exciting invitation?" "Not any time this month!" was the answer, with "too busy - got a big sales budget to meet and a lot of stuff to do to get that done". He told me a number, he sure has a job to do...! I said I'd be back mid Jan if didn't hear from him sooner; he's good with that.


So, what can you do? Apart from 'getting excited', maybe stick your head around the corner of Steve's office "just to say how keen I am to get involved in the new Desmo club Vince tells me you want to kick off". He'll hear you, and the more that happens the better. Mentioning me lets him know it is 'the real Ducati owners' that care. Of course, just a subset of the whopping big number who still don't know, so there is that...


If this thing gets up, a decision for the new committee is exactly what happens to this piece of history.... At least at strategy level. I personally have gone riding with Ulysses and various FaceBook riding groups and others a fair bit over the last few years. Met lots of terrific people, but not found anything like the fun and engagement one gets hanging around on the road and pubs / coffee shops with a bunch of Ducatisti. We sure could use a bit more of that back around here!!! Are you in? Call in on Steve!
 

[VinceS]

Just had a good chat to Steve Couri, Frasers Newcastle Sales Manager, and he tells me a lot of things have changed very much for the better at the local Newcastle store. I pretty well gave him the "heard it all before" line, but he assures me that this time it really is different - and it appears he is right!

There is an absolute determination within Frasers to get the Newcastle store really cracking along, and it seems they have made a lot of progress in that area - at least as far as sales are concerned as a lot of new Ducatis have been walking out the door. He asks that anyone that has perhaps had a bad experience in the past give them another go - and expect to be impressed! He also said that Warren Fraser regards Newcastle as "his baby", he visits the store all the time, really likes it up here and won't let anyone lay a finger on Newcastle - except in a good way of course!

Whilst it is all very well for Warren to feel emotionally attached to the store, he also sees where they have gone wrong in the past and was determined to fix it. With their new team and fresh approach to the store he sees they have now almost got there, and they have certainly come a long way.

One thing that particularly comes out of this is that Frasers would like to reestablish a proper, albeit informal, relationship with the local Ducati club. So Steve is suggesting they will put a bit of a club BBQ on at the shop and supply meat & drinks for the club to encourage Ducati owners to rock on down for a look. Probably a Saturday arvo would work well. Any input to the idea is welcome, or we can just schedule one and see what happens!

The following article appeared in the current Cycle Torque and fills in a bit more info about what has been going on locally: