XMarks Ties

[Steve Ashton]

Believe me folks, there is no offense taken on my part.

I would, of course, have preferred that some consensus had been reached from the membership as you have put me in the position of making a decision that I know will not please everyone.
No matter what I choose I will be wrong in the eyes of some. (but hey, that is normal around here.)

I took the money collected from our advertisers over the entire first year of my ownership of the forum and purchased items to be held in stock so they would always be available because that is what you asked me to do.

We have our Tartan and yes, there is fabric available.
We have our Cap Badge and yes, I have them in stock.
We have our Dandelion. ditto.

The orders for these trickle in. I have not yet recovered the cost of purchasing these items and at this rate it may be over three years before I break even.

Now you ask me to make an arbitrary decision on additional items to be purchased and held in stock with the possibility of going further into the hole with forum funds.

There is a shirt possibility but again no consensus on style, color or design.
Now we have a tie ifrs but again you cannot seem to agree on style, color or design.

And you ask me to use forum funds to purchase these items, and hope that enough of you like them to actually buy them.

With the track record on our other items it is unlikly that all the ties, of any design, would sell or it would take years for even a minimum order to sell out.

Strangly enough one member has offered, out of the kindness of his heart, to gift the forum the sum of $1000.00 just to get the shirts on order.

I am not a big fan of a regimental style tie as a symbol of the forum. Unless we use the Tartan for the ties I don't feel it would be instantly recognizable as representing the forum. I would prefer to spend our money on a shirt with our cap badge on it or something else that says "We are X Marks". Something that could be used to help recognize each other at Games or which could be seen by others as a symbol of our membership in this community.

I have recently used the current funds to purchase a custom made Quaich and logbook to travel the world.

I made a promise to Hank, and to all of you, that I would never turn this forum into a money making enterprise. I collect some money from advertisers to pay for the operation of the forum and have enough left over to purchase a few, select items, that you, the members, choose to represent us. I have kept that promise.

I'll purchase ties if that is what you ask me to do. I'll purchase shirts if that is what you decide you want me to do. I really do wish there was some consensus though.

[Zardoz]

I am not a big fan of a regimental style tie as a symbol of the forum. Unless we use the Tartan for the ties I don't feel it would be instantly recognizable as representing the forum. I would prefer to spend our money on a shirt with our cap badge on it or something else that says "We are X Marks". Something that could be used to help recognize each other at Games or which could be seen by others as a symbol of our membership in this community.

I'm with you on this Steve, I've always thought the tie should be pretty close to the tartan to 'work'.
I like the idea of ties, but I know in my heart that I might never buy one if I just didn't like it or felt it was too costly, so your comments about the money part of it make a lot of sense to me.
But I do like the idea of a nice polo type shirt with our cap badge on it, 'clan shirt' style.

[English Bloke]

My 2p if I may?

Don't buy the ties Steve. You'll never get the money back. Looking at the various threads that have covered this topic, there is too much variety of opinion on what it should be and I for one would be unlikely to buy a tie I wasn't happy to wear.

As we have a great thread going regarding the ABF tie, why don't we make that the X Marks "adopted charity" tie. That way those that want to can buy an existing article at a price that suits them (there are two versions, silk and polyester) and those that don't wish to, don't. I know a number of the membership already own one following Jock Scot's inspired suggestion.

It's already been said here that Isle of Skye tartan doubles as X Marks Hunting so I don't see why this wouldn't work nicely and the membership would have the satisfaction of knowing they were contributing to a good cause. ABF is also open to debate if anyone has a better suggestion. To be fair, Alan H's suggestion of all buying an existing tie in the same pattern of X marky type colours is great too.

EDIT: I have nothing more to add. I realise now that people are taking this matter awfully seriously, where as I am not so it's best I step out of the debate. My presence in this thread appears to be more disruptive than jovial. My intention was to raise a smile but that doesn't seem to have happened in all quarters.

[ThistleDown]

If we are convinced that few ties will be purchased no matter what the design, it seems to me that a custom order is foolish.

Just a suggestion, but: don't buy a stock of ties at all. Select a tie made and stocked by someone else and then declare that one to be the XMarks tie. As for the decision on which that will be, we have a raft of opinions posted so get one member to do the work, sort through that lot and research sources and prices and put forth three designs and costs for each. No choices other than those; put up a poll with the result being the decision. We had a member a year or two ago who offered to do all of that for us.

Edit. John and I are on the same wave-length apparently.

[Jordan]

I've never really thought of this before, I always thought that the selling of the Xmarks items was making a profit or at least breaking even.

I agree about the tie if they won't sell there's no point we should just adopt one instead for those who really want one. I'm all for a polo shirt tho.

Jordan

[Alan H]

If we are convinced that few ties will be purchased no matter what the design, it seems to me that a custom order is foolish.

Just a suggestion, but: don't buy a stock of ties at all. Select a tie made and stocked by someone else and then declare that one to be the XMarks tie. As for the decision on which that will be, we have a raft of opinions posted so get one member to do the work, sort through that lot and research sources and prices and put forth three designs and costs for each. No choices other than those; put up a poll with the result being the decision. We had a member a year or two ago who offered to do all of that for us.

I completely agree with this. There is absolutely NO reason whatsoever that Steve should have to stock a minimum order of ties, put out a bunch of personal money to do so, and hope that he sells them all "someday". That's nuts.

Select a tie made by and stocked by someone else. IN fact, select four or five of them, put up a poll for two weeks and the winner declared the "X Marks Tie". Steve spends nary a dime, we finally resolve the issue and that's that.

I originally wrote this post and made an offer to create the poll. After thinking about it for two minutes, I've come to the realization that in fact, this whole issue is not THAT important to me, and so I'm dropping my offer.

[English Bloke]

Deleted.

[Steve Ashton]

How about this for a suggestion.

If anyone wishes to purchase a tie, in the pattern of their choice, that goes with other items in their wardrobe, and is in their price range, they do so.

Then they post pics here with the heading - "Here's my X Marks tie. I think it goes well with my X Marks Tartan Kilt."

This way everyone gets the tie they want. No one is obligated to make any sort of vote or wait for a tie to be ordered, and only those who want to do so need to put forth the expense.

[Jock Scot]

I follow your reasoning perfectly Steve and of course you are quite right to point out the realities of it all. But do you know? I am actually rather sorry that there is probably not going to be an Xmarks tie.

[Calico]

Not to disparage anyone else's taste, but I do not wear striped ties. I know there is relevance to them for others, school ties, regimental ties, etc. That is totally foreign to my California upbringing.

So I hope there is no "official" XMarks tie, since I would then be left out of the "inner circle".

Also, I knew about the XMarks cap badge, but had no idea there were XMarks dandelions in stock. I'll have to head over to that section of the forum again.