Frequently Asked Questions

About the Region

Technical Items

Who is the Region For?

Golden State Region of the Plymouth Owners Club is organized to promote the preservation of Plymouth motor vehicles through the common interest of the membership and to provide an environment of camaraderie and to develop informational, social and recreational programs.
 

Who Can Join?

Membership is limited to those who are members of the national Plymouth Owners Club. No vehicle ownership is required.
 

How is the Region organized?

The Region covers the state of California. In areas where there are concentrations of members there are sometimes local meetings. The Region provides an umbrella for members to schedule and run local events. The Region also provides for one state wide event per year that coincides with the annual meeting.

Nearly all events are scheduled by and run by members local to the event itself. A major goal of the region is to provide the structure to assist these local efforts.
 

Where are there local groups?

At present there are concentrations of members located in Southern California, the Central Coast and the Bay Area.
 

How do I start a local group in my area?

Send an email to and ask for a check box for your area name. How many people does it take to form a local group? Just one.
 

Why are there no events scheduled in my area?

Because you (and your neighbors) have not scheduled any. If you want to get things going in your area, simply set up an event and place it into the schedule. All region members who have agreed to accept notifications about events in your area will get email describing the event. Schedule the event long enough in advance for people to put it on their schedule.
 

How do I get a user ID?

When you are logged off, there is a link on the menu bar (left hand side of the page) with the legend “Need a user ID? ”. Click on it. Fill out the form and submit it. We have an online database of members. If you are in the database and your submitted information matches, your online access will be immediately enabled.
 

How do I log on?

When you are logged off there is a login form on the menu bar (left hand side of the page). Enter your user ID and password and click on the “Sign In” button. If you have entered a known ID and correct password you will be logged in.
 

What is my user ID?

You select your own user ID when you fill out the “Need a user ID” form. You can have any user ID you want as long as someone else has not selected it first.
 

What is my password?

You select your own password when you fill out the “Need user ID?” form. You can have any password you want. We attempt to be careful about how we handle data on this site but we cannot guarantee to safeguard all of the data on it. For that reason we strongly advise you to use a user ID and password that are different than you use for accessing other sites. For example, do not use the same password that you use on your banking accounts.

You may change your password anytime you are logged on by updating your roster entry.
 

How do I log on and a guest (National Member)?

Use your first and last name as listed on your Plymouth Bulletin mailing label. Note that if the name on your label has a middle initial that the initial is included in the first name. For example if your mailing label has a name like:

James T Kirk
1234 Main St.
Anytown, ST 00000

Then your first name (for purposes of guest login) is “James T”.

You can use your street address as listed on your mailing label as your address confirmation.

Note: The copy of the National Roster used by this web site is several months old and may have errors. If you are unable to login using the name and address on your mailing lable please contact the webmaster at .
 

How do I log off?

When you are logged on there is a “Log off” link on the menu bar (left hand side of the page). Click on the link. You can also log out by exiting your browser.
 

I forgot my password?

Click on the “Forgot Password” link on the menu bar (left hand side of the page). You will be given a form much like that for setting up online access. Answer the questions to identify yourself and your login ID and password will be emailed to the email address we have in our roster. If you no longer have access to that email account then contact and your access will be manually reset.
 

I get logged off when my husband logs on. What is wrong?

One membership in the region covers spouses as joint members. But we only have one login ID and password per membership. So you and your spouse share the same ID and password. As a security measure we only allow an ID to be logged on from one computer/browser at at time. If someone else logs in with your ID you will be logged off.
 

I can't seem to stay logged on?

We keep track of your login status using a cookie that disappears when you exit your browser. You must allow cookies for the login to be successful. We only put one cookie into your browser and we tell your browser to delete it when the session is over.

Some older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer cache pages even when our web server tells them not to. Because of this you may be fooled into thinking you are logged off when your login was successful. Try pressing the refresh button on your browser. We have seen this behavior on other web sites as well when using IE 5.5. You might want to upgrade to IE 6.0 which seems to have this problem fixed.
 

How can I be emailed about events in my area?

Login and go to the roster. You will see that you can update your roster entry. Select “Update” and you will be presented with a form filled out with your current information. One of the configuration items is selection of which events you wish to be notified of. Click on the ones you want and then select “Update”.
 

Why is my car not listing in the “Club Cars” section?

Login and go to the roster. You will see that you can update your roster entry. Select “Update” and you will be presented with a form filled out with your current information. You will see that there is a button for adding and/or dropping cars from your entry. Any cars you add here will be displayed on the roster and on the “Club Cars” page. There is no limit to the number of cars you can list.
 

Why are there pictures of other cars but not mine?

You will need to upload a JPEG picture. Go to your roster entry and press the “Upload Picture” button. If you do not have a digital picture of your car or cannot convert it to the required size or format, email for help.
 

