lol purp alert purp alert....
lol purp alert purp alert....
Buying a ticket is pretty much the best way to be guaranteed a chance to join in.
Well if you are a true Renualt enthusiast, and passionate about the mark/club, then why would you mind losing £45 (or even £15 now we are offering the chance to resevere track time) if you cannot make it for one reson or another?
Im stunned really
What more can we do? We arrange the events that YOU the members ask for. Heavily subsidise tickets. Put them up for sale well in advance to give everyone plenty of time to plan for it and save up, and still people aren't happy. Still people wont buy tickets.
No other car club subsidises events like we do, no others can afford too. God knows what the spend their membership takings on, cos' if we didn't subsidise events we'd be minted. But we are not minted, we are in a comfortable position thats lets us use takings to make events and parts for sale in the shop cheaper for members.
Id like to see what Ticketmaster, or Seetickets or one of those other companies said if you emailed saying 'I really want to go to see Oasis in concert, but i think my dog might be ill on that day so will you hold a ticket for me, ill pay on the door'.
I dont know what's gunna happen before the 15th August. My house could burn down, i might break my arm/leg/face on a rock, my car could get nicked/blow up/fall apart, a plauge of locusts might ravage the earth and we are plunged into a thousand days of darkness. But ive still bought a fecking ticket, 'cos i really want to go to National Day and thats the best way of making sure i do.
Too late JRP
CM type dudes have just as much right to moan about the lack of support as someone else has to moan about non Renault attendance etc ......
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
ill be going just not bought ticket yet
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
i will be goin just not bought ticket is it on saturday
I think we all need to calm down and re evaluate the sales/spaces after pay day!!
crap cant get time off bar stool....................err so wanted to go
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
I've just booked my ticket - sorry I don't go on the forum much but will be there with the R5 Coupe Cup again..
Was excellent last year and looking fwd to another great day lets hope the sun is shining again!
Dude - I am supporting the club as much as I can, I have bought track time for my Scooby entry and camping. I hope I will not be being shunned for not bringing my 5 along. I never expected to have my car off the road for 2+ years but when I started working on it to get rid of the rust, well you know the score. I hope this is not the case that non renault attendance will be frowned upon. My heart is always with the 5 and I can't wait to get her back on the road.
Hope this is not taken in the wrong vain.
TNT
I have to agree with what StuTHC is saying, if you want time on the track then buy a ticket.
If you don't want to buy a ticket and want the option to buy one on the day then you run the risk of them all going?
Simple isn't it??
People can only vote with their wallets at the end of the day....
I've already bought an entry ticket. If I can get my car sorted for the track can I pay the difference or do I have to pay the full whack?
You can .
PM me the serial code on your std entry ticket wristband, I will log it as upgradable to track .You will have to pay the balance in cash on the day .
I haven't shifted a single 'reserve' deal ticket so far so that seems like it was a waste of my time as well .
Moan, gripe, whinge ...why doesn't the world revolve around me etc
err ................I think I just answered that .God it's hard work some times
The only reason why you couldn't upgrade is if we were to sell out of track tickets before the event .
I will be deleting the reserve ticket for track listing on the 5th .Any tickets left will go back to outright purchase and once they're gone they're gone .
I will not be holding on to any track tickets for upgrade after the 5th .If there are any left on the day then you can upgrade ,if not then tough .
You have to (the club) think of the scenarios presented to the people in the club. Not everyone has the luxury of buying a ticket in advance, there might be a minority of people either working on projects or working on their cars doing repairs who hope to have them ready by National Day. It's a bit narrow minded to expect everyone to purchase a ticket in advance, i'd go as far to say nice attitude to say we run the risk of them all going, you'd be the first to pipe up if your best friend in a Renault arrived the night before or on the morning hoping to buy a track ticket for them only to be sold out.
As mentioned there's a few held back for us only until the 5th.Why not hold a few back?? It's not the end of the world, i thought this club wasn't primarily a business.
Feel free for anyone to shoot me down, everyone's entitled to a opinion, there's no harm in a convo or debate that might get a bit 'involved'. Seems like the people with something to say or an opinion have dissappeared, nothing wrong with posting an opinion, when it turns personal or a slanging match then it's a different matter.
