SOC Ideas

[stagnut]

In a previous post

TimShoubridge wrote:

Looks like we have ourselves an ideas forum that the club representatives can take onboard and discuss.

Can we not carry on this theme as a perminent post. Everyone submitting their idea's for the commitee to look at. They would only have to be one liners but iffurther info is needed then that could be asked for.

[TimShoubridge]

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Received my magazine today, and was disappointed generally. However, given our recent submissions on suggestions for the club, the interesting part for me was the financial statement presented at the recent AGM. The summary with it seems to indicate a slow decline in membership, acceptance that the internet is reducing the need for a hard copy magazine and an increase in advertising of the club is required. I'm no accountant, but there seems to be some simple things that we can debate: membership subscriptions seem to account for approximately 4000 members, the main source of income. The mainsource of expenditure appears to be the magazine which accounts for approximately 75% of the membership income. Given that we are all looking for the continuance of the magazine, but with more practical content and less general talk, what about discussing the magazine becoming a quarterly publication. This would reduce the expenditure significantly (netted against a slight loss of income from advertising) allowing (maybe) for even more funding for restoration parts. The website could be used to supplement the magazine rather than replace it. Whilst this is a non scientificreview and only a suggestion, I think we have some good ideas and by debating them we will have a positive effect upon the future of this club of ours that we all want to see a continued success. If it doesn't change and the quality remains the same, we can only summise what the benefits of continued membership will be.

[seaside bill]

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Tim

I think your observations are very valid. Surprisingly, although SOC sponsor this forum (which has become much more lively in recent times), the editorial team draw nothing whatsoever from its content despite the richsource of comment and technical discussion - including pictures. Personally I'd rather pull out my own teeth than dressupin a dicky bow and attend a dinner dance, so I'dbe grateful tosee much less of that sort of coverageor lists ofnames ofpeople whosent apologies to club nights - yawn, yawn! I suppose there must be something of a technical divide between members who prefer the printed page and those ofus who habitually use theinternet- not surprising really given the age profile (although I'm the wrong side of 50), but the club does needs to to recognise that times are a changing - 'evolve or decline' comes to mind.

[Mark S]

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To do away with the mag would be suicide since this is the only contact andvalue many owners recieve from the club.I've been a member of several car clubs over the years, some club's mags are better, some much worse.The quality of contentcomes downto material submitted bymembers. I personally findstories of other peoples restorations and repairs of great interest. The TDCmag excells at this with far fewer members than we enjoy. (this maybe down to a different age group that club attracts, possibly a core of active spanner men).

One area that our club seemsnot to push is the tooling fund. Peter Howells gave us a taster of the remanufacture ofheads last month. Theprogress of these and similar projects would be of great interest, Full article perhaps Peter? Regular report of what other developments are in the pipeline?

The mag seems to largely ignore what is available on this site and may benefit perhaps from the publication of some of the more interesting threads on this forum, it may attract more of our members to come and have a look.

Two small gripes :-

Technical reprints CD ROM - £25, you're avin a larf. Peanuts to produce, bang them out at £5 a time and you'll sell 20 times as many.

Adverts - Can't we get the companies to put a bit more effort into their ads. The give us some offers,publish a few more prices, make us want to try your wares.

Trying to be positive here and I won't mention the double page picture of someone's new year party.

Mark.

[Tdm]

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Hi Bill,

Referring back to the Topic of my taking my Stag to Tenerife with me -

just to let you know that 2 other members who requested an Email of the said article say they got it O.K.

It is in MsWorks format so if you have Works or MsOffice you would be able to open the article O.K. as an Email attachment. If you would like a copy let me have your Email address.

Regards

Terry

[Ian B]

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Icould not agree more that the club magazine needs a complete overhaul, I received mine yesterday and went though it in about five minutes, why wouldI be interested in what the outcome of a pub quiz thatwas staged the other end of the country !.

I see there is now a page that has appeared over the last few issues which list's new members, it would be interesting to now how many of these new members have joined via the net?

surely £29.00 is too high a figure per year now that most information is available on the website, maybe reducing this figure and reducing the number of issues of the magazine.

[seaside bill]

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Hi Terry

.....It is in MsWorks format so if you have Works or MsOffice you would be able to open the article O.K. as an Email attachment. If you would like a copy let me have your Email address......


Thanks - I usea 'junk' email account rather than post my regular email address on a public forum so please forward to bennyfield11@yahoo.co.uk

[Stagdad]

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I must agree that dinner/dance's & hotel breaks are the sort of things i'm least likely to want to take my stag to and leave in the carpark to be "doored" and such.shorly the club should be about events which encurage safe use of our stags.

[seaside bill]

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Message to Carl Fuss, Administrator..................

