I hope I'll be able to make the next gathering at Hometown Buffet, whenever it is.
Occasionally someone suggests another location, but nothing has been generally agreed to be better. I wonder if folks might at some time consider a somewhat more formal group. Look at the SF Bay Area group's last meeting at a library conference room,
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=121675#p121675. Boardwalk Nissan even shuttled people over to the meeting; I suppose they had driven farther to the meeting and left their cars charging at Boardwalk.
It's possible that if we had a formal organization, that our voices might be heard. E.g., maybe we could persuade the San Diego city council that it is important that the city's only EV Project public charging stations (in Balboa Park) be accessible to EV's, and they need a parking/towing ordinance and serious enforcement. Maybe we could even persuade the EV Project that there needs to be a
second public charging station sometime in this decade.
Several possibilities come to mind for a regular meeting place, mostly in the same general area as HTB.
- Hometown Buffet (the incumbent). Who knows, maybe with continued business they'd be willing to install a charging station or two and it would be easier for some of the more distant people to come.
- CCSE (an EV Project partner). This seems well within their charter and they provide meeting space for some other groups.
- SDG&E (an EV Project partner). They just opened their "Energy Innovation Center" with meeting space.
- Miramar College (an EV Project partner)
- Qualcomm (an EV Project partner). They host various community and technical groups.
- Cisco (an EV Project partner).
- University Towne Center - Forum Hall - (anchor stores Sears and Macys are both EV Project partners). This raises the possibility that a meeting host which was part of the EV Project might install charging stations, and might use that installation and the group meetings to get some good PR.
- city library meeting room, e.g. at Mira Mesa library, like the SF Bay Area group is doing
- Balboa Park. This could be "fun." There are lots of suitable meeting rooms. It would only work if park officials agreed that for our meetings park rangers would cone off the charging stations so members who don't live near the park could attend. And that might be the "thin end of the wedge" of realization that access to charging stations is just as important as building those stations.
As for organization of a formal group, I'll admit that I'm hoping that someone else will want to organize it.
I'd kind of expect the leaders to be the same people who are now informal leaders. To me it would be fine if it were specifically a Nissan Leaf group, or if it were an EV group. I'd welcome our friends with Mitsubishi, RAV4, garage conversions, and yes even GM Volt and Prius PHEV. I suspect given the number of cars on the road, whatever the membership scope it would end up being overwhelmingly a Leaf group in any case. It would be fine with me if we organized under auspices of the San Diego EV Association, or if they were afraid of being overwhelmed by Leafs and wanted to stay far away from us.
So, if anyone agrees that a more formal organization might benefit us, maybe someone will start trying to lead in that direction. And if not, then I still look forward to breakfast and good conversation at HTB.