Changes to Toymods Car Club Membership

[sillycar chick]

I just paid. I havent been on here in quite a while, life has been so busy! But worth the $30 just for the technical content and classifieds, even if Im not on here much its good to know when Im stuck for info or parts on the celica, Toymods is my go-to place and it almost always pulls through for me.

Speaking of which I should probably update my rides thread... a LOT has been happening! But its such a long story and Im busy piston shopping right now ;-)

[river]

Hi,

And as a member you get your 2 posts for one offer... and good to see you're making use of it, Sillius Chickus

seeyuzz
river

[dougTA22]

Just curious, but what is the main objective? It seems to me from reading the stuff on here that the primary objective is to drum up some people to help out with the long term running of the Club - people dedicated to the cause that are going to keep the Club running for years to come i.e. bodies on seats having a constructive input into how things are run, organizing events etc etc

The currently offered plan will certainly increase the number of paying members of the club, including myself about to join as a new paying member (the paypal thing has streamlined this about a billion percent - well done!), but I have my doubts that it will vastly increase the number of people able/wanting to dedicate their time to help with actual running of the Club. I think that the majority of the new sign ups would be viewing it as paying to be a member of the forum with Club membership a bonus on the side that they may/may not use.

Just an idea, but I would think that an option of having a $10-15 forum joining fee or a $30 joining everything (forum + Club) option would provide enough additional cash flow via the forum membership that the benefits to club membership could be increased, thereby increasing the number of people joining the Club who actually want to be part of the Club rather than just increasing the numbers of new members joining with the perspective of paying to be a member of the forum with club membership a side bonus.

I also think that this would result in retaining a much larger portion of the forum community than the current plan. I have read here a few times that the purpose of the forum is for the benefit of the Club - but what aspects of the forums achieve that? Is it simply through the forum structure offering a place for members to plan events and have members rides threads, technical discussions etc? Or is it also the ability to converse with and meet new people, see how somebody else is achieving something else, sharing ideas etc too (as well of course financial support, advertising etc)? I believe that a substantial part of the benefit that the forum is able to provide to the Club is tied to the varied, helpful, awesome community that the forums currently provide - a community which I think is about to be reduced considerably

As River has said a few times lately - the carrot or the stick?

[Lambolica]

The Main Objective is to have Club Members, the forums are owned by the Club, and without Club members there is no Club, therefore no Forums.

an "Associate" Membership was tabled, however, the majority would go the cheaper option thus not keeping Club Membership numbers healthy. The result is the Board split the difference and Dropped the Club membership to the bare Bones cost to make it more attractive to the general user. Think $30 Forum membership + Bonus Club membership.

The forum exists as a place for Club members to share tech information, buy & sell to each other, and generally provide a place to organise events & socialise between actual events. The Board makes parts of the forum accessible to users outside the Club where Club members can benefit.

As a matter of interest, what is your take on the comment "a community which I think is about to be reduced considerably"? when the Effective change is mainly the Non-Car Section being made for Members only, and access the the classifieds can now be bought rather than earned?

[dougTA22]

If it is about total Club numbers, then I completely agree, this will meet the objective of increasing total Club membership. I do hope that it meets the goal of bolstering the ranks of contributing members as well (not just the financial contribution of being a member, but the body in the seat and peoples time and effort contribution too).

As long as the tech section stays open to non-paying members then you probably won't see too much of a drop off in the size of the forum community, I thought the non-paying forum member was going to be a bit more limited than you are suggesting so it shouldn't be too drastic of a change. Classifieds could be a problem, but that argument seems to have been had a few times over and unfortunately I don't have any new ideas on that front that haven't already been mentioned here or elsewhere before.

I hope you don't take what I was saying earlier as an attack on you guys, what you are doing, or what you are trying to do, just trying to gain a better understanding of what it is the Club is trying to achieve

[Lambolica]

No offence taken, We are more than happy to listen to peoples opinions.

Tech section will always be free to all whilst ever I'm on the Board.

Cheers
Simon

[Gold28]

Regarding the money side of the club and forums. The financials for running the club are easy, our only real expenses now are insurance and federation membership and a small admin cost and this is basically worked out on a per member basis. Whether we have 1 or 1,000 members it's basically the same. The forums on the other hand cost a fair bit for hosting, maintenance and support. The advertising via forum sponsors and google (members don't see the google stuff) pays for that and we certainly couldn't run the forums without it.

