Originally Posted by Mart
very valid point.
very valid point.
I won't know who is new or their member status or even sometimes who the feck they are at all without manually trawling through the membership accounts and even that is nigh on impossible if they call themselves GTT5innit .
The two systems don't talk too each other at all so online names mean nothing to the shop .
I quite often have to do this to get correct postal addresses
it goes through the forum because there needs to be some software mechinism that moves the person from the "registered" group into the "paid members" group. The same mechanism alters the boards permissions to suit and keeps track of the membership period. This is the software ad-on that Ian and I were talking about, that I had to install and modify for our needs. Putting payment through the shop means that someone will have to spend time manually configuring each user that asks for membership, which would take way too long and be very difficult to keep track of.
been reading some interesting thoughts and ideas here,all valid i guess in there own right,but would it not be best to not complicate the way that things are run to much an keep it simple?,after all the good folk who run the club have to find time to sort it all out for us lot...and like many of us have a life outside rtoc.
ok scoff, as you can probably tell i know nothing about computers/websites. lol
Again, new roles, with descriptions/responsibilities, and a common way for members to apply online are required rather than going round in circles on this thread with members saying 'I'm for a bit of something' and the committee saying 'We need more hands to the pump'. Where's the mechanism to bring the two together or forever hold the peace?
If once this is done nobody steps forward, then at least the existing team have something more concrete to fall back on when this type of thread crops up, rather than 'we've asked this many times before, people said they were interested but no-one actually came forward to do anything'.
If there were defined additional club roles to cover these extra activities it would be far easier to get a handle on this stuff...
Sadly, there are not. Never have been journalistic types in this club. Not in the last 10 years anyway. It's not just contributions, but people to collate, edit, write, etc.
my thoughts are.... the club is thinking inside the box, yes we have invited a few other clubs to national days in the past,but how many events have rtoc members attended of other clubs, if we want other renault clubs to take notice perhaps we should be the club to make the effort to show others that we do try,we have enough diversity with regards to (members cars/various engine conversions) to satisfy and interest most other club group members.and in time this club would build and build, but as a club we need to make the effort to attend other club meets, i also think membership should be equal across the board,it keeps things simple and fair. i also think as a club we need to be more tolerant of new members and younger members,regardless if there views are different to other peeps , still think the club scares a lot of members from posting/attending events because of the strong opionions that are expressed towards silly/newby questions and answers,and how there cars are supposed to look bodykits,spoilers etc renault turbo or non turbo , as a club we will not be able to sustain the amount of members in the older french cars, since the early nineties the number of r5,r9,r11's,r21,25 etc in the club has dropped and will keep dropping as parts become harder and more expensive to source to keep these cars on the road ,and as these parts become harder to find /afford, the more the existing members will move on to newer models. i also feel that santa pod and track days does not appeal to everyone and maybe we should have a bit more diversity ,ie more rolling roads,cruises etc.. doesnt appeal to everyone i know ,but a lot of younger peeps in twingos /clio's/ megans etc are going to be more into this scene,than track /santa pod, this club in my opinion has got narrow minded ,and needs to diversify more, just my five grands worth!!!
Wow, just seen this thread......my eyes hurt
Some very good comments and suggestions, I guess wheels are in motion too, that's why I got asked where I live when I logged in?
the £3 refund/discount i suggested does'nt really need to be does it? as if they decided to upgrade during the trial period the 12 months would'nt start until after the original 1 month trial?
if it overrided it then obviously they would lose a certain number of day's & be due a refund.
hopefully that's achievable?
The problem you've got though, is that for every one new member that thinks the same, there'll be ten current/older members who won't want that chav element/cruising nature creeping into the club, so where d'you draw the line? Swings & roundabouts mate.
Define Chav.
Thier money, opinions, Nonesense, is just as valid as anyones surely.
Plus who would consider themselves a chav? no-one im guessing.
So thats a class issue. The people we (im included here) are suggesting are chavs are people that bought a Renault turbo because it was cheap? coz they dont have jobs? Or is it just because they like loud drum & Bass and hang out in Mcdonalds car parks?
Until we decide who it is exactly this club wants to discriminate against we will lose all the semi-chavs that arent fully chavved up.
Ie an accountant that wants to put massive bodykits on his r5 gtt.
Or a guy that wants a totally standard 20 year old pristine Renault who also has 3 girlfriends in pink tracksuits, 4 kids and one angry dog that at any point will eat one of said children.
He found time to do some jibberish testing threads & announce an events feature but ignored this one???
just what you want from the man at the top eh?
I'll ask him to update this thread but he hasn't been ignoring it.