Now where's my gun....
I agree with what you're saying Riccaay about not knowing till the last minute if your car/project will be ready on-time and also the disappointment that you'd feel if you got everything sorted out in-time for the day & then arrive at Mallory to buy a ticket & find they've all gone.
However you know better than I do about the fabled "RTOC Rule of Three" and how this would play out with the club would reserving a few tickets for people who then don't show on the day??
Clee has put an option for people to reserve tickets & as of 18:04 today still no-one had bought these...?
I know the club is not a business but it is also subsidising tickets through the money it does make & if it just loses money after every event then the club is just going to have a long slow death over many years of losing money & we'll all be out on our ears
I know all the people can't be pleased all the time.
Roll on Nat' Day weekend. I've got the time off work sorted at last, so I'll be there.....
.....in a Volvo
I don't think we do too bad on every National Day, we don't set the world on fire in attendance levels every year for the last few years. Has the club broken even on every National Day in the last 5 years?
People join the club, this i assume generates the funds to pay for ND, could you then say it's down to the committee and/or us to generate new ideas every year to entice peple to our brilliant club?? Wasn't this debate around a while back about quality and not quantity? Charging more to join, enthusiasts willing to pay the extra or keeping it cheap to get the numbers in??
The true enthusiasts wil be here year in year out regardless, it shouldn't be a slow death, it'll plateau at some point
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
got my tickets,can't wait.missed the last 1.what's the latest you can get in to mallory for camping friday night,as i don't know wot time i can leave work.
Just Paid up for track time. Got to sort out strut top, bearing and cracked manifold, Please dont shun me guys because im in a saxo, i do consider myself a rtoc'er
Ricky fella, i hear what your saying, and to a point agree with it, the true enthusiasts will keep supporting this club. But there will come a point when the numbers of those enthusiasts is so low that we won't be able subsidise events like we do.
Attracting people to the club is really out of our hands, we try and appear in decent numbers at some events through the year, hand out flyers etc, the odd magazine advert. But other than that it's word of mouth that attracts most members. You either have a Renault turbo, and want to join or you dont. Or you join R5GTT owners club or retrorenault or meganesport or cliosport..............
Our 2 biggest assests are our website, and how heavily we subsides events, mainly our 2 big ones Pod and ND. These events are RTOCs showcase really, the events that those members who only go to 1 or 2 meets a year will attend. It is also an oppertunity to show anyone from another club, or that is with their mate how good RTOC events are and how well supported we are/can be. These people may come along, see whats what and join up as members. If we can get them to join up before hand then even better.
We are only advertising to non members in appropriate places, IE other renault clubs (and pistonheads i think but ive not seen it yet), people who have an interest in the marque/cars and may join afterwards. We need to do it to raise our profile and keep the bank balance at a point where we can do this. We have 900ish members, if those 900 stay as true enthusiasts (?), and renew each year for £10 that's 9 grand, about what Mallory costs to hire. Pod is near enough 4 grand, website costs, running costs.....
To answer your question, No, we haven't broke even on the last 5 ND's, nowhere near, or the Pod day 2008 and 2009, £1800 and £1600 lost on those respectively. We lost £1200 on FCS 2008, ND 2006 was a lot more than that, so yeah, we've had our fingers burnt and learnt a few lessons, keeping it low key, enthusiats only is fine, but it doesn't pay the bills. Unless we ask you to pay £120 for a day at pod or ND tracktime.
We need to attract new people and keep a good turnover of members so we can keep the numbers up around 1000, it benefits everyone.
Why worry anyway, as Steve says it's RTOC! there will be tickets left on the day.
Got my ticket today! Cheers Clee My first ND, should be there for the afternoon at least and really lookin forward to it. Hopefully see as many renault turbos as poss but either way i'm sure it'll be an amazing day i just hope the weathers decent Unfortunately i will be attending in a non turbo (let down!) but i'll still be coming along in a renaultsport. gtt's undergoing resto work and a rebuild and then she'll be at every ND in future and the way i look at it is there is so many members doing resto work nowadays the future should (in theory) look bright for renault turbos attending ND kana wait
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
im trying to get the friday off work, but if i can't wots the latest you can get in to mallory for camping friday night
just park outside then jump the fence. people are up till well into the early hours. and also back up again at 6.
