# TTOC attendance at the MkII launch in Berlin



## TT Owners Club (Mar 5, 2006)

A number of comments and questions have been made on a thread (http://www.********.co.uk/ttforumbbs/viewtopic.php?t=60448) in the MkII forum regarding the TTOC's invitation by Audi to the MkII launch event. Whilst some fair questions have been raised, many responses seem to have been made without reference to the facts. Hopefully the following information will help to make the situation clearer.

*Question area 1 - Why was the ******** not invited? / Why did the TTOC not invite Jae? / Why was Jae not "co-opted" onto the TTOC committee? *

As we understand it, from our conversations with both Audi UK and the small number of other TT clubs who were invited to the event, no internet forums from anywhere in the world were invited to the event by Audi AG, it being Audi AG who organised the event and set the rules regarding who would attend.

Jae did contact Mark fairly recently regarding the event, asking if he would be able to secure him a ticket. This was not possible for a number of reasons, although as Jae mentions we did try ("Nutts did kindly ask Audi UK for the TTF (after the TTF had asked both the UK and AG"). The primary reason we suspect was that Jae would still have been attending on behalf of ********, which did not fit Audi AG's invitation profile. It would not have been productive for the TTOC to push this point with Audi UK as this would have damaged the relationship between the TTOC and Audi UK (jeopardising future support from them) and would not have had the desired effect as Audi AG, not Audi UK owned the invitation list.

Jae was not co-opted onto the TTOC committee because a) this was never discussed or requested by Jae, b) co-opting a non-member onto the committee would be most irregular for any club and c) clearly both Audi UK and Audi AG would have noted that we were changing the list we provided them of committee members who were able to attend (see below) to include Jae, who they had previously turned down, so it would not have been a successful strategy - a view Jae would support I'm sure.

Finally, some people have commented that attendance at the event should not have been given to anyone as a reward (and it was not) and others have suggested that Jae should have been invited by the TTOC as a "reward" for his support for his club.

Although the huge amount of support that Jae has given the TTOC is very much acknowledged and appreciated, getting him invited to the event was totally outside of the control of the TTOC. Jae has made it clear that "reward" is not the reason that he thinks he should have been invited in any case.

*Question area 2 - Why were TTOC members not invited? *

There was never an option to invite TTOC members. This was a press, not public event, and the TTOC were invited primarily as we have a full colour magazine that is purchased by members as part of their membership. In the same way that readers of Evo or Top Gear were not and would not be invited, the invitation was explicitly to TTOC committee members who would use the opportunity to create content to be delivered to the whole membership, which means content that must go into the magazine, not just the forum - not all TTOC members are active on the forum.

*Question area 3 - When did the TTOC know it was going to the event? Was their attendance "secret" ? *

We have been in discussion with Audi UK for several months in anticipation that, at some point, there would be some sort of launch event for the MkII, either in the UK (as was originally hoped) or elsewhere. This early engagement, and the raising with Audi UK, and therefore with Audi AG, of the idea of TTOC representation at the event was clearly a good strategy in terms of securing attendance. However, Audi UK were only able to confirm in the last week that they had secured three places for the TTOC. It was only this week that the fourth place was confirmed.

It was not intended for the TTOC's attendance to be secret, but we acknowledge that the fact that we were attending was not well publicised. Partly this was due to the short timescales between it becoming clear that we would be able attend and the event, partly because at that stage our efforts were 100% directed towards ensuring that absoluTTe was totally finished apart from the space reserved for MkII information so that it could go to press and be sent to members as soon as possible after the event (it went to press on Friday following afternoon a mammoth 24 hour effort from those who attended the event and those in the UK) and partly because, given the above two factors, we just didn't stop to give it too much consideration - it was not discussed and there was no policy to post or not post.

In retrospect, had we have had time to think about it, we may well have come to the conclusion that whatever was posted would in some way be seized upon by a small faction of ******** members who will look for something negative to say about anything, and may have found fault with whatever was happening - something we just did not have time to deal with whilst focussing on ensuring that our attendance at the launch was productive.

However, we do understand why some members (and many non-members it seems) feel it may have been useful to know in advance, and in a similar situation in the future we would learn from this and may do things differently. We do hope though that once we have time to sort and post more of our images from the event, you'll feel we didn't miss too much.

Please remember that all the committee members have busy work & familiy lives that coexist quite happily with our passion for the TT and the club most of the time. Occasionally though work or family life has to take precedence - it is not always possible to devote every waking moment to club activities, and the launch itself was our top priority in this case.