Also, a thread has been created on the commmitee section with a list of every point mentioned on this thread. We're just in the process now of thinking of ways to address and improve each point. Then we will be able to send out a general update on that also as requested
Thank you very much for keeping us informed DawnI'll ask him to update this thread but he hasn't been ignoring it.
Also, a thread has been created on the commmitee section with a list of every point mentioned on this thread. We're just in the process now of thinking of ways to address and improve each point. Then we will be able to send out a general update on that also as requested
I'm not sure if we have a vice-president position these days, but either way, Dawn would get my vote to be 'upped' to that post.
I wouldn't mind seeing damn up the post eitherlol
We dont even have a President anymore since Bruce left and the Committee were established. I dont know why people keep getting hung up on this point?
I'm not sure if we have a vice-president position these days, but either way, Dawn would get my vote to be 'upped' to that post.
Hung up on what?
Ok, President/Chairman. Same meat, different gravy.
That's unfortunate..... anyone who knows how to use "word" should be able to put everything together...
as I say, just suggestions... if you think it won't work then fair enough...
Not Really, President in the way it used to be is totaly different to the Chairman & Committee setup we have today.
Ash, do you mean from a heirarchal point of view?
The idea of a chairman and committee is better than a president and his muppets.
At least with the chair/committ format we are seeing massively more communication than before, well, maybe not massively...
BTW - I am happy to help if required!
Yet Miller still has the final say, no?
Why is this being blown out of proportion anyway? I'm simply commending someone (Dawn) for the fact she's been keeping members in the loop, as well as sorting out a Newsletter, all the contacts & discounts that's been arranged, and all the other pro-active good work she does for the club.
Likewise, as I have done in the past for Scoff's blood, sweat & tears with this website, and Clee for running/improving the Shop.
And I'm sure I will again, to you, when the area rep' setup is finally sorted.
Nope, Millers vote carries the same weight as anyone else on the committee .
I know it's nearly March ,but c'mon now it doesn't work like that at all
Well maybe that's something we need to clarify then if it's not clear
Its not Mart, I just wanted to try and clarify the role of the committee thats all
So now we're complaining when Chris DOES have time ? I asked him to do those whilst we spent yet more hours working on new sections of website. Perhaps he was more concerned with doing than reading this drivel, I know I would be.
He found time to do some jibberish testing threads & announce an events feature but ignored this one???
just what you want from the man at the top eh?
i just expected him to post in here,he's the man at the top after all.
if it were me & i was short of time,i would have put a quick post up saying "i am reading these points/ideas & will post/comment further when i have more free time"
it "looks" like he's ignoring it,im sure he's not,but we cant see anything being discussed on the cm boards.
i'l not comment on this thread anymore,only posted this to explain.
we'll yes fair enough, but no responce is not really a reason for people to start attacking - it's a reason for people to ask the question maybe - which had been done already.
I think this thread has lost the constructive momentum that it had. It would be cool if someone could make the time to go through it and yank out the good ideas and put them into a single post, then maybe each of those could be debated constructively - maybe positive things can come out the other end.
I'll have a weed through in a bit
I'll start another thread but it'll probably need locking; keep this thread open for ideas but have the new one locked but viewable with ideas put forward so far
Why not just lock the thread? Everyone's had their tuppenth worth of comments by now, hence there's only (currently) 6 pages of shpiel for the Committee to go through to pick out the juicy bits.
probably, but they can't be debated by members on there.hasnt that list already been started on the secretforum?
Keep this thread open for ideas and dicussion then, naturally trying to avoid the bull**** which is creeping in.
We need to see that other thread, make it public but keep it locked so we can see what's happening.
Sorry for the late reply, I have been reading its progress and discussing it on the cm boards. Most of these point have been discussed to death now but I thought I would try and pull all the main point from this thread and try and answer what we doing with them.
My time on site over the last few month has been very low but I must stress when needed I have added my thoughts and organised the things I have committed to doing, ND and calendars plus ordering thing for ND. At the end of show season until show starting again most people are quiet on the boards and that includes me. For me this time is the only time in the year I get some time at home as most of you will know I will travel 600-700 miles round trip every other weekend during the summer to attend rtoc events and non-rtoc events. As I have always said I am not a big poster on the main boards but I am more of a “if I want to talk to someone I will call them type of person”
My roll is the club is not a dictator and that is why we have a committee now they can decide on ANY decision they want without my input I do not have any higher say. Please see the following link and look at my job description:
https://www.rtoc.org/club/?show=committee
As stu-thc has said if something big was needing sorting, I would be on sorting it out as soon as I could and doing everything within my ability to do so
Feed back to the members
This is something that we are now working on, and the first idea we have a newsletter. Dawn is working on this and we will try and update you as and when we have more information. We have also come up with a better system to get our own committee threads, dealt with in a more organised manner. This also brings us to the committee boards, most clubs have hidden boards that they use to have frank conversation about what is happening we are the same and we are not going to make them visible.
