Why the site has been down, how you may help!!

quite shocked paul u have not picked up on dano's wording

There isn't a financial problem.

since_1983 said

quite shocked paul u have not picked up on dano's wording

There isn't a financial problem.

I've picked up many things from this thread! Many of which I haven't made any comment on, its not really my place to.

i have only read the first page fo replies so sorry if ive missed or repeated something, but i agree with a donations link.

im not normally one to donate on a site but i think it would work on a forum like this, but not just any donitions, i think a banner with something like 'Donate £1' with a simple paypal page to donate £1, that way your not asking for loads and im sure people like me who have a little spare cash once in a while wouldnt mind loosing £1 for such a good forum

Ok a quick one from me as im on my holidays as we speak

FACTS

1 The current state of the clubs finances are OK.

2 80% of forum users with 100 post or more do not help to fund the club.

3 When the membership fee was £20 we had more members and the benifits to members for joining were less which seems to put paul_c chart some what upside down :? .

4 No one person gets any cash out of the membership fees it ALL belongs to the club which means the paying members.

5 some of the membership Fee does support the funding of the AGM. NEC stand and all maner of items to promote the club from banners too balloons to Gazeebo's..

The reason I started this thread was to highlight the facts ie the cash we get from membership fees are down from previous years, and the costs of running the site is getting higher.

These are the facts, to argue the club needs to rethink its spending would in my eyes be a backward step. All im looking for is for just some of the 80% who currently choose not to fund the club to help thats all im asking if thats too much and out of order then im sorry to have brought this to your attention,
As your Chairman I feel i have a duty of care to make sure this club and its members get the best they can out of this great club and thats wheather your a paid member or not.

A5OPY said

Ok a quick one from me as im on my holidays as we speak

FACTS


3 When the membership fee was £20 we had more members and the benifits to members for joining were less which seems to put paul_c chart some what upside down :? .

Andy, can you clarify the numbers of members over the years, because I remember a figure of 300 members when it was £20 and you've stated 470 members currently (with membership £15), which would incidate it follows the graph of price elasticity vs demand, with other factors (consistent year-on-year growth of members/public awareness etc)?

paul_c said

A5OPY said

Ok a quick one from me as im on my holidays as we speak

FACTS


3 When the membership fee was £20 we had more members and the benifits to members for joining were less which seems to put paul_c chart some what upside down :? .

Andy, can you clarify the numbers of members over the years, because I remember a figure of 300 members when it was £20 and you've stated 470 members currently (with membership £15), which would incidate it follows the graph of price elasticity vs demand, with other factors (consistent year-on-year growth of members/public awareness etc)?

as i said im currently on holiday and dont have the stats on hand but im sure Tian can help you there as he was membership sec at that time to be fare membership over the last 6 months seems to have improved slightly but without the figures to hand i cant give you exact numbers im sure we have been close to the 550 number but like i said figures not to hand
either way the fact that 80% dont help the club cash wise still stands.

i hear you andy i think, so if theres no money worries to club which i think i understand from all off this now and the club is running totaly fine and under the budget that the club makes

and hopefully the club change the forum home page so people can easyily see a huge membership button join here and also a huge donation button which many people have picked up on

then why if the clubs not struggling on the money side of things

is the comitty worrying about 20,000 other forum members not being members and potentainaly looking at upping  the costs off membership becuase off it

becuase i thought i understood this topic now its got me thinking something else

when i bought my golf gti last year i became a member of this club. can i just say  for the value of 15.00 and a free tax disc  it was worth it , i have been on a few meets with the other members, also i saved a few hundred pounds on my car insurance.can i say that the non members should thank us members for helping run the site for them come on and pay up 15.00 thats all. its a  gallon of oil,its four or five beers .i hope you get the idea.there are some good people in this club which give up there time to run it so let all support it .

I haven't read every post on this thread, but I am one of your join up 'targets'. I have been coming here regularly for over a year, for the information and just to see what everyone else was up to with their cars.

I'm not sure how to put this, but I never felt any pressure to join, I think that's what is needed. When someone first registers they should be encouraged to join and also as you have every non paying members email address, perhaps an email encouraging them to join up listing the benefits to the club and them might work.

Anyway I've voted with my wallet and paid up; I should have done it long ago  :redfaced: .

well i'm a member now. didn't like it when the site went down. if joining helps stop that, it is easily worth it. plus all the other stuff that comes with being a member. it just made sence to me. to be honest, not being a member, i felt like a bit of a freeloader after reading this thread. great club. easily worth the money. so why not join up?

I say well done and thanks to both of you for joining up.

If this thread does one thing… Highlight the point that there are some heavy users who haven't joined up…. Then they do, then it's all good in my book!!!  

