Origin Insight

[Oldman]

Could it now be made clear where this site is 'funded from' so it can last forever & not suffer another collapse with the health of the fundee.

Cheers & that's my 2 cents worth.

Our Patron walks amongst us, David……..

[Melissa]

Our Patron walks amongst us, David……..

And 3 own the keys - not just one!

[Grantus]

Ok so to clarify the Kombi Club full name was Kombi Club Australia as per the stickers and the banner that is used. I should not have expected people to be aware of this .... my bad. I did post it in the original thread but no doubt not read in full.

SO the name of the independent forum is purely the full name of the original name & the url with the Kombi Club being an abbreviation. The url has changed BUT the name is still the same. The original url/forum was also independent.

Some time back I contacted The Bus Stop about the payment of fees for the continuation of the forum and received this reply from Neil (he was not responsible to pay) - 
"Roy was controlling the kombi club site.

I have no roll in the kombi club & how Roy set it up is not straight forward."

As Roy had contracted Parkinsons Disease and has other health issues to the stage where he is under 24x7 care (his wife and daughter doing the heavy lifting here) unable to do basic things such as feed himself it would be a good guess that the Kombi Club Australia (Original Forum) was not a priority to him nor his family & is he cognitive enough to make decisions to continue to pay fees associated with running a website of no real value to him.

The banner used and under the custodianship of Melissa was the property of Roy/The Bus Stop and supposed to be used @ events to promote the Kombi Club Australia = bit hard when logistics prevents other states accessing use. So there is a question to be asked about reimbursement of the costs by this new KCA to take full ownership?????

If anyone thought that the original forum would last forever must have ????? ..... "tell 'em their dream'n".

Too much here that needs factual clarification.

The original Kombi Club forum Roy set up, at “www.kombiclub.com”, was a great marketing tool, and tax deductible advertising expense, for his Bus Stop VW parts business, which worked very well for sales. Not an independent site, and solely funded as a backup to his commercial business side.

The home page then stated “Kombi Club, OF Australia”, to define for customers, it wasn’t based in New Zealand, the UK, Columbia or anywhere else. The Oz bit was added to stickers etc, to ensure the definition, but was still the same KombiClub name and domain.

When the 17 years of member based donated posts of invaluable information, became inaccessible, and unobtainable, as the current owner would rather not respond, and let it sit locked on a server somewhere for eternity, a new site was needed. The new domain “KombiClubAustralia” was independently started, to keep the community together, with no commercial ties, or links to the old Kombi Club.

You raise the point of IP infringements or copyright issues, but ALL the information here, at KOMBI CLUB AUSTRALIA, is member based contributions, as it was on the KOMBI CLUB website, and neither owner, has any Intellectual Property rights on the forum contents, as all the info is volunteered, and posted by unpaid members.

As to your suggestion of reimbursement for the KOMBI CLUB banner,  Melissa is happy to hand over the old KOMBI CLUB banner to a courier, should Neil see any value in it, want it back, and should notify Melissa of a date and time, his arranged courier will collect it. I’m sure Melissa would love to hear from him, as he’s been elusive to many disgruntled Bus Stop Parts customers, or anyone else, who would also love to hear from him………

I actually remotely hoped, as you were a founding member of KOMBI CLUB, you may have had an insight as to how to obtain, access, or restore the 17 years of information, that members contributed to the Kombi Club, to make accessible again, to the members here at Kombi Club Australia.

[Grantus]

The original Forum and the Kombi Club Australia was still under Roy's control ..... where the funds came from well pick a box. Roy didn't dump the original KCA his health did - is it definitively confirmed by Roy that payments were the responsibility of The Bus Stop ..... transferring ownership would have been very expensive and more so with software support for the contents.

If everyone is so pissed about what happened then why assume ownership of Roy's club, setup a url/forum in his club's name, design it the same format as his (I know this answer) and then copy threads which are the property of Roy &/or Prophecy Enterprises as the site developer ..... did anyone look into copyright and/or plagiarism of web sites and contents  .

All I've done is set out the origin of the Kombi Club Australia as NO one on here knew it and just accepted it was 25/06/2005 - as I did post on the original KCA forum ..... never let the truth get in the way of a good story - post got deleted with no reason but that's the way the boat floated.

Please see my earlier response, re copyright etc…..

BTW, You are now confusing “KC”, or as you insist, “KC”( of A), with the actual “KCA” in your references……..which will inevitably confuse others, if you persist.

[DavidH]

And 3 own the keys - not just one!

So whom do I owe the big thanks to?
I've 2 suspects & a 3rd maybe. I think I'll PM this now!
Cheers

[SPLIT 1]

My first post on this new site.

Well here goes, time to bore you all silly

Some may know me from quite a while ago and I think some things need clarifying and put in perspective regarding the Original Kombi Club, from my hazy recollections.

In about 2000 there was no Bookface and hardly any forums specifically for Australian aircooled VW,s, remember it was also the time of Dial Up Internet.

Aussieveedubbers was started about 2000ish, I was one of the first members as the forum owner invited me to join his new forum as he saw me on the Split Screen Van Clubs forum in fact my username name on aussieveedubbers was  "Dave in Adelaide" as I am certain I was the first member in South Australian, after a few months this changed as the membership increased I went to "Kombi Dave" and eventually to "57komb"i as more kombi owners joined

There where no Kombi specific retailers in Australia in fact there was really only two parts retailers being Boris at Vintage and George at Classic VW.

Boris did not really do much in regards to Kombi bits and so most people used George. The problem being his cheap and nasty parts where just that South American and Brazilian rubbish.

