Guys,

I have to tell you, as the forum owner, I have NEVER written a post like this, but I am absolutely ashamed of some of the posts and behaviour that certain members of OUR community have been involved in over the few days.

As a result of this, one member - Tiny - has been banned.

I have spent over an hour on the phone to Justin from SPX Racing tonight, where we were discussing the future of his relationship with AUSRC.COM. I am happy to say, for the moment he is prepared to hang in and continue to support us. This shows excellent commitment from Justin given that there have been members of our forum that have been absolutely determined to drag his brand through the mud, albeit that his doors have been open for 5 days, and I have to say he has done nothing other than be professional and be polite.

While Tiny has been banned primarily because of his behaviour towards SPX, consider this. What damage has he done to the SOLS club? While I don't for a minute think that his views reflect those of the club, if SPX one day decided to support SOLS, would this have damaged the chances? What if people read other posts from Tiny and say... "Ah, that's becausse he is a DPS fan boy so he is trying to make SPX look bad". Again, I am good friends with Kris from DPS, and can assure you this is not something DPS would either ask for, or approve of... but again, when members behave this way, these are the conclusions that other members can jump to. I think these are some of the things that members typically never consider, when they type without thinking.

I currently have proposals out with 3 other potential AUSRC.COM sponsors... what are the chances of them seeing all of this crap that has gone on in the last week, and now running a mile from AUSRC.COM? Fairly high I would suggest.

We have a great community, and frankly I am not sure WHAT has happened to people in the last 5 days. We have certainly had a few members forget their manners (to be polite).

To be very specific about SPX Racing, Justin opened his doors 5 days ago and he is looking to build a huge inventory of stock. I think his website, pricing and customer service are looking to be as good as any local or international shop, and is therefore a great addition to our forum, as have all the sponsors before him. Certainly if he can do for "land" RC what he has done with RC Helicopters through fxheli.com, we will all benefit.

Another thing that I need to make clear. AUSRC.COM sponsors are NOT clubs sponsors and there should be NO expectation that because a company is supporting AUSRC, they should be supporting clubs, etc. Again, the notion of some members, and their brashness in their posts towards our new sponsor and that they should be sponsoring their club, is quite frankly rude. Again using SPX as an example, knowing some of the things that FXHeli has done to support the RC Helicopter community, if you give Justin a chance to get the store open and running, and demonstrate that we are poilte and reasonable individuals... you never know your luck.

Generally however, please do not turn AUSRC.COM into a forum that no one visits because of in-fighting, flaming and a general lack of manners. This is a great forum and has been around for many years where other forums have failed. This is because we are different, we have a great community with LOADS of valuable information and we also know how to have a joke and a laugh.

This forum is a large part of my RC Hobby, and frankly I really have not enjoyed it much over the last few days.

Let's get it back on track.

This thread is closed as I am not looking for repsonses. If people would like to comment, please PM me.

Cheers,
Chris.