Cheers.

Well a big welcome to the new paid up Members,  that's just what we need.
It really is simple, the costs of the new server are more. I am not sure how many times that has to be explained.
So more funds are needed, to run the site.
As the Meercat says Simples.
I am not sure why folks seem to have a hang up on the AGM.
The Agm is not just attended by Members off here, like I have said I met a few folks who are not Members at the last AGM.
After help and assitance from Jelly and I at least 1 became a Member, why? because if that's the way we are, he wanted to be part of it.
If you started stripping the Memership down by saying "I don't use the discounts, or I don't go to the AGM or etc etc"
Then you would not be paying anything except for everytime you used the Forum for the Free info and help you get, as already Said, the total Membership fee would easily outweigh the Hourly Fee charged by a Gargae for diagnostics, help etc.
What do they charge these day's? £45.00 an hour? that's 3 years Membership (not inc any inflationary increase).
    so it's fantastic value wether you actually use any other facilities that membership Benefits you.

i will not name the person as thats unfair,

but after reading a personal message from this person

i think its best after i seen motm threw this month i will stand down and not use this forum again,

yes i've had a pop at dano also had a pop at andy

the club put forward we need more members then a price increase was the way forward

yes i'm against this totaly thats a bloody stupid way off sovling a problem in my mind unless its aid is to worry people into buying membership now

to be quite honest i dont care now,


i never set out to offend anyone by trying have a debate about the price increase thats been raised in this topic

sorry have to say price increase and not what a customer or member might say becuase that offends people (price hike)

to  be fair i could off replyed to this person but to be honest the way i saw it me dano and andy had a debate things got a little rude perhaps blunt is what i would call it,
between me and dano perhaps, becuase i did not like what he said about something so had a pop at it, i'm quite sure if dano or andy had a problem they would be grown up and tell me i was stepping over the line

thats my last thought on it

A5OPY said

paul_c said

A5OPY said

Ok a quick one from me as im on my holidays as we speak

FACTS


3 When the membership fee was £20 we had more members and the benifits to members for joining were less which seems to put paul_c chart some what upside down :? .

Andy, can you clarify the numbers of members over the years, because I remember a figure of 300 members when it was £20 and you've stated 470 members currently (with membership £15), which would incidate it follows the graph of price elasticity vs demand, with other factors (consistent year-on-year growth of members/public awareness etc)?

as i said im currently on holiday and dont have the stats on hand but im sure Tian can help you there as he was membership sec at that time to be fare membership over the last 6 months seems to have improved slightly but without the figures to hand i cant give you exact numbers im sure we have been close to the 550 number but like i said figures not to hand
either way the fact that 80% dont help the club cash wise still stands.

Andy, if I said what the actual problem was, would it be deemed too "sensitive" or "embarrasing" and get moderated? Or is it best by PMs?

wow this lot kicked off big style in the last few days!!! :roll:


can the system be programmed so every month anyone who posts more than certain number of posts is sent an email thanking them for the contribution and bring to their attention on how to join etc etc. Id stay away from the membership discounts and concentrate on the fact the funds are used to keep the club running.  or 4 times a year   :redfaced: .

If the system can take the strain that would be good as we all forget sometimes that the club is run by volunteers!

I am happy for a Direct Debit to be set up, it thats going to happen.

Kenno mate the design is very good man :wink:

since_1983 said

yes i've had a pop at dano also had a pop at andy

sorry have to say price increase and not what a customer or member might say becuase that offends people (price hike)

to  be fair i could off replyed to this person but to be honest the way i saw it me dano and andy had a debate things got a little rude perhaps blunt is what i would call it,
between me and dano perhaps, becuase i did not like what he said about something so had a pop at it, i'm quite sure if dano or andy had a problem they would be grown up and tell me i was stepping over the line

thats my last thought on it

I'll say it in public mate, I'm NOT upset at your comments one bit. This is a forum where everybody can have their say. You've got a point of view and are entitled to it. I think i know where you stand on the issue now!!!  :wink:

I know Andy very well. I know that his feelings won't be dented too much (although he is more grape-like whereas I am more walnut-like!!).

The bottom line (in my opinion) and it appears that chortle and lhasadreams have it sussed too, is that IF all the heavy forum users (the ones who are on here night in night out having a laugh and talking about their cars and mechanical skills and football etc) were to become paid members at £15.00 then it would help the club NO END.

How many people were frustrated when the club was off line at the weekend? Quite a few of you  bet. Wouldn't it be easier to help the club out???