New poster! (less than 10 posts)
thanks stuTHC FOR for that .not ment to finish work till 10.even if i finish early still be pushing it .i fill a sick day cuming on lol .not missing this one
Then, as I keep repeatedly saying, that's when the club needs to start looking at alternative ways of keeping the money pot topped up.
If we're relying on the income of ND/Pod entry tickets, and that's not doing the trick, or so it would appear, then start thinking of other ideas now before the coffers do run empty/ND's aren't affordable.
If that isn't the case though, then Ricky's quality not quantity comment is bang on what I've also been harping on about these past few pages of this thread.
just an observation so feel free to try kick my ass at nat day
but the clubs main owners car is a R5 GT Turbo
which last time i looked is long gone off the production line and becoming rarer.
More than likely the examples that are left have at one point been owned by an existing or past member.
The hardcore diamond geezers and long term owenrs are of a particular average age. (soft choice of words there for 30s upward old farts)
However the new generation of people buying these cars, of which are of a younger late teen/early twenties age group are shot to pieces for asking advice on dump valves and speaking leet/text talk.
Its hard to swallow for someone buying a car of this calibre and not buying into the batsh*t they read in fast car and maxpower.
instead of educating these people out of this frame of mind..it takes one or two responses form them before we loose it and crucify them publically.
i know its annoying, but i was also of the ooo i have a GT Turbo i must see what gt tuning have to offer ex generation. but with gentle pursuasion i listened to the masses of intelectual gt brains on here and got out of the habbit of chrome and dvs = bhp mentality.
that was only a few years ago when the forums where a little less hostile to DV, charisma kitted R5 loving bling hoes!
I go for the R5 as it had a big relutation and is attractive to the younger generation, its cheapish, insurances isnt a massive killer, you can peform plenty of big power upgrades, massives tuner market and its got a bad ass reputation.
R11s are a choice for old school reno owners if you ask me.
turbo2s, alpines etc are expensive classic cars which ae few and far between.
the Megane turbo (now dont hurt me for this) is but a fast rep mobile currently. Every street these days owns a suburu imprezas of some form. Many years ago i guess when this site/club was formed, there was a different fast car geography.
what im trying to say is many megane turbo owners will just be regular car owners feeling flush with credit before the recession jumping on the hot hatch boom weve had in the past few years.
so until these drop below the £5k mark and become accessible to a GT turbo mentality generation your going to be stuck trying to get these cars into club. unless the way we operate changes to entice the more mature age bracket that owns these type of cars currently.
I wounder how many members there of renault sport forums, yet how many do acutally turn up for any event!!!!
I do personall think the majority of megane turbo owners, brought the car for the love of the diamond, its just to jump on the hot hatch band wagon. when the become more affordable in a few years they will start flushing through this club if it tailors for it.
how you do that is not up to me.
But at some point you need to look at your cars target audience and how the club operates etc.
plus this past two years has been an absolute killer due to financial insecurities all round.
not everyone knows if there going to have a job next week, let alone know if theyre bloody ancient piece of tin car will be working next week. the downside of having a 15yr old+ car. Also a big downside to a club thats owners mostly own a 15yr+ old car.
Just scan reading most events there is always peeps wanting to go but have to "work" on their car.
the remark well if it was maintained properly, just wont cut it in a response unfortunatly. I maintain mine all the time, its gone past a hooby its more of an obsession trying to keep the bloody car on the road.
you fix something, then something else goes.
these cars are old, prone to failure die to age (look how old the engines/electrics are now), so the majority of them will be in pieces most of the time.
POD days will be no good really for new breed Renault turbos, and i doubt someone wants to take an £8k car round mallory with a bunch of tarmac terrorists thrashing past them either.
