Well here's my bob's worth, I'll welcome them, WHEN THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY OR ADD, otherwise they are NO addition.
Some of these new members have as much crack as the latest additions in a cemetery, it is feasible for you new guys, to add something
to any of our little discussions, just to keep interest. Maybe we should employ a spiritualist or the like, Ouija boards are supposed to be good for ghosts, I don't think we're making contact, hang on...... contact......... no.... nearly.... no.... it was just the dog passing wind!
The upshot is gents, it IS a forum, or are you in awe of us, speak up for God's sake....... joiners but no voice, pathetic!! Just note the log
ins we carry 1/3 rd dead men, no contributions, parasites, yes I like the term, non contributors= parasites, sums it up really, otherwise
why the silence? Especially when you have much to say elsewhere. Surely I don't have to name names, but if I have to, I will boys. It really irks when members of this forum extend welcomes, to be met with...... nothing, not even thankyou, if it were up to me, these ill mannered folk would be incinerated, but it shows modern trends and bad upbringing, one must excuse the pig for his grunt, or lack of, in this case. If I speak out of turn, members, let me know,
but I do tire of WELCOMES FROM OUR MEMBERS to be met with nothing, no response, NOTHING, the ill mannered sods. Be assured of this , I am a Northerner, I stand by what I say, folk that I think are false, I'll find out. I have no sympathy with clats.

I agree. Why don´t the new ones present themselves. They could at lest let us know what they collect, where on the globe they live and age. It´s really interesting to know if there are young ones, who collecth real films. In the Norwegian club we actually have some new friends in their 20´s and 30´s. That gives hope for the future for this great hobby.

Being in the late 30s, it is good to know I still give hope to something ;-) At least for another year...

I can only speculate, but when I started to be interested in 8 and 16mm films, I didn't have much. I only had a few cartoons at my parents house as they had a projector when I grew up (which they still use for the home movies). I wouldn't know what to say in a forum. I didn't collect yet, just got curious and wanted to read and learn a bit more.

I think I registered in an other forum without posting anything. The reason you would still want to register is to get info about which post you have read and which ones you haven't. That could off course be interesting for the old members to know, but I was afraid to look like an amateur idiot who didn't know a thing.

Only when I was about to buy my first projector and had a real question it felt natural to make my first post in the Norwegian film collector forum. Vidar responded the same day, and here I am a few years later being active. A lot of members probably collect already and have something to say, but for me at least it felt like I had nothing to say at all: "I collect nothing. I know nothing. Just a bit curious".

The best trick to get active members would be to have a friendly forum which does not make it scary to post your first question. I think we have such a forum, so with some patience the newbies like I was (and to a degree still am) would finally start posting.

Some forums use a plugin to make new mandatory fields when you register. We could have something like which year we started collecting, or if we have started at all, which kind of film format we collect and so on. That way we could know more about new users even though they haven't posted anything yet.

Some extremely valid points made there Eivind! Well done you!!

Great suggestions made there regarding the intro stuff!

I have raised this point before and I too still find it frustrating at the inactivity of some members
of this forum. Sadly in this case it seems to be the MAJORITY of them.
If it were not for the input of the SAME regular contributors I would not be still here.
What you guys have posted and said thus far has been informative and even educational.
To the rest of you I implore you ... FOR FECKS SAKE SAY SOMETHING ... It is a FORUM after
all.

I take the point Elvind we all start with nothing of weight in our collections, but with time, collections form. In my day
there were no ways of communication other than mail or if you were fortunate, telephone. It was a lonely sort of hobby, unless
you had a cine club handy. I was a loner where cine was concerned, all my friends were football enthusiasts etc, so no conversations on
film. Now, there are any amount of forums and other outlets, my gripe is with the ill manners of some of these people that join,
if it is a "scary" forum, please define, these newbies are welcomed with open arms, mainly by Vidar, Andrew or David, to not even a hint of response, I'm sorry, but their crassness says it all, you can seek out many excuses in defence of their inactivity, but lack of manners I think covers it.

I despise ignorance also Hugh, if I'm honest. I much prefer straight talk rather than silence.
You can have much respect for people who oppose ourselves with their own different opinions, but to simply ignore someone is down right ill mannered where I have been brought up.

These days, I am never truly certain how many active interested individuals there are left in this hobby of ours. Certainly not many truly active ones, that's for sure!

Exactly Andrew, just a thank you or acknowledgement, but no, nothing. Ignorance is bliss as far as a lot of folk go.
what annoys though is the posts that spring up on the 8mm from the "struck dumbs" on here.

I agree that it is unpolite to not answer a directly addressed welcome. I have no idea if they actually have seen the welcome or not. Some probably have.

But I for one have registered to more than one forum and maybe not returned in a while. By that time the post can be pushed way down. Most forums I have been to are tech forums with loads of users. I guess at least some of the users don't realize how small the forum is and that they are actually noticed when joining.

I do not try to defend people that does not reply to a welcome. That is not ok. But there might also be cases where they join without much thought about it and do not return for many days.