Now the forums do make us a little extra which we put back into the club. Things like the window sashes and printed gazebo that we use at club shows and displays.

Our intention was always to keep the tech section free. But we needed to make club membership more attractive as the majority of users only seem to know the forum and when it all comes down to it, Toymods is a car club not a computer club. Running the forums is a shit job but the board are happy to do it because our members appreciate it.

I think we have come up with a really good package for membership and I hope this means people will join and then feel like a member of the club and want to participate.

If we piss a few freeloaders off that aren't interested in supporting the club then so be it. Anyone who gets the shits with us because they cant get to the "what pisses me off" thread is welcome to their tantrums.

[SilverRA23]

Nothing like running a club as a challenge eh lads? TCCAV knows some of your pain.. we have 270 members and its still a handful of people doing most of the grunt work, so the bad news is more members doesn't necessarily equal more people helping.

For what its worth the things that have helped us grow enormously in the last few years are

- facebook becoming a serious form of club communication - it spreads the word better than anything else
- vicroads introducing club rego that had the car clubs doing a lot of the administration leg work
- running and promoting regular events that people were interested in doing - donuts, classic japan, all toyota winterfest
- acting like a business and being contactable - having a phone number, an email address and a facebook page, so that interested parties can easily get in touch, and get a response quickly
- the cars coffee and donuts thing has worked a treat. sunday morning sees a few not able to make it, but generally speaking its the only time many blokes with families can escape fora couple of hours
- this year el presidente is pushing the motorkhana barrow pretty hard and that is entertaining more than a few people every month too
- CAMS affiliation drags in more than a few members every year, and sees plenty of us renewing each year. and it actually makes it better for us for insuring our events, not worse.


I do think you are cutting your nose off to spite your face with some of your restrictions. I would be using the forums to get the new people in and then working out how you convert them to full members. This might be one way.. or it might not... only time will tell.

I would also point out that 12 or 24 months ago when you guys were struggling for funding and memberships, TCCAV wrote an email to the president's email address offering to make some form of payment, in recognition of the amount of use we were giving the victorian section. whether it was a membership, or something else. No one ever replied.... which we took to mean you were happy to leave it as it was. Or it could have meant that we were just one of lots of emails that went unanswered.....

Anyways, I will sign up. I have always meant to, but found the cost a bit high for what I would get in return. At $30 its hard to argue!

Cheers

Adam

[Gold28]

Thanks for your reply Adam, I'll table your advice at the board meeting next week. You guys have done some great things with the club in recent years and it is a credit to the board and club. I'm thinking that it's about time we started attending some of your events. I really like the idea of your classic jap day, it's something we have been talking about organising for a few years now.

I remember discussing the TCCAV offer of support last year with the board and we agreed that it was generous but financially we would prefer that you used the funds to continue to build TCCAV. We did appreciate the offer though and I am surprised a formal response wasn't made. I apologise on behalf of the board. And we are more than happy for you to continue to use the forum events section to promote your events.

Actually, if you are organising a big event such as the classic Jap day or Picnic at hanging rock, then please email the board with plenty of notice and we will try and promote it as a club event and rally some support.

Thanks again,


Anthony

[Dan_k36]

So when does the sticker and card get sent out?

[Gold28]

The new board meets next week for the first time. We have a fair bit to achieve at this first meeting as this sets the calendar for the year but the intent is to get all the new membership cards finalised at the meeting and posted out not long after. Hopefully you will see it within the next week or two.

[_Glenn_Archer_]

Well said stitty!i

[KLR16V]

oh well guess my 1uz parts are going straight on gumtree. not toymods. for sale section is dead

[Hiro]

oh well guess my 1uz parts are going straight on gumtree. not toymods. for sale section is dead

As per the first post, posting restrictions in the For Sale areas don't happen for another month and a half...

[river]

Hi,

LOL... "the sale section is dead"... "Toymods is doomed"... "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!"

Sounds like Chicken Little.... Henny Penny - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henny Penny, also known as Chicken Licken or Chicken Little, is a folk tale with a moral in the form of a cumulative tale about a chicken who believes the world is coming to an end. The phrase "The sky is falling!" features prominently in the story, and has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. Versions of the story go back more than 25 centuries and it continues to be referenced in a variety of media.




seeyuzz
river