ost everyone agrees that communication among our fellow Alfisti is a key element of membership in our club. To the extent that we can exchange information, ideas, opinions, and (occasionally) parts, we make our Alfas more fun and rewarding to own. Toward that end, we established the online Velocissima Forum at this web site a little over a year ago.

Although over 60 AONE members signed up to become Forum members, the Forum didn’t really reach "critical mass"—that point where enough of us used it often enough to encourage everyone to read and contribute regularly. It was like, "If I post a message and hardly anyone responds, why bother?" And, "If people rarely post messages, why should I bother checking the Forum?" The proverbial Catch-22.

So here’s the solution: Many Alfisti around the country are already using the Alfa Bulletin Board (www.AlfaBB.com), because that’s where the action is! It’s definitely reached "critical mass"! There are nearly twenty various technical forums, some classified cars and parts for sale forums, ten general and miscellaneous Alfa forums, and several regional forums—including ours!

Some of you are familiar with and active in Alfa Digest, the long-running Alfa email list. But the forum format has soooooo much more to offer! All messages are organized by topic, so you don’t have to sift through postings that don’t interest you. The forums are searchable. Posts can include photos and other file attachments. Once a thread begins, its name can’t be changed (a pet peeve of mine on the Digest). You can choose to be notified by email when anyone responds to a message you post, or when any message is posted to a forum that interests you. Messages can be sent privately to other forum members. I’ve just scratched the surface—the list of features goes on and on! Forums run circles around the old Digest format in terms of power, flexibility, and usability.

If you’re not already an AlfaBB member, we urge you to become one pronto! We also encourage you to use your real name as opposed to an alias (you’ve nothing to hide, right?), since it’s nice for people to know to whom they’re talking. And we highly recommend that you "subscribe" to the "AONE - Alfa Romeo Owners of New England" Forum (enter the Forum, click on "Forum Tools" near the top, and then "Subscribe to This Forum"). Thereafter, you’ll receive a notice once a day via email whenever messages have been posted to our Forum.