How do I get my car's picture on the home page?

The picture on the home page is selected at random from the pictures members have uploaded. Press your browsers refresh or reload button and you will see the picture change. The picture of your car should show up occasionally.

Note: If the lead article (most recently submitted) contains any pictures, then the randomly selected members car photo is not displayed.
 

I don't see any “members only” events. Why not?

You may not be logged in. If there is a box in the menu bar for your User and password then you are not logged in.

It could also be that there simply are no members only events currently on the schedule.
 

I dont see the roster.

You may not be logged in. If there is a box in the menu bar for your User and password then you are not logged in.
 

How do I put pictures in my news article or classified ad?.

Pictures must be located on a web server some where. Then edit your ad or news article to include a HTML image tag to point to the picture. If the preceeding explanation makes no sense, then simply email your pictures to and ask that they be added to your article or ad.
 

Why do my pictures look horrible when printed in the newsletter?

Web pictures are typically very low resolution. A printed newsletter requires much higher resolution to look good. Please email the highest resolution pictures you have to to have the best quality possible in the printed newsletter.
 

Why is my classified ad not shown?

Here is the “work flow” for classified ads. Note that your ad will not be publicly visible until after it is printed in the region newsletter.

• You must be a logged in member to place classified ads.
• When you first enter a classified ad it is only visible to logged in members.
• When the next edition of the newsletter is put together, the newsletter editor takes all the ads and places them into the newsletter.
• After the newsletter has been mailed and enough time has passed to allow our non-Internet connected members to respond to the ads, the webmaster manually updates the ad database to show which ads were printed.
• After the webmaster has updated the database, the printed ads become available for viewing on the web site by non-members. To protect members from SPAM email, the email contact address is not displayed to non-members.
• You may edit or delete any ad you have placed at any time. Just log in and go to the classifieds page. You will see “Edit” and “Delete” buttons by the ads you have placed. Any edits or deletions will be immediately reflected on the website.

We feel this policy is a reasonable compromise that allows our members a first shot at items advertised yet allows the widest possible audience to the advertiser.
 

I don't want to give out my email address. Do I have to?

No. You have several choices you can consider.

• General member email addresses are not displayed except to other logged in members. If that is good enough for you then our “standard” way of dealing with email should work for you.
• If you choose to give us your email address, you can still tell us what areas of interest you have. We will only send you email about those topics.
• You don't have to give us your email at all (or you may not have an email address). No problem, you should still be able to access the full web site. Place ads, post articles, update your roster entry, etc.

So, you have several options.
 

Can I get real time event notices without using email?

Yes. We have added “Really Simple Syndication” (RSS) services to our web site. Point your news program to http://www.goldenstate.ply33.com/rss. Don't know what a news program is? Check out NetworkNewsWire (Macintosh) or Newzcrawler (Windows). All new article postings or public event announcements are put into our “feed”. Because we cannot determine if the feed is going to a member or not, you will only get the public version of the event postings. To find out about new “members only” events you will still have to log into the web site.
 

Can I sync my email address book with the roster?

Maybe. The website will allow you to download the roster in serveral different formats. At present, the formats supported are:

vcf

vCard data. Widely used for attaching address book information to email. The flavor generated is based on the files generated by both the Apple Address Book program and the Mozilla address book component.

ldif

LDAP Data Interchange Format files are widely used to transfer address information from program to program. The .ldif file generated is based on those generated by Mozilla/Netscape.

csv

Comma Separated Value (csv) files are generally used to import and export data from spreadsheets. The field names in our .cvs file match those used by Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Macintosh OS X.

Which begs the question: Which should you use.

Macintosh OS X

Apple Address Book

.ldif and .vcf files both seem to work okay.

Mozilla/Netscape Mail

.ldif files seem to work okay.

Microsoft Entourage 2004

.cvs files seem to be the only way to import supported by the "File->Import" dialog box and import wizard. However dragging the .vcf file and dropping it into the address window works too.

Windows

Note: The webmaster only has access to a Windows 2000 machine, so not much has been checked.

Mozilla/Netscape Mail

.ldif files seem to work okay.

Microsoft Outlook 2000

There appears to be no direct way to import a complete address book at one time. Outlook 2000 will take the first address from the .vcf file only. You could split the .vcf file into one file per person using a standard text editor.

Alternatively, you could import the addresses into Mozilla/Netscape then use the Outlook import capability to import them to Outlook.

If you have an Exhange Server and a Macintosh with Entourage 2004, you can import the addresses into Microsoft Entourage 2004 on a Mac (to get them on the server) then pick them up from the PC.

Microsoft Outlook Express

According to Microsoft you can import any of the three formats we export. However the webmaster has no machine to test this on.

 

® Plymouth is a registered trademark of Chrysler Motors and is used with special permission