Following on from the Seminar...XJS Workshops: a suggestion

[Jagdcat]

Having thoroughly enjoyed David Marks scaring me, I have wondered whether there is support/interest in possibly running a more hands on course covering basic servicing procedures of our cars.

I accept there are a number of potential prohibitive factors. However, I would personally jump at the chance to spend a day or even weekend learning the correct rudiments for changing fluids/wheels/brake pads/callipers on an XJS.

Two main engine types probably means two separate workshops but, given the attendance a couple of weeks ago, it might be feasible.

Feedback gratefully sought

JC

[ptjs1]

JC,

For a number of years now, a number of us have been asking for a much more practical format for the XJS seminar, including hands-on activity, examination of a car on site, inspection and checking of members cars, strip / rebuild of mechanical components etc etc.

Unfortunately, we don't seem to have got any traction on this with the club management. Perhaps you could also write to the club suggesting some of these ideas. Eventually, we may get somewhere!

Paul

[Jagdcat]

Hi

Happy to add my voice in that case.....one job for the weekend!

JC

[davidr]

JC
That's certainly something that I'd be interested in. I try to do as much of the work on my car as I can so I'm always up for learning new things.
I found the seminar very good and certainly made lots of notes and a long to do list. However, much of David's presentation was repetition of the seminar he gave in 2008. It was still good value for me as I understood much more of it this time!
But it was a broad subject matter and a lot of subjects were covered in not much detail. To have spent more time going into greater depth with real cars to look at would have been good. If that's over more than one day then great,
Regards
David

[raysearles]

Gents,

Since taking over from Sue Hedley as Events Chairman (which may well therefore entitle me to think that I am therefore part of "The Management") I would like to respond to the above thread. The events team and myself have been looking at several ideas to evolve our events offering, which includes the shows/tours and seminars, and we have been taking soundings on what people want aside from the current "standard" offerings.

A number of ideas have and still are under consideration, one of which is indeed a more hands on seminar; however please recognise there are many challenges from taking this from idea to bringing it into fruition. I have been to a few of these type of sessions with other clubs and ended up finding them less than satisfying in terms of content - often they are nothing more than a thinly disguised advert for the business hosting the event and clearly we want to go beyond that and provide the next level of detail below the seminars.

Three challenges therefore have to be resolved:

i) which model of Jaguar to host this type of event on (maybe your thread has given us a steer)
ii) location (we would need to hire a workshop with multiple bays, or take over one of our experts business premises for a whole morning or more - recognising that along with their experts time this would attract a cost to the club that would have to be borne by the attendees). This facility by the way is no longer open to us at Castle Bromwich due to H&S restrictions imposed on us by JLR.
iii) content ( we would have to avoid two things, firstly simply replicating the information given out at the Castle Bromwich seminar, and secondly, ensuring that one or two enthusiastic individuals do not hijack the event for the purposes of resolving specific issues that could be dealt with directly with an expert individually). The content and structure would therefore need to be developed carefully by initially Nigel T, and then how it would be presented agreed with the experts involved - not an easy task at all. We should remember that Dave Marks has been supporting JEC seminars for years and is in that regard a polished act, whereas other technical folk are not always as comfortable as Dave is in front of a group.

Therefore it is not that we are not listening nor are not willing to embrace this as an idea we want to take forward merely that as yet, we have not been able to resolve these problems in a way that we feel offers our members value for the money they would have to spend and offers the quality of presentation that we want to provide.

In the past we have had to cancel seminars due to lack of support from the membership, and we would clearly like to avoid this happening with the first of this sort of event. If the XJS Forum co-ordinators could therefore help by putting together a list of people who would be willing to attend and the sort of areas they would want to cover in more depth that would be of great help in moving this agenda forward.

Myself and Nigel are happy to work with anyone who wants to help us get this off the ground to explore options, particularly if there is a ready made audience within the XJS community though it would now be in the context of next year of course.

I can be contacted separately from here on my email: ray.searles@jec.org.uk or on my mobile 07961 977769 if you would like to get involved and help drive this through.

Regards

[Jagdcat]

Hello Ray,

Thank you for the in depth response. The challenges faced by way of a 'hands on' event at first could look prohibitive along with the inherent H+S blame culture in the event of a 'what if' scenario.

However, a number of potential shortcuts could also exist to overcome some of the problems presented. In terms of an appropriate workshop with enough bays, my initial thought would be to engage with an FE college that has a MV facility.

