700 Members

Good point John. I always say, in for a penny in for a pound. I am a member of the club as I wish to support these cars. My main interest has to be to gain info from this forum. I personally have stayed because I personally wish to learn, as my knowledge of these cars are much lower then your good selves. I actually feel that I benefit from the input placed on this site, now and for the future. The only difference is I keep coming back...SORRY. Thank you all.

I personally feel that if I support this site which costs me nothing, I will quite happily subscribe to the club. I am looking forward to JW's contribution. Sorry John boy, no pressure!!! ;D ;D

And i agree that the knowledge is outstanding on here and worth every penny of the membership money

This is both an excellent club and fourm, i have been a member now around 9 years now and even when at first i didnt have a P5 i was always welcomed.

This could change things for people looking to buy a P5 and want that little bit more information but i do think that a memebrs area would be a excellent for spares etc

I do belong to my local club down here in the Antipodes and I've contemplated joining your club as I have gained so much from this forum. It really builds upon the technical support I get from my own club and helps speed my aquisition of knowledge.

Unfortunately for me, as I live on the other side of the world, I can't participate in any meetings, club events, or even meet the people who have helped me so much. I would receive the club magazine, but it mainly focuses on local events and people (naturally enough). The forum would be the only benefit of membership.

I would be more than happy to pay a lower membership fee to continue my current level of forum access and freedom. I wouldn't even expect to vote in club matters, as I see this as largely pointless when I wouldn't know or understand the multitude of things that go to running the club. It would just be meddling.

As a non-member it isn't for me to comment on what that fee might be, if in fact it could even be considered. I also fully appreciate the financial and membership pressures on clubs these days.

Just my two bobs worth.

Regards,
Warwick.

Thanks John.

Can I please just stress again to those members of the UK P5 club that use the forum; I would be very happy to pay my way. This is a valuable resource for P5 nuts the world over. It will be a tricky balancing act for the club committee. A high enough fee to ensure that people like me don't get a free ride, but not so high that the occasional interesting visitor doesn't get to add a gem of wisdom or interesting comment now and then from afar.

I am on the committee of a small ski club that was founded by my father and others nearly 50 years ago and we have been struggling with similar issues for several years. Generational change, competing interests, dwindling free time, rising costs and so on. Our particular problem is that of annual subscription rates, joining fees, member accommodation rates, versus guest rates, etc. Raise rates and subs and lose members (many are just hanging around for old times' sake), increase guest rates so members actually get more benefit from being a member but lose guests who largely help pay our bills, and so on.

Not an easy task.

Warwick.

Warwick,
What are Bolwells and Goannas?
I notice you have no indigenous Ozzie motors in your collection (unless Bolwell and Goanna are).
I thought Goanna was some thing you found in the bottom of bats' caves !

Did you hear the story (a good one, irrespective of whether there is any thruth in it!) of the fellow who went, in the early '50s, to his nearest English Ford dealership to collect his brand new Ford V8 Pilot. He drove it all the way home to Perth, and although he wasn't at all 'technically-minded', that evening he settled down to read the car's handbook.
He found out that the Pilot had a 3,000 mile service interval........!
Good choice of dealer ! !

Hello All,

Please do not loose site that many who participate on the forum is the only way we can be a part. I live in the USA and Warwick in the Australia (he help me import a car from there) Perhaps the club needs to think how it can also best support its international friends. I can only speak for myself but if I lived in the UK I would be a avid attendee to meetings and events.

Perhaps the club should consider what would entice membership rather then close the forum to non members.

Proactive emails requesting membership might help?

Dirk in the states

You make some good points Phil.

The dilemma is very like my ski club situation that I outlined in my earlier post in this thread.
How not to strangle the forum and so diminish the promotion of the cars and the club through what is an extremely good web presence.
How to spread the costs more fairly.

As I tend to live in the P5B section and rarely visited the club-related areas I did not realize that this discussion has been going on for nearly a year (or more?). I've only now bothered to read all the earlier pages and posts and so I'm now a bit more encouraged by the level of discussion.

Until now I had the general feeling that the only people who had anything to say on the matter were a handful of the usual suspects, and me and Dirk from abroad.

I don't even have any idea of how big the club is. Since first stumbling across it late last year I have assumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was very large due to the seemingly endless supply of cars in GB. (If David Green moved to Australia he would be out of business in a fortnight and possibly faster in the US). Even the forum is deceptive at first when you see the number of members it has. I looked at the forum membership list for the first time just now, and sorted it by numbers of posts. No surprises as to whose names appear at the top end, but it was disturbing to see my name at the bottom of the first page. I still know so little about the cars that my postings have tended to be daft questions and frivolous comments, yet there I sit at No.20. The other interesting thing I found was that there are 35 pages containing 700 members and the number of posts tapers off to zero at Page 17.

Just prior to sitting down to lunch and typing in this post, I had a depressing phone call from another ski club committee member during which we discussed the coming AGM and how to get members to attend and give more support. Rising costs, dwindling snow, waning interest from the next generation, falling membership, minimal difference in benefits between members and guests (members do all the work), and so on.

So I filled in my application form and e-mailed it off to your membership secretary. I mean, I said I was happy to pay something, even full membership if that's what it came to. So what was the point of waiting until you lot decide what to do next January or whenever it is?

So please consider all the consequences carefully and don't B****r up my club's web forum.

Regards,
Warwick.

"I still know so little about the cars that my postings have tended to be daft questions and frivolous comments, yet there I sit at No.20."

I am glad you have joined Oz but you under-estimate your contribution.

How do you think I gained my knowlege. It was all by trail & error and reading and basic common sense about things mechanical & electrical.

There was no WWW and the mag was helpful but I had got there already.

Forum/mag contributors excepted most members and forum viewers do not want to share knowlege obviously

I too am a member of "other make" clubs, and they both have the same problem...............only a handful of members making anything like regular contributions to forum / meetings / rallies / magazine etc, and from what I have read in the "old car" media, this is pretty much across the board for ALL clubs.

As Roy has highlighted, I think the way to go as regards the forum would be to have restricted access "members only" sections. As I have stated before, I never used to think this way, but I now feel that that paying members MUST have at least some sort of exclusive benefit, or there is no point in being a paying member at all.

As Phil has rightly pointed out, a lot of members here in the UK cannot, for various reasons, or do not want to attend all their local (ish) events. I have been to my local area meeting venue on two occasions within the last year, only to sit there on my lonesome..................I will not bother with it again. I would have liked to have gone to the National to get some inspiration, but unfortunately for this year, the distance and costs involved were too great. So..............apart from the magazine, I personally am not getting anything from being a paying member.

Don't take this the wrong way..............I am not complaining as such, because I feel it IS important to support the club, even though my Rover is not roadworthy at present, but I feel it is important that paying members should get a little extra for their hard earned.....................fair ?

I actually like it that people contribute to the forum...........even if it IS only to make glib comments !