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

You cannot tell people they must donate 2.50. The point of a donation is that people give what they can when they can, wether it is 10p or 10 quid!

thats true DUBnutter and surely if you get 10 people who donate a pound its better than getting 3 that donate 2.50, if DAZ needs any help running things or delivering thing and to help the club out i will do all i can to help him out i'm only around the corner

DUBnutter said

You cannot tell people they must donate 2.50. The point of a donation is that people give what they can when they can, wether it is 10p or 10 quid!

I'm guessing at maybe a minimum of 2.50 mate as it's probably paypal.. but you can normally adjust that anyway.

You could have an owners BBQ or cake bake sale at the AGM, with all profits going to running the website. Would be much better than giving your money to the usual rubbish food outlets you get at most shows. Would be quite good if they didn't cost 4 quid per luke warm burger and give you the runs for 2 days after! :mrgreen:

I havent been a member of this club that long, however I became a paid member straight away and have found the help and advice I have received on here invaluable in restoring my car……..speaking personally I would be happy to pay £20 a year membership, however I think that if this was to be the case then something needs to be done to at least restrict more access from non paid members…surely with so many unpaid members, if you put a heavier restriction on access at least a proportion of them would turn into paid members, which is clearly what the club needs more of desperately……….and yes definately more mechandise…….I have been on many forums but this is the best by FAR, and I am sure many other non paid members feel the same……so we need to get some money out of them :-)

DUBnutter said

You cannot tell people they must donate 2.50. The point of a donation is that people give what they can when they can, wether it is 10p or 10 quid!

We all choose whether or not we click the button mate, nobodies being told anything, after all EVERYTHING is voluntary, that's why we're having this discussion, nobody has to join or even register!

T :dontknow:

I know we can choose to click the button but do you think that raising the minimum pledge 150% is going to get more people to do it?  Surely it would be better to keep it low and steady, than high and infrequent.

Don't get me wrong, I know something has to be done to increase membership and I know that some people do a lot of hard work to keep this site running, but these are hard financial times for a lot of people, so a percieved aggresive income strategy could possibly alienate people from joining up.

Andy can you give us all an indication of what the shortfall is - I always find it better if there is a goal to work towards.

I am totally against reducing site access if you are not a member - it will not make people buy membership, they will just sign up elsewhere.

If you own and insure a MK1 Golf then I really cannot see why you would not join up as the discounts easily pay for the membership - would be interesting to know if users understand that.

How difficult would it be to send a message to each user that is not a member, that say makes 10 or more posts a day, letting them know what membership gives them, perhaps even a discount signup offer and a Direct Debit going forward with.

DUBnutter said

 a percieved aggresive income strategy could possibly alienate people from joining up.

I don't think raising membership subscriptions to less than they were in 2008 and increasing the VOLUNTARY gift to £2.50 is aggressive!  :?

We all have a choice but ultimately if we all choose to hang onto our cash, the club will not be able to sustain itself, it's that simple.

T :dontknow:

A5OPY said

We have at the moment 470ish paid members and about 10,000-15,000 unpaid forum users.

Those statistics aren't quite right. Out of the 10,000-15,000 forum users, many of those are bots (0 posts) and many others are very occasional users who have made only one or two posts. A more accurate way to look at it would be to look at numbers of ACTIVE users, eg those posted in the last 3 weeks or so.

jellybelly said

the technical section should be to paid members only.

could you not have it so it £5 join join the site which will allow you to use 80% of the forum then another £15 on top to become a full member

i suspose it's a forced donation when you sign up

bouchay said

If only 0.04% of forum users are paid members, then non paid members should only be allowed to use the General section of the forum. Then access is stepped up according to what membership they have bought. If you only want access to the Technical section then a reduced Technical Membership would apply. If you've paid the full £15 membership, then only you should get FULL access to the forum. Definatly restrict the classified section, this would help stop members being ripped off by non paid users.

