World Vaping Organisation

I have said a few times before that everybody needs to be working together on this regardless of any pass friction.
1 Big group will always have more clout than a few small ones
This could be a step in the right direction and great work getting it started

EGriff wrote: »

Shouldn't the mafacturers be kicking in the vast majority of the money to this thing, innokin, joyetech, kanger ect? They are the ones making the big money after all. Asking for donations to set up what is basically a lobbying/PR group seems odd to me.

Well yes it's a lobbying group but to lobby on behalf of the end users not the manufactures or vendors. Look who instigated this, small vendors and producers, not the BT sellers. This is closer to the organic growers groups than to Forrest, it seem to me. And who knows if this gets big enough the big players might join in.
At some stage vaping will surpass smoking or die out as a passing fad. I suspect the former and a group of mainly artisan and hobbyists representing users is better than BAT fighting our corner.

dePeatrick wrote: »

So for every three vapers there is one vendor......seems very vendor driven to me...and not to forget click that button and give a euro to a "non profit org" where have we heard that before? And why just one vendor pushing this....where is bestshop, Vaperus etc.....???

I'm all for vendors getting together and starting something and helping to grow the numbers by reaching out to their mailing lists and letting all their customers know about it. In the end I believe that power = numbers and also funds. In order for this to work we need the help of every vaper who wants to see vaping remaining essentially unchanged AND we need the help of vendors and manufacturers and any one else who is willing to help pitch in funding / donations for when the time comes that we as an organisation may need to take these facists to back to court. God forbid it ever happens, but if it does I want the WVO to be as strong as possible. That means vapers AND vendors.

Who cares who started it or who's driving it as long as the aim is to keep things basically the way they are now.

edit: like someone else said earlier I have also gotten emails off a number of vendors to make me aware of it.

edit edit: an organisation can be non-profit and ask for donations too to help with costs of growing the organisation, publicity and solicitors cost a shed load. No one has to donate but the people that do will be helping the organisation to insure that vaping has a greater chance of not being overrun by a bunch of twats in the EU that want to see it squashed.

dePeatrick wrote: »

I took it that the concept...if it is a concept, is that it was driven by vapers, not by companies.....seems to be very company friendly to me tbh....an army of PR people, accountants, solicitors......

I'd be quite happy to have an army of PR and solicitors behind us on this one

tommy2bad wrote: »

Oh absolutely! what we need most is media savie people to represent us. Next we need credible health professionals to support our cause and then some legal people who can work on the court cases that will be needed if the TPD goes through as leaked. Though that remains to be seen, it looks like a removal of ecigs is possible. We will need the legal end more if this comes down to individual member states regulating them piecemeal. Their will be a lot of individual battles to be fought.

Absolutely Tommy, agree with you 100% here.

I'm not sure who the core founders of the WVO are planning to handle things as the come up or what needs to be done next etc, but I think your ideas of getting credible health professionals, a list of them, their contacts etc together is a big one. Then legal people too. This is a bit like project management in a way and I think that organisations work best when there are people who are strongest suited.

The only health professional I know of is a dentist but I'm sure I could get him on our side. I'll talk to him and see what he says. Anyone else got any other people they can think of here that could join the cause? Medical professionals, PR people, legal type peoples?

iba wrote: »

Was going to sign up but I did not like the request to submit:

1)Full Name

2)Address with Country

3)Telephone Number

These details seem superfluous to me.

So sorry Wingnuts, I am out or rather not in.

Regards

They need to be able to keep in touch with you for updates etc

Vaperus wrote: »

They need to be able to keep in touch with you for updates etc

Vaperous,

Are they going to post a letter to me, email me, phone me and send me a text?

Email would suffice surely.

Regards

Exactly. Why are WVO requesting this information, why does it seem to be 'mandatory' ? Surely people can provide it if they want to and if they don't want to then they can still sign up with just their email address?

I didn't remember putting in my full name, home address, telephone number so I logged in to WVO and went to 'user profile' and I see these fields are blank. So I'm guessing these were added after I registered.