For example, I frequently hire an 'environmental tank' from my local college to deliver bespoke offshore survival training. The college welcomes working with me as it raises extra revenue for them. Weekends have not been a problem either. Obviously, it comes down to each individual college's outlook but with the recent cutbacks in FE they are generally receptive. Costs haven't been prohibitive either.

Another upside is the facility will be insured and meet all H+S / LSIS / OFSTED requirements to deliver learning, which is really what we need. Another benefit would be the lead expert XJS lecturer could have support from the department's qualified tutors.Therefore, envisaging 4 bays, 4 learners/one tutor to each car, minimum of 16 course spaces could be achievable - although this could be even 20 if one cohort was utilising floor space for say, wheel/pad changes.

As to cost? Well, savings to the individual could be within 2 services. The money thereafter saved would also be beneficial to owners who could put it towards bigger, technical jobs on their cars they have been 'ignoring' or unable to pay for. Therefore, reduced custom to specialists is unlikely and may even promote work!

I do also concur a separate V12 / straight 6 workshop would be most appropriate due to their inherent engineering differences.

It goes without saying, I would be happy to volunteer my knowledge of the FE sector to help the event happen, should the will and demand exist

Jagd

[Brakebuster]

i like the idea of hands on workshops as detailed above, however , i feel there is a tripping point with regard to individuals working on their cars in such a workshop , and that is the components that are to be fitted ,

Individuals would need to bring their own repair/replacement components, but its a chicken and egg senario , in that these individuals are there to learn , and as such are not informed enough to bring all or even the correct components, would aftermarket items be acceptable, or would jaguar only replacements be required ,

say an individual wants his pads and discs changed, doesnt buy genuine Jaguar but aftermarket, then doesnt get all the required components, and as such cant get his vehicle road worthy to drive away at the end of any tutorial session , what then ?

where does the responsibility lye ?

in principle its great , but would be a royal PITA to administer imho

just my thoughts

BB

[raysearles]

Gents

For the second time in 2 days I find myself agreeing with BB; this type of seminar could not work if attendees expect to work on their own cars - quite apart from the pitfalls re parts that he points out, there would not be enough experts on hand to give the attendees the support they need, and timing too then becomes a problem. This is really the "hijacking" that I referred to - one or two individuals would dominate the time and others would not get the answers they sought.

Yes the FE college idea might work, but the college and tutors would all want paying and our experts time, and catering would also have to be factored in . Knowing the cost as I do for our experts then I can say for sure that we would probably need 30-40 attendees to have any chance of making such a session economic at a personal level, and we have to also recognise that participants have to travel to the seminar and there is a limit to how much they will spend. If they just want to change discs/pads for example it would be cheaper to get your local guy to do it whilst you looked on for free - so I had assumed the idea of going deeper post seminar was to tackle the problems with rather more complicated work.

As I said I am happy to work with JC or whoever to develop the idea for a possible seminar involving the rest of my team, and particularly Nigel T once the idea was fully developed and budget costs established. My details from the earlier post are there for development of the idea and any other correspondence on this subject.

[ptjs1]

Ray,

Thank you for having the courtesy to read this thread and respond on behalf of the club.

It would be great if we can start to plan for a different type of event which has some variety and more of a practical and visual aspect. I agree that it is probably impractical to have people working on their own cars, for a whole variety of reasons. However, we could easily have a part of the session where a diagnostic scan is done on each members cars. (I've been advocating for some years now that we should have been doing this at National day. Other clubs are so much better than we are at this type of practical engagement.)

We've been pushing for some years now to change the format of an XJS seminar. I know that we all have differing personal views but I feel that we have been regressing constantly since the XJS seminar of 2005 which had 3 groups of participants, a much broader agenda, brochure and history talks, technical discussion, car on display for examination, talks with XJS Forum representatives. Feedback on the subsequent years and a request for change has happened through the Bulletin Board, see here:

http://www.jec.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2149

http://www.jec.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1390

When I was part of the XJS Forum Co-ordination team, I also gathered email feedback from participants and forwarded that to the club.

Surely the start point for any Model seminar should be driven by input from the Forum Co-ordination team who have the best appreciation of what members want, the hot topics of problems on the Bulletin Board etc etc. A Model seminar is, after all, a Forum event isn't it?

