Any chance of a forum only membership?

[Dodgey]

Each time I come to renew, I wince at paying £27.50 to be on a forum, when every single forum I've ever used, and still use, with the exception of here, is free.

 

I value the help I get on here, likewise, I contribute when I am able to. However, I neither want calendars nor magazines. I'm sure lots of people love the magazine, but I'll be honest, mine just goes in the bin. I'm here for the tech support and advice and nothing much more.

 

I really can't be alone in this thinking.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

As a non paying "guest" you are free to browse most of the clubs forums and glean information from the many posts contained their in . However would you consider £27.50 an unreasonable amount to pay so as to search and gain access to 30years of archive material and seek answers to your technical questions for which members offer their time and assistance for free?

[TAFKARM]

I'm of the same view as Dodgey to be honest...

 

ETA - upon reflection with the exception of the magazine and the speed series, I do very much value the other facets of the club, esp the social side - so I view the question more as a "can we get a discount if we don't want the magazine?"

 

That said the insurance discount pays for the membership

Edited May 25, 2016 by RussH

[Mark (smokey mow)]

The difficulty is that there is a significantly greater percentage of members that don't use the forum and voted to retain the club magazine. In order to offer a "forum only" membership we would have to ensure that only those members who have paid for magazines have access to them and the online and back scanned issues.

The question has been raised a number of times in the recent years and discussed to death, but the majority vote at the time was to retain the magazine as part of the membership. IMO a two tier membership will not work and will create an administrative nightmare for the unpaid volunteers that run this club in their own time.

[Captain Colonial]

Roger, I'll be friendly but as brief as possible here - the short answer is no, and the long answer is nooooooooooooooo...

I'm sorry and sad you don't like the magazines and the calendars. Many people in the club work very hard to produce these, and reading you just throw them straight in the bin is depressing. However, if you don't like what's in it, the best way to make it better is for you to submit material you find valuable for the rest of us who read the magazine to enjoy. Everything in the magazine and calendar is submitted by the members.

To be blunt, and leaving aside the mags and the calendars, £27.50 per year to have these deep forums (which are not cheap to run and maintain, BTW - I've just authorised nearly £1,000 for a shiny, powerful new server to come online in the next few months to ensure the forums are stable, available 99.99% of the time and has room to expand), events like Stoneleigh, the Silverstone Classic, insured local area meets, the Speed Series, special offers from sponsors, discounted insurance, 30 years of advice, tips and experience as Mark says (plus 30 years of magazines with advice, tips and experience), the friendship and support of many kind and wonderful people, all run by unpaid volunteers, and dozens of other things that more than pay back that sum every year, is preposterously, stupidly, insanely good value IMHO. Being a member has paid for itself a dozen time over - at least it has for me.

We very nearly went broke 6 years ago when we had a forum that was free to post. Memberships halved, we were losing money hand over fist, the forums were full of trolls and halfwits, the forums were a very unfriendly place, and people were deeply unhappy. The WSCC came THAT close to dying. We're not going back to that, nor are we having an expensive to set up and maintain two-tier membership system - ever. The club provides equal benefits to all, or there's no point having a club whatsoever.

Final bit:

Click

Sorry if that comes across as negative, but them's the facts. The proof is that we have twice as many members now as we did in 2011. I appreciate the idea and I'm not directing anything at you personally at all but the idea crops up every few years and it needs to be explained why it's not going to happen - hope you understand.

[XTR2Turbo]

I think that the WSCC represents insanely good value and as already said it is much much more than a forum.  I would like to think I have made many friends from the social side of the club.

 

I am also a member of VSCC,  RREC, BOC, model T register and a few others and in some cases they are 3 times the price.

 

I also used to be on pistonheads quite a lot from the early days when it was mainly TVR and Petrolted. It  is free but the nature of the posts mean many topics degenerate pretty quickly.  I suspect moderating it is a nightmare also.  If membership stops the forum declining into a free for all then I think it is also a price worth paying.

[Geoffrey Carter (Buttercup)]

I have never been a "people" person and always been a loner all my life.... that sounds sad I know.

 

Since joining this club, I have never been involved with so many great people and if I knew how much this club was going to change my lifestyle and "me" then I would gladly pay a lot more.

 

This club is worth every penny and I am not interested in any of the technical stuff at all to be honest. I still enjoy reading it though, just wish I understood it.