If you're shopping online then it's obvious you have to enter your name and address to have things posted out to you. If you ask for their email address on top of that, you should say 'this is so we can email you with status updates on your order, or incase there is any problem with your order' then people will think ah okay so I'll put my email in no problem. People don't even really like putting in their email address because email address usually = news letter which = spam. They dislike even more giving out their phone number because that = calls from weird numbers at god knows what hour of the day. Finally giving out their address = now I know where you live. At least to a large enough amount of people to make it an issue if your goal is power of numbers at the end of the day.

I would just get their email address and then you can always request they login and fill in as much other information as they feel comfortable with later. Or make it so when they sign up, then they're redirected to another page asking them for more information, why you're asking for that information, but making it clear the information is not compulsory (they're signed up at this stage anyway, so no chance of losing anyone, if you follow me)

Studies show that most 'test users' question why I website is asking for information that doesn't seem immediately obvious at to why it's necessary.

The fact that it's like this I'm sure is in no way 'sinister' I think it's just poorly implemented by the organisers. Possibly thinking 'of course if people are as passionate as us and they know us and they know we have their best interests at heart then of course it's no problem to ask for this info, of course people will be fine with giving it out.'

The other just as likely possibility is that's just the way the website framework was originally programmed and they've just left if that way it was without really considering it. Like I know they were having problems with registration, so possibly at first they removed these extra fields, registration bugs and problems were happening, so they reset it back to the way it was.

Be cynical / sceptical by all means but I can say with 99% certainty because I know some of the people involved with starting this up there's nothing to be sceptical about here.

dePeatrick wrote: »

so far it has worked extremely well and I for one want to watch it evolve not into yet another word wide .org but stay as it has been, a people's movement.

And any possible legal action that needs to be brought before the ECHR would be organised how and by whom and how long would that take?

Twitterbombing is a means of publicising, writing to MEPs is a blind hope that opinions can be swayed, both do little for the practicalities involved in pushing as hard as we're getting pushed.

grindle wrote: »

And any possible legal action that needs to be brought before the ECHR would be organised how and by whom and how long would that take?

Twitterbombing is a means of publicising, writing to MEPs is a blind hope that opinions can be swayed, both do little for the practicalities involved in pushing as hard as we're getting pushed.

This will only be regulated if people allow it to be, prohibition has never worked, results of medical reports, personal experiences of vapers will win out in this one.

Remember people can only rule if people obey, I have zero intentions of allowing any government dictate to me how much nicotine to put in my body. The rest of the sheep can do as they please......stew is quite good

StickyIcky wrote: »

Prohibition doesn't work but it doesn't mean it hasn't and isn't happening. Look at what happened with 'reefer madness' back in the 30's and that's still prohibited today even though it's less harmful to society than smoking and or alcohol. I think to say it will never happen is daft and to say if it does happen I'm not going to obey it anyway. Fair enough neither will I, but best we make sure it never happens using every tool in our arsenal not just relying on the tools we've already been using.

Same old BS, different day, I am too old for this now tbh....I just get on with it and everyone leaves me alone thank god. It just is another way for a whole load of people to get salaries for enforcing the un-enforceable......

The old "follow the money" mantra is still valid today. There is money in regulation, enforcing silly laws, justifying the existence of countless committees, politicians, it is a fair system, but very overweight.

grindle wrote: »

And any possible legal action that needs to be brought before the ECHR would be organised how and by whom and how long would that take?

Twitterbombing is a means of publicising, writing to MEPs is a blind hope that opinions can be swayed, both do little for the practicalities involved in pushing as hard as we're getting pushed.

So far it has been the vendors that have been great at bringing actions, and it is the vendors who should continue to bring actions. it is perfectly obvious that there is some form of regulation going to come down the line here at some stage and the people most concerned by this are the vendors. I just feel it is a bit of a cheap shot hitting the consumer for donations when anyone can see that what was a small cottage industry is now much much more than that.

If I was starting an organisation like this though, Ireland would be my first port of call, where else would you get as gullible and as compliant a nation in the EU?

Yes Sir, Yes Sir, three bags full.......Sir......