Just found this section. so a couple of suggestions.
font size is a little small
a traders section (fee paying)
link from forum back to home page
tiny link to imoc ( its only fair! )
if this is the wrong way of going about the suggestions the feel free to tell me to b....
try another method
Now in sunny Wiltshire.
Hi Kev,
Good input as always.
Were working on an Affiliates area as page of the website. It will NOT be fee paying for those who want to be Affiliates - as we want to deliver the value back to the members.
There is already a link back to IMOC on the "On the Web" page.
Wayne
Affiliate fees are a drop in the ocean Wayne and tax deductable, so not charging fees will not benefit members.Originally Posted by waynestoyotamr2
Affiliates can also be a lot of hassle and obviously they join to profit from advertising on your forum.
I strongly disagree Lauren, the affilites fee's are certainly NOT a drop in the ocean, i dont considder a price hike of £25 per year to £80 per year which IMOC charged are a drop in the oceandont get me wrong i dont mind paying a fee & i was prepared to give it a go for a year which i did, but it didnt really benefit me & what made it worse was that as traders we couldnt even advertise in the for sale section ??? how mad is that !!, at least this way it will encourage company's who stock mk1 related item to advertise their wares on here free which benefits all paying members & affliates alike, hows that a bad thing ?.
Tony I didn't realise that we were talking about IMOC. Isn't this the mk1 club? Still such things are tax deductable anyway.I strongly disagree Lauren, the affilites fee's are certainly NOT a drop in the ocean, i dont considder a price hike of £25 per year to £80 per year which IMOC charged are a drop in the ocean
I also think it might be worth bearing in mind that seeing as you are a committee member of the mk1 club and a trader that some could perceive this as a conflict of interest and a reason for not having traders paying fees as you yourself could be seen as being motivated to benefit from your association with the mk1 club.
Also if you don't charge you can fully expect to be spammed by all and sundry and this in itself is reason enough to want to effect some control.
I am only trying to offer some advice based on a fair amount of experience. Traders can be seriously difficult to deal with, they tend to trangress rules and their motivation is obviously to ensure that their best interests are acheived. You remember what hapenned with Tim?
Yes i see where your coming from Lauren, wayne / Alex have made the necessary plans so that we hopefully dont have problems with traders etc. My involvement with the committee & my interest with the parts side are two totally differen things Lauren, If my intention was purely to get a free window in which to advertise my wares, i really could have thought of a less stressfull way since the AGM to do it to be honestin fact i spoke to the rest of the committee regarding this issue & was prepared to pay a fee, but it was decided that this area of the club is just one way we could serve the club members which we didnt really have before.
Its very different to run purely a forum based club like IMOC which charges a minimum fee for its 1000's of members than it is to run a club which isnt purely forum based like the MK1 club, we cater for just the MK1 which is in itself a minority, but we wanted to offer that Minority the very best we can from the start & this is just one way of doing that. Any member who thinks there is a conflict of interest with regard my parts & my committee involvement , then feel free to let the chairman or rest of the committee know & something can be sorted, im happy either way, i honestly want members to feel proud of their club & happy to be a part of it even if it means slight changes.
Lauren , your help & guidence is always appreciated you know that, Jinxy
That's fine Tony. I guess all I wanted to point out is that members will from time to time tend to challenge you as you would not believe how petty some can be, as general members can seem to think that being on a committee offers priveledges when actually it does not! so it does pay to be as transparent as possible when in a position of management.
I do think though that all car clubs these days are forum based, it's just the direction in which clubs have had to move. I honestly can't see the difference with what the mk1 club offers and IMOC. Both do events, merchandise, offer discounts, have regional meets etc.
I think you may well find that the Mk1 club to a large extent is already forum based, although as I well know it certainly didn't start out that way and obviously you have your club mag, but I do think that forums are a result of the changing technology available. Remember IMOC was originally an email list that then went into yahoogroups, but has become a full club nowadays and a company to boot. So we all have to move with the times.
Unfortunately in these days of litigation and legal threats, it makes good sense to ensure that the club and you yourselves are well protected as committee members.
Some valid points Lauren - always good to see things from a different angle.
I thought it might also be worth mentioning that IMOC uses affiliate fees to cover running costs of our servers which do cost a few grand a year to run. That way we can pass on the savings to members by not having a necessary membership fee. So in terms of passing on benefits to members it is a different approach to the mk1 club.
I don't know how much your servers will cost to run but affiliate fees is an efficient way of offsetting costs.
Again Lauren, its a valid idea.
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