Forum / Boardroom Changes

[markcoopers]

Re reading it does not make it right. This is the wrong decision for the club.

Membership brings in far more revenue than sponsors and as we are not a commercial enterprise per say we need to balance costs with doing right for our members. Stopping bulk buys and member deals is not the correct course of action, please explain why anyone feels it is? Does not the over riding feeling among members shown here demonstrate that? Yes, a £120 levey is a barrier and will stop many of the deals.

Sponsors have a valuable role yes, some I count as friends, but as said before we do not offer exclusivity with any agreement so none should be given. They get and should get exposure,

Lastly why oh way do we persist with not allowing members advertise cars for none members? Really do you honestly think people will join to advertise a car? No, it is cheaper to put it on Pistonheads......which reaches far more people. All this does is remove decent cars from being advertised on here, so with less cars there is less need to come along and view the site as a potential new member and thus we are not helping our own membership drive.....think about it please.

[chazpowerslide]

What if you have been a paid up member for a good few years, no longer own a Westfield and decide to let the membership lapse. Are you then limited to the FU tenure of 30 days or 20 posts ?

Yes, that is correct.

This is very wrong.

Many ex WSCC frequent the boardrooms and have given a lot to the club in the past and contribute to the club in terms of on-line input and have a lot of history with the national club and their areas.

Take Dabar and Sean from the Cambs area.

Both of these guys put a great deal of time into projects like Stoneleigh, Dabar lent his trailer 3 years running and helped with the setup on two years, Sean donated time to set up and take down for Stoneleigh 2012 and donated all the fencing spikes and ropes for the marquee area.

Crash Bang Wallop has been a contributer to the Cambridge area for many years as have d*** and James, these guys are all boardroom users.

None of these guys have Wesfields anymore, none of them are paid up members anymore and none have done anything wrong.

So we are just going to write them and their contributions to the club off in the next 30 days unless they pay a membership fee?

This is NOT what we should be doing.

Chaz.

[chazpowerslide]

Re reading it does not make it right. This is the wrong decision for the club.

Membership brings in far more revenue than sponsors and as we are not a commercial enterprise per say we need to balance costs with doing right for our members. Stopping bulk buys and member deals is not the correct course of action, please explain why anyone feels it is? Does not the over riding feeling among members shown here demonstrate that? Yes, a £120 levey is a barrier and will stop many of the deals.

Sponsors have a valuable role yes, some I count as friends, but as said before we do not offer exclusivity with any agreement so none should be given. They get and should get exposure,

Lastly why oh way do we persist with not allowing members advertise cars for none members? Really do you honestly think people will join to advertise a car? No, it is cheaper to put it on Pistonheads......which reaches far more people. All this does is remove decent cars from being advertised on here, so with less cars there is less need to come along and view the site as a potential new member and thus we are not helping our own membership drive.....think about it please.

Totally agree Mark.

Chaz.

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

Do I have this correct? Supposing someone organuses a bulk buy with say Compomotive wheels and posts about it on here as has been done in the past. Are Compomotive wheels then expected to pay £120 for the privilidge? If so, then it seems a bit barmy to me. If I have misinterpreted the situation then please tell me

[ACW]

I suspect that we all have the same intentions for the club, but fundamentally the committee can not please all members by doing nothing or making any change. The committee has put a lot of effort over the last year to determine what we believe is the best solution to several 'issues' that exist right now. These issues can appear to be small on the surface, but behind the scenes may have caused major issues. Ultimately the committee will be judged by their success or failure within anything that is done, and can be changed by vote at the AGM.

These changes have been discussed by the AOs for feedback before communicating to the members. In the past with the best intentions the committee has not always found the time to explain their actions. We all have lives outside of WSCC after all. However it is the intention of the committee to be as open as possible and communicate in the clearest possible manner. But we cant please everyone. However in the interests of communication, let me discuss some of the thoughts behind the process further. However for the avoidance of doubt this isn't to open a hornets nest, or start an argument.

b. The maintenance in the “Links” page of the main club web-site of a reasonably comprehensive list of suppliers of goods and services appropriate to the build and maintenance of kit-cars. A simple way to update links and request addition of links will be set up in due course.