Area Reps
Unfortunately you have all not had any update but the list of area is almost complete with just two regions to decide on. As you will have noticed the ball has started rolling on the relevant changes to the website to accommodate these changes. I would just like to add it was not this thread that got it moving, it was already happening in the back ground and was in the process of getting implemented.
Flyers for reps and members to place on cars
A few years ago I got some A5 “about the club and application form” made, they were a good size to keep in the glove box. They will be good to keep in cars, in case you see a Reno turbo you think should be in the club or for something to give to people at events. It was a rework of the item that was on the old site, I will get a copy from the printers and post it up on the site. When the area reps get decided I will post these out to them and we will also start sending a few out with the new membership/renewal packs…….I think I still have one box if not I will get more made.
R5GTTOC then RTOC
Unfortunately we will always be know as the gt turbo owners club and the reason for this…… well when the club changed names did it change any of the adverts it used to run in magazines……no they were edited so all that changed was the logo with a reference that it was once the gttoc. This continued until the committee started and after that all the pictures on the home page were changed to standard Renault turbos and not focusing on 5 in particular.
All the adverts I have done have all been very generic and show pictures of most old and some modern Renault turbos, for those that have seen the new renewal/membership pack will be able to back me up on this.
If we change the name again, we would still need to say were once rtoc so people knew who we were, but at the end of the day we are the Renault TURBO Owners Club, how can we be more specific to all turbocharged Renaults. TBO I do not want to change the name of this club and I am sure the majority of our members do not want to change the name of this well known club.
Club Shop
This has always been a stickler for people, if you think what was for sale in the shop 2-3 years ago then you will see we have added a lot of items. The biggest problem we have is deciding what items to stock, at the same time we need to be sure we are going to shift those said items. We are always open to suggestion but they must be sensible as we need to watch how we spend our money. Another thing we are not going to do, as it is a waste of time is sell parts that are readily available from your local auto shop like service and general maintenance items. All if not most of the items we sell in the shop are unique items, like our carb kit yes you can buy them anywhere but not as comprehensive as ours. The other big problem is storage, we cannot expect clee or whoever is running the shop to give up half his house for storing parts. So we need suggestions on what you want to see in the shop!!
Making the membership fee more Worthwhile
To be honest I think this statement is a bit of an insult, do people think that the two highly discounted days that we organise, are not worth it or the discounts that dawn, Ian and other have arranged for our members https://www.rtoc.org/contacts/ are not worth it. What about the shop the fact we make NO money from our members on any products we sell is that not worth it. As Mark Dow said to me once “you give it too good to your members and that why expect so much”
Amalgamating with other clubs & More paying Members
Yes this would be a good thing but I do not think we should stray from our heritage as in turbocharged renos, we have tried in the past to get clubs to join in our days but it has been a massive fail and they are just not interested. So if we cannot get them to come to our events what chance have got of getting them to join our club. I could see us maybe getting more members from old school Reno turbo club as they start to die off in the future. The question is, is their any need and this brings me to membership numbers. If you look at the bottom of the board’s home page you will see we have 1,826 members and that breaks down as follows:
Paid members: 695
Registered members: 931
Banned members: 121 (we need to keep them as banned to stop them re-joining and spamming the site)
Users Awaiting Email Confirmation: 41
Traders: 13
Committee members: 11
Honorary members: 6
Administrators: 4
Moderators: 3
Press: 1
If you take banned members and email conformation out of the equation, that gives us 1664 now that is more than rtoc has ever had! The important thing to notice is the 931 registered members, they are mostly people who have joined up to have a look around but did become full members and a small percentage is fully paid member who have let their membership laps or just moved on to new pastures. Now something I was thinking of (I have not discussed this with the CM’s) is send these people an email and offer them membership at the renewal price for £10. I think most would go for it as it’s probably the new member price that is scared them off. I have uploaded a file that shows the new membership numbers falling at the time of the fee increase.
https://www.rtoc.org/files/Club%20fil...%20numbers.gif
I was also thinking of extending this offer to all new members by having a 1-2 month pre-show sale that we would run with an advert in one of the magazines we advertise in. I would like to point out from what I understand; we keep a lot of members even when they sell their cars etc.
Closer ties with foreign clubs & UK one
This is something stu is going to be doing, he has already been speaking to foreign clubs but he is also going to join on behalf of rtoc all the major Renault clubs so it will help with communications with them and to help advertise our events.
