I'll be renewing my membership this year as I have let it lapse in the past, I simply forgot at the time.
About 2 years ago there was a list of automotive businesses on the forum website that provided
card carrying Toymods members with discounts on parts and services. Seeing as they're not listed on the forum I'm not sure if these discounts still apply, but if they are still in place then I believe this would be an attractive reason for interstate forum members to become financial club members - from memory, at least 2 of the businesses offering discounts were nation wide parts suppliers whose discounts more than paid for club membership after only a few items had been purchased.
We have been talking about this over the last few days, yes the discounts still apply, but everyone seems to have forgotten about them! The major ones are castle hill toyota, bursons blacktown, and B&R brakes castle hill. We will be putting these down on the back of your toymods membership card from now on, so it is very clear and easy to see where you can get your discounts from without having to check the club website etc. We have also decided to make a conscious effort to secure discounts for our members nationwide rather than just in NSW, so that we have more benefits available to our interstate members.
I think dneg and Stitt raised some good points regarding events, there has to be a balance of attractive events for young and old car enthusiasts, what is missing is track days - Toymods doesnt organise one and when I asked the question a while back I was told that the board has no intention of organising one. I think the club is missing out on an attractive drawcard to prospective members here.
Organising trackdays is a bit of a SNAFU for us as we are not CAMS affilliated (because it then makes it near impossible to allow non-club members to come to meets and cruises due to insurance shenanigans). However, we have unofficially had regular trackdays for MANY years. Garth (-GT- on the forums) regularly reserves spots for toymods members at the MWSCC wakefield park trackdays, which are held roughly four times a year. There is always a thread in the cruises and events section regarding the next coming trackday. So even though we officially aren't organising the trackdays, the option is there for any toymodder to attend, so long as they get their name in before the spots fill up. I have also recently been in discussions with RENEW and trackdayclub and you can expect to see invitations to their trackdays coming up in the cruises section from here on in also, so track time for toymodders is definitely not limited! On a side note; I will also be doing my darndest to try and organise some driving events for toyotafest this year. A skidpan day and a drag day would probably be the easiest to do, but if there's enough interest I'll see if we can do a full blown trackday too.
Cruises are cool and I plan to attend more of the longer distance cruises when my beast is back on the road but I'm sorry to say that both times I've been to Mega Cruise have been... unexciting. Its cool seeing all the cars but I'm really not interested in sitting in traffic for close to 2 hours, not really a cruise - more of a crawl. The last time I attended I was the only classic celica!
Megacruise is no more these days, and yes the last few years we have dropped the ball a bit on cruises. The best ones ive ever been on were the broke cruises, mac pass and jenolan caves. We are planning on doing a cruise to wollombi in march if I remember right, so come along to that one as there are some DAMN good roads out that way. But yeah in general we will try and lift our game on the cruises side this year. It is kinda depressing when you put in a shitload of effort to a cruise/event and the only people that turn up are board members and one or two other people though. So if you want to see cruises happen, then make sure you attend!
If I had the time to spare I'd put my hand up to help the board, but with a new job and a new baby I just dont have the time right now. Maybe some day.
Totally understand, I got a new job midway through last year and went from having a shitload of free time with my old job to VERY little free time in my new one. I'm making this post at work right now actually, and probably wont be leaving for at least another hour We on the board do what we can in our spare time, which is also why people need to understand that we are all really busy living our own lives and when we are as understaffed as we are now it makes organising things even harder..
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