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Well after three months of working on the new workshop we have gone from this: to this: It was a bit cold and foggy! .............and are now Open Hope to see as many of you as possible - even if you are just visiting Oulton for a trackday

This sounds awfully like the complaints over on another and much smaller car club/forum that I used to frequent. "I want it all, I want it now and I want it for free. Why should I pay subs to be a member of this club, what's in it for me, and oh, by the way, could one of you paid up members please help me out with my latest problem." The subs are barely the price of a tank of fuel for goodness sake. It does wind me up when folk b***h about trivial membership fees having just shelled out thousands on a 4 wheel toy. Just my view, no offence intended...... And yes, I'm toward the top of your demographic prediction age range, have had the Westfield for 21 years, been a member of assorted other car clubs over the years too and this refrain is oh so familiar.

You don't pay to use this site , you pay to use the WSCC , it's an option , we members PAY because we think its fair to support a club and those certain members who give there free time to organise various facilities and activities for the benefit of MEMBERS and there friends You havn't exactly cracked me up with your input so far , suggest you do a search before you make comments like this , we even have a joke thread you may like to contribute to for free . Personally I find most of the comments you make about the WSCC and its members very insulting , that lead me to believe you are a troll. Otherwise why make such stupid comments , clearly designed to wind us up !

You can borrow my trailer if you like depending on which days you need it. Going on Sunday to the Lodge?

This is a thread so like a number of others recently. I personally can't see what the debate is all about. I'm here and a paid up member because I enjoy it. It's very easy to make comparisons with other clubs / forums etc. but the bottom like is if you like it, pay up and join in. If you don't, go somewhere else. You often find activity is slightly lower on similar forums because of the time of year - plus the other reasons folks have mentioned - so it doesn't concern me. It's good to see people occasionally suggesting possible improvements (good or otherwise) but I'd rather see them from active (i.e. paid up) members, as opposed to the "I might have joined if this had been different blah...blah....". Can you tell work has been sh*te today.....? Matt

Must...resist...urge...to...press...Like...button...! EDIT: I failed to resist the urge!

not all, you're still here

Thread now rapidly approaching this point...

My £25 was the bargain of the century. Couldn't have got this far in my build without the club's help (club rather than forum, although it has been mostly via the forum) I could only put 1/3 of a tank of fuel in a 'normal' car for that money. Having been involved in clubs / commitees of other organisations I can appreciate how much time and resources it takes to achieve anything, and how little thanks is sometimes shown. The easiest way to show my appreciation to all the people who have helped me on here and run it, was to join the club.

I too am very much against manufacturer control of this sort of thing, for the same reasons given. There was way too much manufacturer involvement at some points in the other club I alluded to. I spent a couple of terms as newsletter editor and I was always getting my ear bent by a certain indivudual with a vested company-related interest. He was always trying to get references to his competitors products taken out of the club newsletter...which given the club was supposed to be make-agnostic, didn't go down to well with me. Apropos the whole free vs. /subs thing, this same club used to enjoy a free open forum provided by one of the members. It went bump and a new one was created, but this time, it was done along very similar lines to this one - not a member, you get basic access, club member, you get the lot. It was something that we tried to get sorted on the old site for many years. Personally, i think it's a much fairer way of doing things. Why shoud non-members get the chance to jump on all the good stuff for sale, or get free advertising etc? The subs are a small price to pay to contribute to this forum, let alone all the other stuff the club does. I share Dommo's view about the quality and size thing too - plenty of huge forums out there that are jam packed with utter ****e. Also share his view on being a member early on - even pre-car ownership. What better way to learn about what you are getting into?

To contrast and compare: I joined the club last year, am fully paid up and have perhaps only used the facilities of the forum, plus received the odd magazine. Now of course, I'm building a car so perhaps looking for different things from the club but I feel the information and help I've received from the club has been worth far more than any annual fees. I don't see a 'slow' forum, and don't see it as a problem. Back in my youth (though I'd like to think I'm still in it), I was a moderator on the MINI2 forum. The problem with large forums, is you can get cliquey circles, and some good threads can be lost in a sea of crap. You don't get that here. Swings and roundabouts I guess, not a lot of posts, but not a lot of chance of missing stuff. I'm yet to attend a local meet (though really should make an effort soon), but am aware that this forum is far from the be all and end all of the club. The magazine gives a great idea of the sheer scale of the stuff that goes on in the different areas, and I hope to experience some of it soon. In short, give it a go, see what you make of it...

pay up or shut up .you can have a opinion when you pay your membership, simples

The independence of the WSCC from Westfield itself is very important. If they owned and ran it, do you really think total free speech would be allowed? Do you think they would not charge to do a search? Nothing stops them from setting up their own factory forum if they want to - the fact that they haven't done so says it all. As for the administrators and the amount of time needed to take care of the boards, the new boards seem to be working very well, membership is running smoothly now as well, and if you want to pay someone to run the boards to ensure instant response, membership costs would double - at least. I've said it before and I will say it until my voice wears out - the value of the massive database of posts in here has a real and tangible value that the club is fully entitled to charge for as they administer and hold it. If non-members want a question answered, they need only ask it and many, many people in here are happy to help answer it. - for free. You pay for Internet access, you pay taxes to maintain and use your local library, and this is no different.

Westfield can officially post in this forum, but have shown an impressive lack of interest in doing so. I'm a member of a few "manufacturer" run forums, I hate the concept TBH, the last one disappeared offline for the best part of a year while the paid company moderators went through redacting all negative references to a couple of big technical issues. Everyone suffered, I and many others don't really go on there much anymore, what's the point, say something critical, even constructively so, and your post may not survive the night. The WSCC is fiercely Independant, that's why you will find threads about cracked chassis and problems people have occasionally had getting through on the phone. The last posts I can see by Westfield in the sponsors section were by Julian Turner in November last year about the EV cup, and before that July of 2010! That really would be a quiet forum...