The committee wanted to ensure there was a way to give benefit to WSCC members to ensure that the information of possible companies existed. That other companies other than sponsors and the new trade members has some way to be shown to members. In addition in future these links would aslo indicate any special rates and deals negotiated for club members by the WSCC committee directly or indirectly via another member. This was specifically to avoid a closed shop culture for sponsors. However sponsors and trade members would get various additional services as part of their sponsorship or trade member fees.

c. The creation of a new membership status (“Trade Member”) costing £120 per year

The committee was mindful of the issue that lied between a regular member and sponsor. The costs and higher end features of a sponsor was too much for many small traders. Sponsors packages include speed series sponsorship, magazine adverts etc and many also supplement further the revenue this gives to the club with more advertising (larger adverts). But to have a situation where members cant be traders, so as to differentiate the sponsor benefits and prevent a free for all wasn't to the benefit of members. Therefore a trade member was created for online promotion only of the company in specified areas and to allow them to respond to posts with services they offer. This was set initially at a much lower than sponsorship, but also with a difference in the service obtained. This should allow the club to retain sponsors, as well attract traders who in turn may go up to full sponsorship if they see benefit in their association with the club. There has been real and significant interest in this offering. Thus far sponsors feedback is also supportive.

d. The establishment in the Boardroom of a new Trade section in the Advertisement area, in which Trade Members might freely advertise appropriate goods and services.

As above.

e. That both Sponsors and Trade Members should to be allowed to offer their services, where appropriate, in responses to Boardroom threads seeking technical or sourcing advice.

As Above. In addition it meant that trade advertisers that engaged more with people would like see more commercial success. Therefore it encouraged engagement with our members, which has to be a benefit to members who require third party services.

f. That, in future, members wishing to organise “bulk buys” for the good of the membership must arrange for the chosen supplier to become a Trade Member and make the offer directly in the Trade section of the Advertisement area.

The committee wanted to ensure the new policies were as black and white as possible. There has always been criticism if policy is judged not to be applied equally at all times. However rarely are things black and white. We wanted to remove as many of these issues as possible. We considered that on many bulk buys the per item costs and benefits to a trader would be outweighed in many circumstances. We were also worried about the ramifications of individuals risk and effort to organise many bulk buys and wanted these to be organised more directly by commercial companies where possible. Ideally many of smaller bulk buys that have occurred in the past that would not work under this scheme could be done under a members discount scheme advertised via the links or the committee. This is the preferred vehicle where possible.

In addition there have been bulk buys in the past where members have done a lot of leg work and organisation and in exchange they get 1 free from the company involved. This is usually up front discussed as part of the bulk buy. However we woud prefer that the company does this work as part of normal business, and the cost to the company of 1 free be put into the bulk buy reduced cost for all.

g. That advertising by a member “on behalf of a friend” in the Members’ Advertisement section be discouraged except where the “friend” is another named member. All other such advertisements shall be moved or made to the (renamed) “Ebay links” section. It will be made clear that all adverts in this section are ”outside” of any control of WSCC.

The committee wanted to ensure that non IT literate members could benefit from boardroom advertising via other members or their AO etc as this is reasonable. However also adverts can be of benefit to the members. Therefore we wanted to open up the Ebay links area so that adverts that would previous run foul of the rules could be placed. As a club we have some duty of care on adverts that we permit. So in this area it would be re-iterated that they are non club adverts and outside of any WSCC control.

The Committee considered the status of “Forum Users”. Recognising that it was good to allow potential members to experience the offer available to members, but also the disruption which has been caused on the Boardroom by a handful of long term “Forum Users”. The committee does not want to be forced to go members only. it was decided that FUs should be limited to tenure of 30 days or 20 posts (whichever comes first) from join up. It was further decided that, during their “trial tenure” FU rights should be extended to enable them to reply to member advertisements, to post in the “Ebay Links” section, and to send and receive PMs. After this time they will have a choice of becoming a member or becoming read only. The Committee would also look at the feasibility of offering an online trial extension for 60 days for a fee of around £10.

The committee wanted to take some control on Forum Users. We didnt want to go members only, but ultimately we are a club of members, so long term Forum Users couldn't continue. The majority of issues leading to some very serious problems have come from some forum users. We wanted to try to achieve a balance of allowing people to experience the site with more features, but also limiting access after the taster period is over. Clearly having these users reply to members adverts is a benefit to members and like to lead to full club membership. Further posting adverts in the current Ebay section could benefit members looking to purchase.

The written proposal from Mark Stanton to establish a facility for boardroom banners for Sponsors (and which could be additionally purchased by Trade Members) was approved subject to there being no “pop-up” advertisements.

MS wanted to help ensure sponsor revenues for this year and also put an additional differentiator between sponsors and traders. Whist sponsor revenue is not as high as membership revenue, sponsor revenue is as important as all other revenue streams for the club.

The Committee considered how best to support of Area Organizers. Scott undertook to send the AOs’ details to Paul so that he could write to them to begin dialogue on best practice transfer, etc.

It was decided that the changes to the boardroom structure would be communicated to the AOs, and then to the boardroom prior to implementation.

It was further decided that a new Committee post of “AO Representative” be established

The committee perceives that a negative impact of the boardroom is that it has caused some reduction to the support to Areas. Therefore the committee is looking at separate project in this area.