As my username at the time suggested I was restoring a 57 Split Screen Kombi and I ordered some metal panels from George and when they arrived they went straight to the scrap metal pile.

I had just been married and I convinced the new wife that a honeymoon back to the UK would be great, I did fail to mention that the best split parts at the time where produced in the UK.

I had been a member of The Split Screen Van Club before emigrating to Australia and at the time the most restos of splits world wide was carried out in the UK so they knew their stuff.

Whilst on "Honeymoon" I ended up going to Creative Engineering and Alan Schofield and ordering a pallet of stuff to be shipped back to Australia and my carry on luggage was 40Kgs over, ( it was worth the extra charge).

Now this is where Roy gets involved.

I could not get anyone to ship the Deluxe beltline trim as it was about 5m in length.

I had seen the stuff the Australian retailers had and it was from the USA and was no where near the same profile as the original, where as Creatives was a perfect copy.

In about 2004 I mentioned I was trying to source some Creative Engineering trim and some new bloke on Aussieveedubbers said he could get me some Creative stuff and the price was a hell of a lot cheaper than shipping it out myself, dont forget it still cost me  a couple of grand or so in 2004 which was a hell of a lot of money then.

This bloke was called Roy, he was a fellow Pom and was restoring a couple of Kombis himself up in QLD and he was getting stuff for himself shipped out as it was cheaper and better quality then was available here.

I actually called him a scammer and that he was full of crap when he told me the price, it was that much cheaper.
He turned round and said if he can get it for that price would I buy it, of course I said yes and he then said "well dont pay me till it arrives at your door" 

About 6 weeks later and yes it arrived attached to a wooden board as it was about 5 meters long, it was paid for that day.

He told me he had started the business as he needed the parts himself and was not happy with the quality of parts available locally and was getting stuff from Schofield and Creative ( mind you we both knew that Creative was the worst company to deal with but their parts where the best in the world)
They said they had shipped my safaris 6 times, all rubbish but there were worth the wait. ( I don't know what the quality is like now but then they were unbeatable)

We became very friendly talking on the phone a couple of times a week discussing our restos and parts ect and just to set the record straight his business was not started to make money to live on it was to help restore his own vehicles, his hobby.

I also remember we bonded over the fact we hated that people called every two tone kombi a Microbus, to set the record straight a Microbus has a heater tube under the back seat , same as Deluxe's
If a split hasn't got the heater tube is a standard generic "Kombi"

As Bert stated he then had a lot of trouble on Aussiveedubbers, I can vaguely remember it was about he time the forum was sold and they where trying to get more money from advertisers and George was not happy that Roy was advertising prices (that he could not match) I am not certain what went on in the background but Roy asked me about starting his own forum just for Kombis.

Obviously I though it was a great idea and his original intention was not to use it as a full out advertising tool for his goods but to offer discounts to forum members and then get people to organise runs and meets in each state.

He offered to pay for it and let members run it themselves, he never stopped people mentioning if they used others parts or if something was available from other sellers, it was about getting more kombis back on the road

I honestly believe a lot of the kombis you see on the road today would not be if it was not for Roy.
Not just his parts but the forum.

I only attended one Bus Stop and we brought a few splits with us, we all had a great time

I have not been on this site for a decade or so and I feel so bad that he is sick, also if my memory serves me well its actually his son in law that took over the business?

I believe I was one of the first members and logged on the first day it went live, I left after going through a divorce and then also selling my 13 window splitty, I needed a break from kombis as I don't tend to have a filter and I can be too honest at times. I have been building motorbikes and I also restored a 64 Beetle, I don't like Beetles but it was smaller and I had the room and after 30 odd years of being involved with VW's it was easier than any other car.

The reason for this post is there seems to be a bit of animosity towards Roy, and even though I have not spoken to him for over a decade I still thank him for the great times I had due to his site.

Dave in Adelaide, Kombi Dave, 57Kombi, Split1

[Grantus]

My first post on this new site.



The reason for this post is there seems to be a bit of animosity towards Roy, and even though I have not spoken to him for over a decade I still thank him for the great times due to his site.

Dave in Adelaide, Kombi Dave, 57Kombi, Split1

Welcome (back) to KCA Dave! 

I have the utmost respect for Roy, and also thank him my purchases from him as a customer over the years, and for the brilliant idea of creating the community he did, on the Kombi Club forums.

I can assure you, the whole Admin / Mod team here, at Kombi Club Australia also feel the same way, and this independent site only became necessary, to continue Roy’s community vision, when the current owner of KC, his relation Neil, failed to upkeep KC, and wouldn’t reply to even enter into any discussion or arrangement, to have KC continue.

Any animosity, seems to be coming from disgruntled customers of the Bus Stop parts business SINCE Roy has no longer been involved, and some former KC forum members, that lost a heap of valuable information, and are / were, unaware of the full situation.

[Oldman]

Welcome back Dave….thanks for your insights into the origins of the original KC. 
We may have a new site but many of the long time members are back on board…..
Rest assured that, as Grant posted, that any animosity towards the Bus Stop parts site is not aimed at Roy…..however because of his long standing history with the site, he is being incorrectly associated with the current situation.
We, Admin. here, have taken every opportunity to explain that every time it has been raised on this new platform.

[Melissa]

Great to see you found us Dave! We would not be here without the original Roy. There is no animosity towards him.

[BrianK]

I remember your only bus stop Dave 2010, welcome back.  I only found the KC site via the bus stop through help from mr google. I was looking for spares as just bought our first kombi. Thanks for starting the forum Roy. No bad remarks will come from me.