dang, I just noticed this thread,,,
the Toyota Car Club Qld was formed by renaming the old Celica Car Club of Qld - and what drove that name change was to be more inclusive of the Toyota marque and acknowledgement that the number of old-school Celica owners was a contracting (and ageing) bunch of people with less-and-less time for attending events and meetings.
Like Toymods, we face organising events and meeting that result in fairly small (or zero) turnouts.
The club up here used to organise motorkhanas - but with insurance costs, and now the requirement for CAMS licensing and oversight of events they've fallen by the wayside and all we do is encourage members to participate in the various competition motorkhana events run by the Cooloola Car Club, the Holden Sporting Car Club, the Ipswich and Moreton Sporting Car Club and others in the SEQ.
We used to have a cruise every month - on top of an activity or competition event, - but with numbers falling to 3-4, we dropped that back to cruises when there weren't other events.
Even our own competition events (Navigation Run) have dropped in numbers to the point where we're faced with: ending the series; running with another club's series (at a greater cost to members); turning them into social events.
And our yearly show event has an uphill battle getting interest when commercially run events can draw huge crowds.
We participated in the Classic Jap show but only had 7 club members put their cars on display
The biggest issue we're all facing is retaining member interest while not burning out organisers and volunteers
At our AGM, I pointed out to folks that the club (like Toymods & others) has two distinct schools of members: old-school restoration/renovation owners and modified/performance/motorsport enthusiasts - and it's hard to setup events and activities that appeal to both groups.
Another big issue is the cost of doing this stuff: both for folks preparing vehicles, and organisers donating their time and resources to putting things on.
A lot of folks come to these forums because they can't afford (or don't want to pay) extortionate workshop costs - but that then impacts on what activities and events they want to participate in. It's very hard to organise things that cost nothing to do.
For a single Navigation run, I need to devote 3-4 nights of driving and checking, hours writing up route notes, supplying printed competition notes and the fuel (for about 400km) for the above nights - and the $5 entry fee goes nowhere near covering any of that).
In previous discussions about this, an informal federation of Toyota clubs across the country has been raised as a way of coordinating club events, further promoting each club's activities and supporting national events like the Toyota Nationals.
Whether this (a federation) - or growing the number of clubs out the wild and joining/growing them via internet access is the best way to go - I don't really know.
Personally, I think we'd be better focussed on identifying what club and non-club members want to actually do and use that information to start any broader changes. It's what oiur committee endeavours to do and i'd guess that it's something that the Toymods board and other club are dealing with.
(sorry if this sounds a bit bureaucratic - am writing this at work)
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