I was frustrated with the club of line

Dano love your spirit mate :wink:

since 1983 you know I have respect for the right for you to have your views you have made some good points the whole point of this thread was to highlight the none paying heavy users of the site and to let folks know why the site was down and that it was going to take investment to get the site safe from going down by our server pulling the plug may folks on here posted about a 20 quid membership fee being introduced, I didn't. What I have pointed out very clearly is if we can't get more members to pay we would have to look at an increase in the membership fee this was discused at a recent committee meeting.

Paul, the only issue and I'm now gettng a little sick of saying it is I want the 80% to help the club financialy so a pm to me would give you this info. cheers to you guys who have joined the paid members club thank you

A5OPY said

Paul the only issue and I'm now gettng a little sick of saying it is I want the 80% to help the club financialy so a pm to me would give you this info. cheers to you guys who have joined the paid members club thank you

Andy, if only it were!

The issue is that, when the membership fee was £20 it also ran from 1 Jan to 31 Dec, so renewal was easy for everyone. On Jan 1st, a little script was run, and all members had their database parameters which recorded they were members, changed back to non-member (the group membership and status display message). In fact, a grace period was given, of about a month, and most of the active users who were members, renewed.

This had 2 problems: it generated a big workload because the bulk of membership applications/renewals were done at the start of the year; and also those joining later and later into the year got a progressively shorter membership period.

So, at an AGM about a million years ago, it was decided to move to a membership system where you can join at any time of the year, and it lasts a year (instead of up to 31st Dec). Over time, gradually this spread membership renewals over the year, but also meant that we needed to record when membership expired.

Another issue was that the Paypal payment button wasn't correct and didn't ask for the address. And, the updates to the forum (status message and group membership) needed to be done manually. This created a lot of users paying then wondering what was occurring, since this slipped a little and was done in batches, instead of every single one instantaneously.

So, a new system was introducted where the Paypal button actually worked properly, by asking for the member's address (which is needed to send the membership pack to). It also prompted for "hatchback/cabby" preference, saving another email etc and allowing the membership secretary to know what sticker or other bodystyle related gift was sent. It also returned the joining member back to this website instead of leaving them in Paypal, and updated the status message and group membership. After all, these were laborious manual tasks which were always the same. It also allowed one to join at any time and it last a full year, so a membership expiry date was set. And it asked if it was okay to send an email reminder (asking this is a legal requirement).

The only thing which wasn't done on the new membership software was a routine which automatically sent emails out when membership was due for renewal; reverted the status back to non-member and removed them from the member group.

When the first lot of automated memberships came up for expiry……..nothing happened. No emails were sent out, people didn't come out of the members group and their status remained the same. So, the members never perceived any change. In fact, the only thing that didn't happen is they didn't pay to renew their membership, since it was unclear if it expired or not. A few members twigged this and paid.

Some time later, this was twigged and it was realised that this element would need to be done manually. And of course, doing things manually is laborious and/or error-prone. I don't know when this was realised, or if any effort was made to 'catch up' with previously expired memberships. I can only relate to my own experience, where my membership access kept working for ages, and my status was still "member". In fact this was right up until tonight, no doubt someone twigged and reset it after I mentioned it earlier.

I did receive - not one - but 3 emails, but they were somewhat bizarre.

From: Sender Unspecified
Subject: Paid2007 Membership Expires Soon!
Message: paul_c:

Your group membership will be expiring soon. Please log into your member account to review your expiration date.

Nothing to say who its from, nothing to say the benefits of continuing membership, no link to click to renew, no link to opt-out of receiving emails (which is a legal requirement), etc etc. An opportunity missed. Also, it was sent AFTER membership expiry, rather than a couple of weeks before.

Now, I don't know if this is fixed now, but it wasn't working properly for quite some time (definitely more than a year). There were several changes of membership secretary, and long periods where the position remained vacant (is it still vacant, by the way?)

Did any of the committee (chairman, web person, membership secretary) know about this, and look into how many anomolies were made on the database, and make any effort to correct the mistakes? If it was being done manually but one or two slipped through, fair enough. If it was a problem which you didn't know about up until tonight, then potentially the scale is huge in cost terms. Say if it were 1½ years of anomolies built up, then potentially that's £7000-£10000 of income 'missed', although I suspect many people would have twigged themselves and renewed anyway. I can only guess, but I reckon 40% or so of people were still active and wanted to renew, and maybe half of them just renewed anyway even though it still worked. That would make the 'loss' a more palatable £1400.

I'm wondering if you're looking at the actual finance figures for membership income, and seeing the £1400 gap, and assuming that memberships are down (thus, all that extra bandwidth is being consumed by non-members); while the members and everyone else all see "member" status next to everyone else's posts, and are none the wiser, hence the 10 page long debate on whether a problem exists or not.

Or was it just me whose account was muddled up for 3 years?