Delorean Owners Club UK Forum

[PJ Grady (Europe)]

If you restrict non members from posting - anyone who is looking to buy a car will most likely call Bozzy at various times through the day and night - rather than subscribe.

I'm not sure what the objective is - whether it's to raise more money for the club or to improve the benefits of being a paid member - and I don't think the two go hand in hand.

Objectively speaking - if I wanted to commercialise parts of the DOC - I'd try and generate greater free membership on the forum and look to improve the membership offering with more than the magazines, card and stickers.

As a suggestion - as a paid up member, the club could offer:
> Discounted club regalia
> Preferntial insurance deals
> Discounted rates with the Euro vendors
> Members only invites to specific shows
> Discounted NEC entry
> Access to tech areas on the forum
> The magazines
> The stickers and membership card
> Maybe an annual DOC dinner event or somehing?

The forum would then be a vehicle for generating club interest, developing mailing lists - maybe even getting some paid advertising?

Darren

[Guinney1971]

actually Darren, that is a bloody good idea!

Definately worthy of further discussion and voting upon at the AGM in November

[JamesRGUK]

I have to hold my hands up and admit that I'm currently not a paying DOC member. If I honnest that's why I very rarely post and if I do I usually post to try and help answer an owners question or problem.

I think if you take away the option for non-members to post/view the forum, you could end up loosing valuable input.

I'm 100% sure I will re-join the club when the car is back on the road and I feel i can really get the most out of the meet ups etc...

just my 2pence
(i know, another 2pence that could have gone towards the DOC membership fee)


James RG
DeLorean & The BBQ Hilux

[Chris Williams]

objectively speaking - if I wanted to commercialise parts of the DOC - I'd try and generate greater free membership on the forum and look to improve the membership offering with more than the magazines, card and stickers.

As a suggestion - as a paid up member, the club could offer:
> Discounted club regalia
> Preferntial insurance deals
> Discounted rates with the Euro vendors
> Members only invites to specific shows
> Discounted NEC entry
> Access to tech areas on the forum
> The magazines
> The stickers and membership card
> Maybe an annual DOC dinner event or somehing?

Thats a great suggestion Darren, I think one of the big problems is that we are a relatively 'small' club compared with say a MG or Triumph club, and a lot of organisations are not interested in such a small membership, ie; the NEC already give a healthy diccount by booking in advance (70%) they are 'probably' unlikely to give another discount to maybe 30?? DOC members that will turn up over the weekend.
As I understand the insurance is being looked into, and from my experience was always a 'plus point' for joining any car club, so it is something we should push hard for.
As for discounted club regalia, I dont know what profit there is (I doubt not a lot, I'm sure Mary/Claire can comment) but if it's 10% it would help But would we sell more because of the discount?
If you/chris as P J Grady and Ed @ DMC Europe would give club members a discount that we could openly advertise that would be very genorous gesture and I thank you for that.
I still think that leaving the forum open to all but making the Tech/parts section only accesible to paying members would also be the best and easiest way forward, with a password only changing a couple of times a year to make it easier on whoever is looking after the forum.
As for an annual event that is a good idea, although we do have the eurotec event, however to make it fairer to all the members we could perhaps hold this in different parts of the country every year, perhaps at say a location that has appeal to all, ie; Gaydon, Beaulieu, or an air museum or whatever we can agree on, just to move it around a bit to make it fairer on those in the west/north of the UK. I think that Mike has done an excellent job with the club and is just looking for ways of improving the membership for those of us who do pay and to encourage more to join.
Chris

[bozzzydmc]

There are some good suggestions up there guys, thanks for the time to put these up, if anyone has any more please post away.

[Rich Hanlon]

Hi all, yep, just to confirm, I am looking into an insurance deal for the DOC and have had some very useful feedback from Footman James regarding a 10% discount for members – and of course, DOC membership is a prerequisite. There will also be a small contribution to club funds from FJ for each policy they sign up.

So being a member will help onesself and also the club! Win-win situation!

Still haven’t discussed with Mike, and will also need to discuss with Phil as there is a requirement for a plug in the club rag, but all sounds good and I really can’t see why not!

[Guinney1971]

as for 'profit' on regalia, it is minimal per item - prob 50p to £1 on most items of clothing, but obviously this has to be offset against the costs involved to the companies who supply the clothing as they have to set up the embroidery and printing of them in the first place, which can be quite expensive in itself. You also have to factor in carriage and postage from suppliers too.

I'm sure Mary can clarify this in more detail if required.

I agree with Bozzy, there have been some fantastic ideas put forwards for ways to move the club onwards and upwards. I guess, if it comes down to the 'bare bones' though, those of us that are paying members want to see some sort of 'real value' for our membership fees (in addition to the mags and stickers), to make it more worthwhile rather then just being a forum member. This may sound harsh, but a club like ours cannot survive on free forum membership alone without a healthy paying membership.

Cheers,

[Outatime]

Probably not a useful point, but I will say anyway just in case.

I know that some car clubs limits the "Sale and wanted section" so that only paid members can post thread (i.e. sell stuff/ post wanted items). Non paying members can only reply to existing threads (i.e. buy stuff only).

And though it doesn't happen much in this club, I suggest that "group buy" is also limited to paid club members only.

[alexadams1]

I'm swaying about that.

Like Mike said it is the club members who ultimatly pay for the forum, but then again the public could view it anyway.

I think that only club members should be able to POST things, the general public should only be able to read them.

[Guinney1971]

Its a real toughie this Alex, as like has already been said, the paying members of the UK DOC pay for this forum out of their subs, and it would seem that anyone who applies to join the list, be they a UK DOC member or not can post once approved by the moderators. However, if you stop non UK DOC members from posting, then we would lose valuable input from, for instance, the Dutch and Belgian crowd, and also people like 'The Joy of Six' who is very clued up on the PRV side of things from his own involvment with Volvo's.

I still wonder, if a 'nominal fee' should be applied for anyone who is not a UK DOC member, but is a forum member - as this would also be fairer on UK DOC members who maybe havent got internet access or arnt 'forum types' so dont use it - but who still pay towards it all the same.

I'll shortly be compiling a schedule for the AGM in November, and I think this topic should definately be brought up for further discussion there.

[Outatime]

On another car club, I know that paid members will have a little icon below the user name that reads "paid member"... gives the paid member a little more loyalty perhaps?

[PJ Grady (Europe)]

How much does it cost to host the forum per year? (Excluding the time of the moderators, etc)...

Darren

[Trevor FitzJohn]

As the Kiwi in the group. I think that is a good comprimise. - Members can post ; other can only view. I personally will continue as a member with that type restriction. We don't want to hid away and thereby lose potential new members. :wink:

[bozzzydmc]

PJ Grady (Europe) Wrote:How much does it cost to host the forum per year? (Excluding the time of the moderators, etc)...

Darren

The club website and forum are hosted with Lycos at an approxmate cost of £15 per month.

[NickT]

Just to re-iterate, the forum can be split configured.

You can have paid members that can have view and post access to allocated forums like the Tech and paid members can view and post to allocated forums.These can be hidden so non members can't have view or post access.

To manage this, I have set up and tested this. The group is called "DOC-PAID". The forums to be limited would just have to have the group permissions allocated to them. To enable a user to have the permissions ie the user has paid, the group moderator (that can be separate to the site admin) just has to add that user to the group. If the user/member has not paid membership then the user is just deleted from the group.

Hope I have explained myself ok.

NickT.