*Question area 4 - How were the TTOC attendees selected? *

As previously mentioned, those attending had to be TTOC committee members, as defined by Audi AG. A number of factors further reduced the range of members who could attend. Firstly, there were a number of people who were unable to attend due to work or family commitments.

Secondly, although it ultimately transpired that Audi UK would invite us to join their flight and stay at the hotel they had organised, at the time we were being asked to supply names of possible attendees, we believed that we would have to fund this trip ourselves. As no TTOC committee member receives any expenses of any kind (e.g. for travel to committee meetings or visits to possible event venues) this meant each committee member would have to fund their own trip. We agreed as a committee that although we knew it was possible that Audi would fund the trip, as this was not confirmed, we could only put forward those who were willing to do this.

Finally, we had specific objectives for the event, and of those committee members who were still possibles to attend, the committee decided, as a group, that those who were put forward for attendance were those post able to achieve those objectives for the good of the club and the membership (and not just the subset who frequent the internet). These objectives were to create a subjective article for absoluTTe and the web (and with both Barry and myself (Kell) being unavailable, Leg, as absoluTTe features writer, was chosen to carry this out attend), to ensure that a range of photographs were taken to both support the article and for publication on TT-F and to further develop the club's relationship and visibility with Audi to ensure maximum support for future events and activity to therefore enhance the TTOC membership experience.

*Question area 5 - Withholding of "exclusive" information / access to advance information. *

The first place that the TTOC released ANYTHING from the launch event was the ******** with Mark's post made at just after 3:30am (local time) following the event, as we prepared photos and text to be sent back to the absoluTTe team in the UK - hardly a lack of support for ******** or the actions of a group wanting to hold back something "exclusive". Obviously we have not posted all the photographs that we took (literally hundreds) so there are other photos that will appear in absoluTTe and will, as we get time to edit and publish them, appear on the web, but those that were posted on TT-F were deliberately chosen to both give a flavour of the event and a good very early view of the interior and various exterior views of the car, the lines, the wheel options etc.

We were also supplied with an embargoed options list, to enable us to get this information into absoluTTe (which, as mentioned, went to press on Friday afternoon). This information was available on ******** before we came to post it, so there was no need to re-post it. The other "information" we were given was the press photos supplied to all attendees at the event, which have been widely published on the web, as we knew they would be - which is why we published our own photos here on TT-F to provide forum readers with something they would not see elsewhere in the same timescale.

*Question area 6 - ******** representation on the TTOC committee*

Jae has never requested such a relationship or put himself forward for a committee position (or indeed even membership of the club) and we have never discussed or offered it to him. There is the potential for a conflict of interest if Jae were to be on the TTOC committee - Jae's company, Cogbox, is obviously a commercial enterprise and has in the past been (and could in the future be again) a supplier of services to the TTOC, which is a not-for-profit club run by members on a voluntary basis.

Having Jae both owning / running the ******** and being on the TTOC committee could cause a confusing situation for advertisers who may be approached by both organisations and would effectively prevent the TTOC engaging with Cogbox in the future to avoid any suggestion of bias when awarding the contracts for TTOC business. This is similar to the situation that arose with Dave Mahoney stepping down from his TTOC Committee position to avoid a conflict of interest with his (then new) TT Shop operation - as a commercial organisation that needs to make a profit, a potential advertiser and potential supplier to the club it was clearly inappropriate for him to be involved in the running of the club. Similarly, Russell stepped down from the running of the first incarnation of the TT Owners Club when he started his involvement with Forge Motorsport.

Jae of course is always welcome to attend a TTOC committee meeting, or if he is able to travel to the UK for the TTOC annual event this year, to meet with us their and / or attend the AGM if invited to do so by the membership - I'm sure Jae will let us know if he'd like to do this - we've certainly extended the invitation for a friendly beer, but of course the fact that he is not based in the UK does make frequent and personal interaction with the club hard for him. We're a committee that does meet regularly and in person and we've invited members with concerns or questions about the running of the club to attend any committee meeting in the past - and of course, this invitation remains open to all members - please email or IM any committee member if you'd like to attend.

Of course, if any club members who have constructive comments and ideas (and this thread has a few) would like to join the committee and help with the running of the club and, as was crucial in this case, club marketing, including PR (a role that as you all know has been open for some time) that would be both ideal and very much welcomed.

Kell, on behalf of the TTOC Committee.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

This post was intended to be read only - with discussion continuing in the existing thread, so I've therefore removed the single reply that had been made and locked the thread.

However, it would be unfair to remove the single comment that had been made before the thread was locked as intended.



jampott said:


> _[Full text of first post repeated]_
> 
> Unfortunately I don't have a TT. And I'm too truthful.


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