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You have mentioned it before. Just nudging you. Bradlee was mentioning that we should start a group down here and we remembered that you wanted a group down here as well.

If you do get it started I hope it will be a generic hybrid group vs a prius only group even though it will be a majority prius owners anyway ;)

Once you get it off the ground that will be another excuse for us to take a drive down there for the meetings. I'm sure some of our members will also migrate if your meetings take place in months when we have no formal meeting. We would also have another group with which to share gatherings such as the annual Brewer's game meet. I also hope that you will include all hybrid models as there may not be enough interest for others to start a Honda Hybrid Group, leaving them without the information that may help them. With Wayne and Tom, you already have the expertise on the cars available. In our group, Prius' account for the majority of owners as well, including a few Hondas and Fords isn't a burden for us at all even though we do often have Prius-specific discussions. We even have non-hybrid owners (Geo Metro, Saturn SL2, Honda Accord EX:)) who participate and get a lot out of the discussions.

If you need any more information about our group's specifics or how we started off of Eric's model, feel free to pick the brains of myself and my father. We would all be glad to see the Metro Hybrid Goup trend spread to Chicago.

Tony has already answered some questions about this on the PrisChat. There is a section for Chicago owners.
He is leaning towards a Prius-centered group for several good reasons.

:( Oh well. I guess us others will just have to drive up to milwuakee where we can find some love ;)

heh.

(pasive/agressive enough for you)

Hi Eric:

___What is a Prius and what is a Priuschat ;)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wow. Nothing like being called out, huh? :)

As EricBecky said, there are some good reasons why I'm focusing exclusively on the Prius.
- The problem is not really in setting up the meetings, but what to do if/when people show up. Reading the notes from Milwaukee's most recent meeting, I see that a good number of people showed up. My initial fear is that more people will show up than we have space for. Call me afraid, but I just don't want to have to turn people away or make them stand along the walls for a few hours.
- I love going to the Milwaukee Group meetings. Truly guys, I do. But sometimes I notice that when the talk turns to tricking the Insight/Civic to turn the engine off in the winter, the Prius drivers are confused. Likewise, when talking about Stealthing, the Honda drivers have no idea what we're talking about. I want to start with a monovehicular approach and be able to speak about things knowing that everyone in the room is following along.
- We will welcome everyone and turn no one away. I believe that diversity is a beautiful thing and it would be great to be able to discuss the differences between the various hybrid technologies.

With that being said, if I'm completely wrong and we get a small turn-out or if people really want to have all hybrids together then we will open it up and change our name.

Also, I have been working on a web presence. It's not finished yet but I'm hoping to get it done by the end of the year. Ideally, I would love to have our inaugural meeting in January to kick off the new year in style.

If you are so inclined, feel free to check out the work in progress. Please provide any feedback you want. Keep in mind that I'm keeping it pretty light. From the members on PriusChat (that's another online forum, Wayne :p ) it's becoming clear that an increasing number of hybrid owners are not technologically savvy. I want to maintain a friendly and non-threatening environment where newbies can learn the simple things but techies can also delve into the details. If this means break-out groups then that's fine.

Here's the site so far. I'm housing it on Geocities just while I build it. Eventually I'll register a site address. http://www.geocities.com/chicagopriusgroup
Oh yeah, Geocities has a transfer limit. If you get the "exceeded transfer limit" warning you'll have to wait about an hour and then try again. Sorry, but I never intended on circulating the address.

Good looking site so far! Care to do some webdesign here ;P