[Dodgey]

Well I'm sorry it's depressing that I bin the mag. I'm just being totally honest. This is the 21st century and I read everything online. The mag to me feels like a waste of money (only to me you understand). Is it part of the reason you ran into financial difficulties in the past? It can't be cheap. 

 

I've tried to read a few issues, but I'm really not interested in the inner workings of someone elses' car/diff/chassis. Nor do I find reports about area meetings in "x" part of the UK interesting. I stopped buying any magazines about 10 years ago, when they started costing over £5. These days, I cherry pick the information / articles I'm interested in on the internet by searching. It's the way my generation consume information now.

 

As I have no interest in the print magazine, I certainly don't want to contribute to it! Not even to try and make it interesting :-)  - I dont' have time.

 

To be totally honest - when the anniversary edition came out, it felt like something aimed at a much older age group than mine (I'm "only" 47). There does seem to be an "age bracket" in play.

 

I'm here for the tech info. Nothing more. I browse each day or so to see if there are any interesting threads that I might learn from, or are just simply interestintg to read. When I post it's either to ask question, or to help with advice on something I have experience on.

 

"However would you consider £27.50 an unreasonable amount to pay so as to search and gain access to 30years of archive material "  - I do. I really do. The same depth of info on just about any subject on the net is available on free forums. £27.50 may not sound a lot, but when you have "x" going out for this, and "x" for that, you need to start cutting down on "x"'s, and my "x"'s are mouting up.

 

If I were into all the other things offered by the membership then it would of course be good value. But I'm not. I just want to be able to use the forum. That's it.

 

You mention it's been discussed to death. Perhaps because it has always needed discussing.

 

I'm glad you've got twice as many members as you did in 2011. I get the distinct feeling my £27.50 subsidises all those members who, as you say, mostly don't use the forum.

[Captain Colonial]

That's fine, we've both put our points across and shall agree to disagree. Not going to get into a debate about it, it would be pointless and possibly counterproductive and argumentive which would be wrong. The club and its offerings aren't for everyone, and as Mark points out, much of the forums are publicly visible to non-members anyway, even if that does cost the members money to host and maintain - it's just that non-members can't post questions and receive specific valuable information and advice for free.

It's up to each person to decide whether or not it's for them at the end of the day. I wish you all the best whether you remain a member or decide to move on.

[Terry Everall]

I have saved way more than £27.50 using the stuff and nonsense section for non Westfield issues and you don't get that anywhere else. The responses are also amazingly quick and full of advice or solutions to problems. I saved  about £250 this year by listening to advice about car insurance and used A Plan

Its a YES from me every time

[Dodgey]

It's not about what I'd save. If that were the case I'd be paying for every forum I use - though on that note, all those forums I contribute to also owe me a lot of money by now....? Do I get a credit for posting advice / help on here? See - it doesn't make sense looking at it as a value for money entity.

 

As a paying member, I hoped for a little more debate /discussion rather than an outright autocrasy . "nooooooooo" was less than I'd hoped for.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

As a paying member, I hoped for a little more debate /discussion rather than an outright autocrasy . "nooooooooo" was less than I'd hoped for.

because it's been discused so many times and each time we've polled the full membership the result has always been the same. If the matter was so important to you this time why did you not put it forward for consideration and discussion at the AGM?

[Dommo]

I think I understand where Dodgey is coming from - he only uses the forum so paying for the rest of the features of the club doesn't make sense as he doesn't use them.

Stopping the magazine being sent out to 'forum only' members is presumably easy enough. But stopping them from accessing the stand at Stoneleigh? Attending the local meets and events because they've actively decided not to contribute to insurance? That's where it starts getting tricky in my view. Perhaps counter that by including those costs in this tier 2 membership, but then it's just the magazine that's been dropped and you'd have to imagine you're not a long way off £27.50 a year. Which I bet we all save on insurance every year anyway.

[XTR2Turbo]

My view is that the forum is just one part of the club offering.  But I did join before the forum was as significant as it is today.

 

I think it is a valid question to ask and it may be that over time the balance of member opinion shifts again.

 

I would agree with you that the cost of the magazine to be printed is IMHO disproportionate to the value I get from it but that was voted on very recently.

 

It is very difficult when you start to go down a route of differential membership and I agree that at £27.50 it would not be worth the added hassle.

 

David

[KugaWestie]

Think of it as £2.25 per month, or 7.3 pence per day.....

Almost any club you want to join will have a subscription.

It is not a forum, it is a club, and the forum is part of the club