The problem here, is that many positive contributions in the technical section have been made by non-members. To limit, then charge for, access, isn't right. Its not the club's 'data', its the original posters. You'd need to obtain permission from all the people who have posted and if they didn't agree, delete their posts. Effectively, people have posted useful info on the understanding that its for all to see, not a privelaged few.

Tian said

Secondly, the membership fee was £20 some years back and was reduced to encourage greater take up.

It wasn't done for this reason! Its worth pointing this out, for accuracy.

James_W said

What about making it that only members could reply to stuff in the for sale sections??

Classifieds once were members-only. It was a disaster, for 2 reasons. Firstly, loads of classifieds style posts appeared in other sections because non-members couldn't post in the right section. And secondly, the members themselves felt they were missing out because there were less items available. Accepted, the above idea is a slight variation on the theme, but bear in mind that many people don't read stickys so won't understand they can't reply to the posts, including the original posters themselves. In many situations, being able to reply is very useful.

lhasadreams said

Andy can you give us all an indication of what the shortfall is - I always find it better if there is a goal to work towards.

x2, that would be useful info. Basically, how much income is generated (memberships, advertising etc) and how much does web hosting actually cost?

Also, is the merchandise section (if its costs and income were considered in isolation) profitable, or being subsidised by members?

paul_c said

The problem here, is that many positive contributions in the technical section have been made by non-members. To limit, then charge for, access, isn't right. Its not the club's 'data', its the original posters. You'd need to obtain permission from all the people who have posted and if they didn't agree, delete their posts. Effectively, people have posted useful info on the understanding that its for all to see, not a privelaged few.

Would have to agree with you here, take someone like rubjonny is not a member & doesn't even have a mk1 anymore so stopping someone like him posting tech stuff wouldn't help the site.

paul_c said

James_W said

What about making it that only members could reply to stuff in the for sale sections??

Classifieds once were members-only. It was a disaster, for 2 reasons. Firstly, loads of classifieds style posts appeared in other sections because non-members couldn't post in the right section. And secondly, the members themselves felt they were missing out because there were less items available. Accepted, the above idea is a slight variation on the theme, but bear in mind that many people don't read stickys so won't understand they can't reply to the posts, including the original posters themselves. In many situations, being able to reply is very useful.

I don't think the forsale sections should be members only but was thinking if only members could reply then it might mean member could get in first.

I find that the technical people on here are involved in many sites and are not likely to sign up to give advice.  Examples are paul_c and rubjonny who are invaluable to this club and others.  Keep the tech sections free… anyone wanting to join the community should pay to sign up… maybe a two tiered membership too like stated.

Free - tech sections, no other sections, no sigs, no avatar
£15 - mk1 chat, general chat, discounts, club business etc…. 3 out of 5 stars highlighted… no signatures…. only certain avatars
£20 - as above but with graphical tweaks such as extra stars, use of signatures, your own avatars etc?

with the step of £5 to use features most will go for the bigger option.  :dontknow:

Wow, this has had some quick responses since last night.

I became a member as soon as I started using the forums. I did not realise that I could have done so without paying.

I can understand people using the site for free if they just view the data. If they want questions answering, stuff to sell, etc they should pay.

The ratio of members to non payers is p**s poor.

Whilst I understand getting the public to use the website, now is the time for sweeping changes.

Remember Sky is the early days?, people were using it for free until it got established, then the suscriptions came.

I suggest the following:

Increase the annual membership by a £5 to £20, less than £2 month is nothing and very good value. Make a decision that all forum users must become a member say by 1st April to continue using the website.

This will still leave the website open to view with no functionality.

paul_c said

lhasadreams said

Andy can you give us all an indication of what the shortfall is - I always find it better if there is a goal to work towards.

x2, that would be useful info. Basically, how much income is generated (memberships, advertising etc) and how much does web hosting actually cost?

Also, is the merchandise section (if its costs and income were considered in isolation) profitable, or being subsidised by members?