Hi Carl,

As theForum 'webby' (and a fine job you do on our behalf) do you have a route into the inner sanctum of SOC tocommunicate some of the issues raised here and suggest they get picked up as healthy debate and acknowledged in the magazine?

[Mark S]

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Ian B wrote:

I see there is now a page that has appeared over the last few issues which list's new members, it would be interesting to now how many of these new members have joined via the net?

surely £29.00 is too high a figure per year now that most information is available on the website, maybe reducing this figure and reducing the number of issues of the magazine.

Would it not be a good idea for area co ordinators to contact new members to welcome them into the club and discuss the local scene?

I look forward to my monthly mag, (but I'm oftenunderwhelmed)I believe we should keep this frequency but trim it down and improve the content.

I have no issue with paying £29. I do have an issue with how it is used. I don't recall tho SOC's mission statement off hand but 'promote the use of and ensure the survival of the marque' springs to mind? New rear wingsperhaps? Hardtop repair panels? Affordable new heads?Affordable boot lids? Is SOC spares part of the club or not? Do they represent the best value for money?Does the tooling fund think there are enough quality parts available already? None of this is clear to me.

Paying to have a .stag.net e-mail address? why would I want this?

The web site obviouslycosts the club money. I DON'T agree though that access to this discussion forum should be for members only. If we give freeaccess to non- members (perhaps just viewing only if this grates too much) I'm sure more would join the club and this would become the No.1 forum. We could have an additionalmembers only area to discuss club matters.

The more you give, the more you get back.

Last point - I can't even fully downloadthe SOC'home' page on my dial up connection, let alone sign in and access this forum. I know my PC is old and my registry is corrupted but does anyone else have this problem?

Mark

[TimShoubridge]

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Mark,

I couldn't agree more and this is the point I was trying (badly) to make in my comments. It seems to be acknowledged by the committeethat the stag population (and therefore members) is in slow decline due to increasing restoration costs. I don't think any of us ever expect to recoup our investement when selling our cars (would we ever sell), but what I would like to see is that I could keep mine on the road as long as possible with good quality inexpensive replacement parts. I understood that this is what the SOC spares is about, or am I wrong?It seems that if I had bought a TR or spitfire (or even an MG) then I would have access to a wealth of spare parts and suppliers at silly prices, so why can the stag not receive the same treatment? Example recently, I was on triumphstag.net and discovered that the fan shroud has been remanufactured in the US, in small quantities at personal expense. Small thing I know, but an example of what is possible given todays technology.

Sorry, ranting on but passionate about keeping my car on the road in this crazy world of today.

[Ian B]

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Isaid that £29.00 was expensive for membership, what i should have said that £29.00 is expensive when it is spent in the wrong way, if you look at the balance sheet in the latest mag you will see that the club lost money for 2006!. the mag takes 75% of the income generated, would it not be a better use of funds to cut the mag down in issues per year and then use the extra available income on new tooling and expansion of the website,I agree that the website should be opened up to non members but retaining some members only sections.

In my previous post i said that it would be a good idea to find out how the new members listed each month joined the club, my guess is that the vast majority would have joined via the web, which will show the dirrection of the future

[Tdm]

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I too find the SOC Home Page slow to load, especially the Members sign in button.

However if you persevere & are able to get logged into the "Forum" section, you can

save the "Forum" home page in your "Favourites" , and afterwards be able to go straight to it - bypassing the Members sign-in screen.

Regards - Terry D. Makinson

[seaside bill]

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TimShoubridge wrote:

It seems that if I had bought a TR or spitfire (or even an MG) then I would have access to a wealth of spare parts and suppliers at silly prices, so why can the stag not receive the same treatment?

Tim,

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. I've run a TR6 for many years and, although well served by suppliers (of varying quality), prices are no better or worse than Stag suppliers despite the bigger and therefore more competetive market for TR spares. In many cases they're the same suppliers.

On a positive note, I enthusiasticallyapplaud SOC consideration forremanufacturing cylinder heads - there is a finite supply and, as we each shave a fewthou off on each rebuild, the day when they're like hens teeth is surely not too far away. The only decent ones I've seen on the marketin recent timesare owned by a few chancers who expect to get up to £2000 for a pair! Club membership and support is the only way this could ever be possible given the tooling costs - nobody but SOC can do it.

[TimShoubridge]

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Hi Bill,

I'll retract the TR bit, but I think we're all in agreement that as a club some more significant investment in the tooling and replacement parts is paramount to the continued restoration and repair of stags at lower prices, and that there appears to be a real opportunity for that to occur. Whilst Rome wasn't built in a day, I'm just frustrated that there appears to be no acknowledgement by any SOC officer of what is happening on this forum. I assume you have not heard from Carl?