I don't know. Just my two cents. I understand your frustration.

hello Eivend and welcome to the site,hope you enjoy the chatter

I just wish he'd post more often, he comes over as a nice sensible chap.

I wish I posted more often too ;-)

You know; with a family the days passes quickly. When my son finally get to bed I often just end up at the sofa with the remote control in my hand too tired to write any sensible things :-) And the projector is at the cabin (not any place for films at home in our small apartment. So I don't watch films as often as I wish. I look into the forum as often as I can, though.

What are the topics of conversation that interest you the most here Eivind?

And for the matter, what are your dislikes?

Hmm. Difficult questions. As I have not collected more than a few years I have still a lot to learn. I guess I have interrest for the techical part, film types, projectors and such. I am generally interrested in old technical equipment.

But I also love the magic when we watch movies with pop corn and coca cola in the dark with the sound of the projector and the film creating life on the screen that digital media can not come close to. Here in the forum I learn new things all the time, or hear about films I didn't know much about.

And I love when people share their magic moments, like when Vidar finally got his Alien on 16mm or someone got a movie they really enjoyed. And I love the welcome I got when I first got to know other collectors like Vidar which really helped me giving advice when I bought my projectors and I didn't know where to start hor when I had a hard time getting my Eumig to work properly.

I don't think I dislike much. Maybe just if someone can't behave which happens some times in forums around, but I think we got a great bunch of people here and don't have many problems.

I don't have as much time as I would like for the hobby, and I am not experienced yet, so I don't have much to say every day, but I love to read the posts here and try to read it all.

Elvind, you surprise me, it shows really how influences from foreign shores infiltrate,Coca Cola, it used to be Kia ora, We'd never, ever eat popcorn during a film. indeed, in this country, (Britain ) Ice cream, peanuts & raisins, butterkist (popcorn in small packets),Ice lolly's even a hot dog, but never the tasteless stuff served up now -a -days, times change, but not always for the better, still, as long as folk
enjoy their night out. Like I said before, please comment more, it is valued by us folk.

You mentioned small packets, which is the one thing I don't like about Britain :-) Calling 50g big bag is weird :-) Here's a big bag of crisps 400g ... LOL ... I always need 3 or 4 Wots Its. One thing I miss when I am not in UK. Those are really good. I'd swap the pop corn for those any day

Vidar, you are so right, the so called Crisp manufacturers, are F';;.[[; Robbers, there was one," Seabrook" Crisps, we used to buy them from
our local newsagents on site for our "bait" (lunch) they were bulging bags, proper crisps, you couldn't eat more than two bags, not the blown oil rubbish now, and at the same price as the other rubbish, but they went the way of the dinosaur, no doubt to fall in line with the fuckin' EU, We lead ( led ) the world in crisps, fer Christ's sake, I'm ashamed for my little pal Vidar, what a shambles we have as a country, World War Two, a waste of men,
to hand to faceless people, for a giveaway price, and for what? We can't even make a decent bag of friggin crisps. Sorry lads, but it
just goes against the grain, a country that entertained the Bosch in their night clubs, suddenly seems fit to tell US, Britain, how we
will suffer, I think not. Vidar, apologies, but when we get freedom, I guarantee full bags of crisps.

Eivind thank you for your reply there, it always interests me to find out what other people seek from these types of forums, simply because I believe there are many different agendas varying from person to person.

I, like you, enjoy the techy talk among the forums. It's how we learn to care for our machines and hopefully how we learn to fix them when things go wrong with these aging pieces of equipment.

I equally like all of the film talk here and on other forums but am not so keen on immaterial subject matters as I see on these type of forums on an all too frequently occurring basis.
For me, we have places like Facebook for idle chit chat, these places are some of the few, for a collective of real film fanatics, to get together and share knowledge, enthusiasm and experiences across all of the gauges of film and its equipment.

Don't be shy new guys! Heck, I only have a handful of digests and a few small machines! No one has ever ignored or belittled me, so if you are a beginner collector, YOU ARE WELCOME here too! We actually NEED some young blood here, as many of us are getting along in age (LOL!). We need someone to pass our knowledge on to!

Listen up young Sirs, no one here lords it over anyone, we all started small, indeed mine were with the Castles 50's and eventually
to the Columbia Sinbads, B/W silent, but loved every frame, film is film, regardless of sound or silent, each has its part in this great
mosaic of film.

You can't get any smaller than my humble beginnings!



A Casdon Standard 8mm silent projector with a whopping 200ft spool capacity, no rewind facility aside from turning the reels around, and a scorching 6v, 10w motorcycle indicator bulb!

Loved it when I was a kid and so did my mates in my mum and dads kitchen circa 1973/74 !!

Andrew, that is the GS1200 compared to the friggin' HORIPET battery operated scratch machine that put lovely
silent prints through, then ruined, in my mind the Japs machines are not much better.

Ha ha ha. Sounds like my mates Imac silent projector that one Hugh. Sounded like a tractor and was a far better paper shredder than it ever was a film projector!