None of this comment is in any way intended to take away from the fantastic efforts of Nigel (& Pauline) who organise things in a thoroughly professional manner, and the encyclopaedic knowledge and enthusiasm of David Marks who is a true ambassador for the club and the XJS!

It's just time to consider a different format isn't it? With over 1300 members owning XJSs, we should have no problem organising an event that is overbooked and ensures owners want to come back every year for some new content.

Paul

[Jagdcat]

Hi all,

I'd just like to re-affirm the original 'blue sky' idea was really basic maintenance, changing of fluids, brake pads, top bushes, etc. As I am not expert I have no idea what a Scheme of Works for basic maintenance would look like although you could do worse than base it off an XJS service schedule.

In terms of cost, I've doodled some numbers based off similar events I know of but, apologies in advance if my figures are really wrong but they merely represent a 'top down' starting point:

Lets say only 16 people show an interest at a cost of 250 for a two day course: gross income: 4000
Lead expert I have no idea but perhaps they charge the same as their workshop rate so, 65 x 16 guided learning hours, total: 1040
4 additional tutors @ 175 per day, total: 1400
Use of work space @ 500 per day: 1000
560 remaining for food, conponents - if really needed

As for cars to work on, well, as the idea is to gain basic skills and knowledge to work on your own car at home, really only 4 would need to be volunteered. I also think the basic level we would be there to learn would be well within the mandate of the tutors supporting us.

I suppose the litmus test would be seeing how many people came forward and showed an interest.

Seriously though, the seminar the other weekend was really enjoyable but a common coffee break chat was wouldn't it be even better getting our hands dirty.....fingers crossed

Regards

Jagd

[Brakebuster]

hmm,

i feel that the above proposal is not a practical way of instructing lots of individuals on basic maintenance procedures, which apply to any make and marque of car

i do however feel there is a place for ' tutorials in the basics ' for our cars, i personally would not need this service , but many may .

how about

a tutorial video on each basic subject available to club members , say , brake pad changing, changing engine oil , changing anti-roll-bar links etc etc

these short vids could easily be compiled and stored on the server, and or produced on DVD , this i feel would be much better than a step by step picture montage in the magazine, but there is still a definite place for that as well , and could be made at the same time effectively ,

just brain storming here ,

larger subjects like engine strip downs , or gearbox refurbishing/replacement, could be covered in a live tutorial , complimented with a dvd handout to jog the memory once carrying out the work on your own car

BB

[piman]

Hello BB,

I've got an old video produced by Forward Engineering on rebuilding the XK engine. I found it very useful and there are lots of little tips as well as the general procedure. I don't see why it wouldn't be feasible to do similar?

Alec

[raysearles]

Does lightning strike 3 times - yes it does, again I agree with BB - I think the idea of a basic maintenance seminar would be better (and more cost effectively) covered by online video tutorials.

Reality is that £250 for a 2 day course - (plus hotel accom, food, and fuel) would probably cost delegates £500 in total and I doubt there are 16-20 people out there who would pay that - remember we typically only get 45-60 people attending the seminars at £60 or thereabouts.

I also think tutors would not work Saturday and Sunday for a basic hourly rate - I wouldn't.

I agree with Paul the starting point should be input from the Forum Co-ordinators about what members want - again this relies on the individuals feeding that back to myself or Nigel or another member of the Events team.

Without wishing to repeat myself again, I am happy to work this through with anyone as an idea, but as Paul says this relies first on the Forum co-ordinator to come forward with the topics required - I am therefore now looking to the XJS community to debate their ideas and get together with me to see what we can come up with that might satisfy that need at a cost that is reasonable that members will pay.

Over to you guys now - to debate what you want and have a dialogue with us to take it forward.

[Jagdcat]

Hi Ray,

As you rightly say, consensus decides and rightly so.

However, I don't agree a delegate would spend £500: the seminar hotel was only £43 inc breakies. Also, I can confirm I have hired tutors for weekend courses at the rates I suggested, meaning I am not too wide of the mark.

I am also resigned if they haven't happened already then there are clear fundamental reasons why and maybe those of us that seek greater working knowledge of our car are probably best off seeing if we can observe the next service we book.

Jagd

[Brakebuster]

I am also resigned if they haven't happened already then there are clear fundamental reasons why and maybe those of us that seek greater working knowledge of our car are probably best off seeing if we can observe the next service we book.

Jagd

Maybe you could video it and submit it to the club to post as a tutorial ?


BB