The Committee considered other aspects of Boardroom usage:

Recognising the need for banter among members, but desirous of keeping the technical areas of the Boardroom on topic, the Committee decided to introduce a new Boardroom section (“Stuff and Nonsense”) for that purpose. The chat section would then be limited to on topic chat relating to WSCC.

Moderators were requested to move frivolous threads posted in other sections to the new section, and to remove frivolous posts from serious threads in other areas where they threaten to “hijack” the thread.

Chat is one of the areas of the board that causes issues. The committee thought that car related chat should be separated for OT stuff and nonsense.

In order to “depersonalise” moderation decisions on the Boardroom, anonymous moderator status should be introduced. All moderation is subject to discussion between all of the moderators.

All moderation is done behind the scenes by multiple moderators. In most cases the pulling or moderating of posts will have been decided by at least two moderators. Some posts will be hidden immediately for various obvious reasons. However by one individual ultimately doing the deed to the post, it has been seen in the past that unfair personal attacks against individuals has occurred. It is hoped this process can avoid some of these issues. However the committee hopes that these changes will reduce moderation requirements. The committee believes the forum has a low level of moderation compared to many Internet forums and wishes this to continue to be the case.

ETA: There is already a process in place where ex-members are given free membership for a period of time, by application to the committee. This is specifically to thank those who have put in much of their own time and effort over the years for the club. These people not only continue to be members on the forum, but also will receive magazines, be able to attend area and national events and obtain club discounts for the period time.

[FILFAN]

John

Your spot on from what I have been reading

[langy]

This is very wrong.

Many ex WSCC frequent the boardrooms and have given a lot to the club in the past and contribute to the club in terms of on-line input and have a lot of history with the national club and their areas.

Take Dabar and Sean from the Cambs area.

Both of these guys put a great deal of time into projects like Stoneleigh, Dabar lent his trailer 3 years running and helped with the setup on two years, Sean donated time to set up and take down for Stoneleigh 2012 and donated all the fencing spikes and ropes for the marquee area.

Crash Bang Wallop has been a contributer to the Cambridge area for many years as have d*** and James, these guys are all boardroom users.

None of these guys have Wesfields anymore, none of them are paid up members anymore and none have done anything wrong.

So we are just going to write them and their contributions to the club off in the next 30 days unless they pay a membership fee?

This is NOT what we should be doing.

Chaz.

I've never owned a Westfield and (at the moment) I'm still a fully paid up member

[ACW]

Let me reassure CBW and Dabar that they are WSCC Members so wont be effected in the short term according to the system. But I understand your point.

[FILFAN]

Who is Phil?

Chaz.

me?

What I done

[chazpowerslide]

I've never owned a Westfield and (at the moment) I'm still a fully paid up member

By bad Sean, of course the Purple Throbber was a Quantem.

Will you be renewing for 2013?

Let me reassure CBW and Dabar that they are WSCC Members so wont be effected in the short term according to the system. But I understand your point.

Phil ?

As far as I know Adrain, Neil Hall (Crash Bang Wallop) and Graham Whittaker (Dabar) are both lapsed members having sold their Westfields.

I am not aware that either have renewed hence I used their names as an examples.

If I am factually incorrect I apologise however the point still stands as it applies to other FU who post (as lapsed members) and long term boardroom users.

Your spot on from what I have been reading

I was wondering who you thought was spot on Phil?

Chaz.

Edited to add.

CBW is a member, he renewed when he got the car OTR earlier in the year before he sold it a few months ago, Dabar's membership has not yet lapsed and aparantly James is still a member.

Shockingly inaccruate on my part for which I apologise.

Chaz.

[FILFAN]

I edited my post as it looked confusing

[chazpowerslide]

Ha, makes sence now!!!!!

Chaz

[langy]

Will you be renewing for 2013?

Now that would be telling ........ probably

[chazpowerslide]

Now that would be telling ........ probably

I like the probably bit.

Good man.

We got you for life.

Chaz.

[GreigM]

I'm with Mark, Andrew, Chaz and the others on this.

As an example - earlier this year I contacted compomotive to ask if there was any sort of group buy discount for WSCC members that we could arrange - they agreed, I failed to get the required numbers but out of goodwill they still honoured the deal, which saved me over 15% on a set of wheels, and I got thanks from another member for whom they also gave the same deal to. In order to attempt the same in future I would have to ask Compomotive to join as a trader first at £120. You know their answer to that. It will stop the discount and only penalise members.

As for the 30 day limit - what happens to the person who is looking for a car, joins up, contacts a seller and it doesn't work out. That means after 30 days they can't contact any other sellers. so they have effectively a 1 month window to buy a car from a WSCC member or go elsewhere? Again, this only penalises members by reducing the ease in which potential buyers can contact.