Club Magazine

[stagforum-admin]

Hi

IanI requested that his thread on the club magazine be deleted, this I have done.

However there were some good points raised in that thread and in order not to see them wasted I have decided to start a thread on what you want from and in the club magazine.
Remember Forum users are only a portion of the club membership and there are a lot of members who do not use the forum but rely on the magazine. As a club we are trying to cover all the angles and get our message out to everybody in as many ways as we can including Forum, Magazine, website, Facebook etc.
Our magazine is a club magazine which relies on its content with input from our membership. We are not trying to compete with on the shelf magazines but are trying to reflect the club and inform the members what's going on and also provide interesting and informative articles.
What goes in the magazine is very much down to you, if you don't send anything in I'll eventually end up with nothing to publish.

Carl Fuss
Editor

[Andrew S]

I'll kick it off

As a member, I want to carry on seeing area write ups but kept down in size to avoid being boring. This you have curbed over a period of time and its much better. More importantly, I want to see a write up from every area to welcome new members. If my coordinator didnt make an effort, why should I.
I want to see smiling and happy faces in photos
I like the way the adverts have varied positions each months, so you read through the magazine
I enjoy reading and appreciate the work that Dave puts in in extracting topics from the Forum as it creates a link between the mag and the forum and maybe encourages others to log on.
Finally, seeing articles that people have sent in and so varied, keep them coming

Cheers
Andrew

[milothedog]

Personally, I'm happy with the way things are. Some months content are better than others but that's the way it goes.

I read as much or as little as I like, why fix something that isn't broken

Ian

[Giles]

I would suggest that the area reports are reduced significantly. At present they are a large part of the mag, the only one of interest is likely to be your own area so a large part of the mag is unread. The more technical articles the better but obviously Carl can only publish what he is given.
I do however think the mag is a important part of the club. It is often mentioned at area meetings and most of the regulars in my area do not use the forum.

[mjb67]

I've only been a member for a few months so I don't have a whole lot of context, but I have to say I'm really impressed with the magazine. It's pretty fat and professionally done, leagues beyond any club magazine I've ever seen. I belong to a few other clubs (not classic car clubs, just all sorts) and none of them even have a monthly magazine (they're quarterly or semi-annual), let alone one approaching the quality of the SOC magazine.

It's nice seeing lots of photos of happy, well looked-after Stags. And yeah, the edited forum write-ups make good reading even though I'm on here every day.

If I had to express a preference I do like to read a technical article about cars each month, not necessarily directly Stag related. The article about the history of tyre/hub sizes the other month was good, for example.

[wilf]

if possible, buying and selling guides, referencing the Stags unique areas, in monthly parts, would be very useful.

But of course someone would have to write them...........

[Stagster]

Hi,

I, for one, would not mind receiving the magazine in an 'electronic' format.

I know this option won't suit everybody, but for those of us that were willing, it would help reduce printing and postage costs for the club (which are a major source of its expenditure)

With every thing else becoming 'electronic' in our lives, why not the mag?

Just my thoughts....


Cheers
Jer

[Andrew S]

Could we have a yellow section

[brian0443]

Do you mean blank pages for people who are afraid to write in?

Could we have a yellow section

[StagnJag]

Talking of electronic versions, it would be great to see 'back issues' in the members area of the website. There is an enormous back catalogue that would make a great resource. I've got copies of the first years worth at home which I picked up at Stonelegh a couple of years ago. It is interesting to see how the club started out and learn a bit about its history.

Regards

Dave

[staginhiding]

I think the magazine content for technical articles has improved of late.
I find the area reports really boring,but that's probably because I am not involved..
Love some of the pics
Profile articles on members is good..
Would like to see more discounted offers from suppliers to Club members

Sam

[Guest]

I think the mag is very well produced, but I certainly wouldn't mind if it didn't exist in print or in .pdf - this is purely because I get what I need from the forum and feel part of this community when I go to events and we all meet up.

Usually I skim over the articles looking at the pictures rather than reading them, as I am not massively interested in reading who ate what and where. It's good to have forum extracts published as it ties the "two sides" of the membership together, but I prefererred snippets of a larger number of threads rather than all the posts in a limited number of threads, as that just risks boredom when I am not interested in the topic chosen.

For me though, other than the Co-Ordinator / Deputy Co-ordinator details and "Diary Dates", it's the "Out and About" section which I have the issue with. A lot of people won't use the 'net so the mag is their contact with the SOC of course, but I just don't get that a member of any particular area wants to read what happened in the last month if they didn't participate - surely they can phone a friend for this? Similarly how many people really want to read what another group 250 miles away did? Ok I can see that it might give some areas ideas to copy, but I just don't think that justifies 42 of the 94 pages devoted to it in this months edition for example. I would be far happier to see those pages reduced 10 or so listing only the info I mentioned above, and the saved printing costs used for something else or membership subs reduced.

Other than that, it's brilliant

[Another Peter]

I think that the magazine is only as good as the contributions the Editor receives from the membership. I don't envy the Editor's job in trying to find suitable material each month, I can't imagine he is overwhelmed with contributions.

I actually like reading the stories of travelling abroad and even though I'm by no means a mechanic the technical articles are of interest too.

I do agree that (in my opinion) there is too much space devoted to the area reports.

As an aside, why don't the photos used in the magazine have captions? Half the time I haven't a clue who or what they are of!

Regards

Peter

[stagforum-admin]

Hi
Thanks for all your opinions hopefully I can answer some of your queries.
I don't always get captions for the pictures that I use but if they are referred to in the text I usually highlight that section in bold and try and get the picture close to it.
I can see that not everybody likes everything but hopefully most of you like something.
As you know the magazine is all constructed electronically and has been so for many years so PDFs of the completed magazines do exist and I have them going back to approximately 2006 although some of the early years or not complete.
As for the Out and about section, this is what the club and its members are getting up to and I do appreciate that it does have a limited interest in the fact that most people are just interested in their own area. I like to think that it supports the local areas and can encourage members to become more involved in the events.

I hope this answers a few of your queries,

Carl

Editor

[davidf]

Area reports - contrary to other commentators, I think it is good to see what other areas are up to - I don't have to read them if I don't have time, and nor does any-one else!
Also, I have in the past used them to join in other areas' events when staying in other parts of the country.

But, I definitely agree with the comments above about photos - can we have captions on all the photos, please.