Group buys
I have tasked myself to sort out a procedure for how future group-buy should run with regards to, taking money and making the process as safe and secure as possible. This should stop the member who is organising the discount from having to pay for the goods himself.
Events page looking quiet
This should hopefully be answered now, over the weekend we worked on making the events page more user friendly and try and show, what events are happening in each month. The calendar that we had previously was not getting used to it full potential. If you looked on the page last week you would only have seen 6 events, now with the new layout you can see their is 22 events organised so far this year. That does not include some of the events that are in the “2010 events” thread started by stu.
See here for more info https://www.rtoc.org/boards/showthread.php?t=13568
Committee member’s rolls
We have added a job description for Chris smith so hopefully this will clear up the position of people who only have CM below their name. You can see the changes here. https://www.rtoc.org/club/?show=committee
ND Venue & Club funds
As its been mentioned in this thread and a previous thread at the end of the year that I did not reply on it. So I will add it here, I would like to point out the club is in the best financial shape it has EVER been in. Considering we have two events, a big amount of shop goods and the extra advertising we pay for, as a committee have really turned this club around. Most of you will remember ND 2006 at brunters well that day cost us just under £19,000 with a loss of around £11,500. ND 2009 only cost £9,500 with a £1,200 loss so you can see a lot has changed over the years. We have a solution for the loss of last year, so that should hopefully reduce again this year. More information on ND 2010 will follow tomorrow.
This years total loss for both of our events was under £3,000 and after ND 2009 we had the money in the account to cover all events and running cost for 2010…….so we a far from needing to think about getting more money into the club.
The previous thread was asking for another venue but if we change venue then a few things will need to happen. I have come to these conclusions from the prices and information I gathered in 2007 regarding venue hire.
I only found two locations that do on-site camping pod and Mallory
The next proper track will cost us twice as much as Mallory
Therefore we would need to double the ticket prices to make similar losses
If we went to another track venue we would not be able to afford pod
These are just some of the reasons that I want to stick with Mallory, if people want to go to another venue for ND then I will not be organising it as I am not prepared to put the club into the financial position that it has been in the past. I am always hearing people say thing like “you could have ND in a field and people would still turn up” this maybe true for some but we would get no where near the numbers we have seen in the past, this brings me to the point of why do we need to change venue every year.
We have come to a good balance to cater for everyone just now. If we start to move from venue to venue, then this is how we end up with very earlier or late ND, look what has happened to pod after we missed a year we cannot get another Saturday because it is the same people that get the spaces the following year.
My opinion is if we keep the club funds the way they are, by that mean keeping one year in front, we have nothing to worry about regarding a shrinking club. Yes at some point funds will start to dwindle but it will not come as a surprise to us…..we will see it coming and right now it is going the other way.
What we need to do is get our members to ND to support the event, we had about 300 people at ND this, where was the rest of them.
I am sorry to bore you to death, but his topic had to be made a bit more constructed to take anything from it. If you think i have missed any point i am sure you will be quick to point them out.
Regards
Chris
Chris, a very good post thanks for the update.
I am with you 100% I really appreciate the amount of personal time the club would take up and the amount of effort you put in to providing the national days..
In fact I bet that email took most of your evening judging by the time posted
The idea of doing a feature on members cars bring sent out in a newsletter is cool, once it's been sent out could it be then posted in a new section on the site? A members feature that only the comitee can post so it's a bit more professional than a thread started by the member.
Also keep an archive of the newsletters?
Yeah, think that's the plan. We'll have a seperate sub-directory where all the newsletters can be used for reference and read whenever members wish to see them
Too much of a risk to take to design and manufacture those sort of items for sale in the club shop .I would only do it for my own use .
Does the club have public liability?
No idea .But that won't cover things like design faults etc .
Totally different liability I think ,been a while since I've had to go through it .Last time was for a portable laser hair removal device
British standards ,CE etc ......
How does the club shop work, run as a business?
I'm not 100% how we are registered ,if at all ?
Ian is the man to ask on that side of things .
No not generally, only when we buy it specifically, eg, for a club event.
No, not a registered business. Not registered at all.
The club itself is a 'Clubs and Societies' organisation as far as banks go.
As far as tax liability, we make no profit so we don't pay any.
Just posting it here as it was mentioned earlier in this thread.
The new batch of orange dial kits should be delivered to us tomorrow.
As promised, this is the new artwork that i have made and are using for our membership packs.
New Pack
Renewal Pack
This is the more non Renault 5 GTT based "join our club flyer" i had made a few years ago and when i get more will add them to the membership packs we will also send them off to area reps when we are up and running. It is A5 double sided:
Front
Back
Regards
Chris
I'm still waiting aswell, chop chopi'm pretty sure you actually wanted the drawings from me at 1 point to look into having these made
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