It's not as simple as that. We're looking to secure the site's stability and the AGM etc. I dear say we could get by but we don't want to just get by. We want to grow along with the memberships and by that I mean paying and the non-payers! We all make a contribution.

As to merchandise, this has NEVER been subsidised by anyone apart from the Committee member that looks after it. In this instance it's me and Daz. So yeah, I don't charge for design, sourcing, printing, storage, or delivery so in one regard I suppose that's a subsidy.

You're an old hand and anyone who's been around a while knows we offer the best price we can to ALL and discounts to members. Have a look at what I'm selling merchandise for now and tell me you think we're making large profits. It's not about profits, it's about community and the MK1 Golf community is the best around so I'll continue to work for it and pay my membership, end of.

T

Malcolm said

.

The ratio of members to non payers is p**s poor.

Its not…..its really quite good, if you look at the proper stats.

Up for raising membership a couple of quid, but wouldn't real revenue come from advertising? (not sure why there are not more on here considering the clubs numbers)

Keep it secret, but I had to join a Mini forum recently to try and get some advice for a few issues I was having with the other half's motor (pizzpoor techy knowledge compared to here btw) and first thing I noticed was the amount of advertising…banners, links…traders etc coming up on each page (you know even the random one that comes up between thread posts)

Kinda put me off the site a little as load times were increased mainly due to the amount of extra image….but…….if you were a member……..you could turn/control the visibility of 'such advertised services' on/off within your user control panel.

If we had something similar, sure would help pay the bills and ultimately an incentive for becoming a paid member - non members could still 'benefit' from the site as per norm, without loss of content

I was commenting on what most people get out of the site and to me that seems to be using the forums and getting information to help them to look after their cars.

How can the non payers contribute to the membership? a figure of 10 to 15K non payers was mentioned, I am sure only a small % of them are buying the club merchandise, most buy from your advertisers.

It's like a car magazine, I buy mine and read it at home, some people read it in WHS if they don't get caught. Even the Times newspaper has started charging on the web. Not that I read it of course, Daily Express for me.

I think you have all been very sucessful in increasing the number of users of the site. 470 members paying though is a poor ratio, that as the first author suggested I believe is the but of the problem and needs to be resolved.

paul_c said

Malcolm said

.

The ratio of members to non payers is p**s poor.

Its not…..its really quite good, if you look at the proper stats.

That's right, there are hundreds of people registered that have never posted a thing and many more that haven't posted for years. A clean sweep of those forum virgins would give a more accurate ratio

paul_c said

Great info. No point purging old user names, they don't actually use any resource up. The other thing to not muddle up, is that posting doesn't actually use that much resource either. Its the views which contribute to bandwidth, and more specifically, the amount of images hosted on the site. Is this why the brochures have all been taken offline, and if so, is it going to return?

I'm not the web guy on here but I believe the problem was with the gallery block taking too much resource to process.

I think Mark (Kenno) is looking for another block to use.

Thanks for the advice on purging the users Paul. I still think it would be worth getting some good forum names back though.

Regards the finances, the club is not going bankrupt by any means but this post is more about highlighting the sustainability and protecting the clubs future.

No one can predict the future but you only have to look on ebay etc to see the number of these cars which have now become "projects" and as the numbers of the cars on the road reduce, ultimately so will the memberships if we don't continue to offer a good service. If we need to increase revenue in other streams to acheive this then thats the way it has to be.

As parts become harder to source the prices will rise so will the price of the cars will increase which will impact on the number of people who can actually afford to run one which again could impact on the number of members we have.

We are all aware what original front wings sell for now.

In my opinion I class the Golf MK1, currently, as an entry level classic, which many people can afford and have fun with and its not too expensive to keep on the road.

15 years ago the same could be said for a MK1 Escort.  Now look at the prices for a good one of those. They are not entry level now and I'm sure owning a MK1 escort now is much more of an exclusive privilige. Will the golf MK1 go the same way? - I think it will.

As I said I'll put some figures in club business later but for now I got to go and earn some money to pay for my membership!!