Problem i see is theres a big gap between renaults R5 GT (majority of members) and the new big renault turbo the megane. (far to expensive to be enticed to our type of events). and there will be a big difference in what the majority of owners of both type of cars want out of their cars.
You cant see Megane owners chasing 1/4 times.
but you could see megane and R5 owners probably wanting to take part in steady appreciation track laps maybe! (ooerr)
only the flush hardcore diamond geezers would want to take a new megane on a track with us.
Other cars like clios...well they head for cliosport etc. And that has a big member bank due to the clio also being common and cheap to buy.
but you will also note the average age of the member bank, mentality of that age generation and the mentality often seen here.
im not seen either is good or bad.
just observations only.
to get more peeps into this club you would need to accept the generation differences, or alter the clubs dirrection to bring in the newer renault turbos on mass therefore slowing down the activities for the R5 generation terrorists.
that took me 30mins to type...and its all bullsh@t yey!!!
wow, and i thought i could type a long post...............
Here here Maka- some of the things you say here have been banded about for many years in respect to sarcastic remarks being made about hoow to stop fan belts squeeking / DV issues etc. there are genuinely some really helpfull people on here so try not to get too wound up with the not so helpfull members and concentrate on the helpfull ones. This topic has been discussed at AGM's on several occassion with no direct outcome. So find the helpfull lot and take their advice. Also use the search function
As for the transgretion to Megans Etc, this is inevatable how many Renault 4's, Maxi's T2's, Gordini's etc do you see running around today??? The 5 will be about for some time yet.
Old farts? I'm one of them you young wipper snapper - (I guess) Some of those older types have made a stand on there own due to the silly antics of others on this site and circulate in there own circles and pop in here every now and again, which again is fine for those to do that and I'm sure within there ranks they are a very helpfull bunch.
I think this is a great club if you know who to listen to etc and some of the articals / files are very helpfull - Lets leave politics out of it and simply enjoy the cars and have a laught for the few times we meet up every year (well for me anyways)
Find TNT Andy,TNT Hammond, Tricky Nicky and Raider at the national day and have a beer.
Peace - that took me 30 mins to wright and now me tea has gone cold - B*stid
Err you can buy the mintiest mint GTA for under £5k these days .......
I think part of the reason we are not getting a new generation / different types of Renault Turbo's (bar a few..), is because the club still has the image of being the Renault 5 GT Turbo owners club
I think your missing the point.
We ARE keeping the pot topped up.
We ARE in a good position and will be in a position to keep subsidising events like we do......
IF we keep attracting new members. Which we are, and learn a few lessons, which we have.
We have 400-600 core members, that renew every year. By doing what we are doing with the Pod day and ND (advertising to different clubs, offering cheaper tickets if you join the club etc) we are attracting new members. That keeps a healthy turnover and the pot topped up. Some of those will stay around, some, if not most, will not. But the cycle continues.
The fact that a tiny minority of members will have their nose put out of joint because a few new faces will be around at ND and other events is quite frankly hard fecking lines. We will always welcome new people as we always have.
There is no quality over quantity argument, we will never have large numbers of members because there is not a huge 'fan base', we just need to keep attracting the interested like we do/ are trying to do.
Maka, i agree about the age of these cars/age of members and age gap situation. I certainly want to broaden our range of events for next year, to have club representation at more 'classic' events, La Vie en Bleu etc, as well as the usual stuff that members ask for at the AGM.
I still think new members should be given a qualifying period...3 months before ANY discounts are offered.
Sounds ****ish but I think it'd stop whats happening in this instance anyway.
And Stu...EAT ME
ner im an old fart i was just making NEUTRAL observations about club direction comments in previous posts on this thread etc.
you need to identify the problem before the solution
but is the solution in benefit of its current members.
thats what my post was about.
if its been banded about at agms a number of times but nothing definitive done about it, then maybe its time the issue was addressed properly and not just left till all hell breaks loose.
im not wound up at all, like i said just a neutral post about some of the comments made on thread is all.
just wanted to make a contribution of some sort.
All coolio budski, the term b*stid was in reference to me tea going cold, so don't take it any other way. I have agreed with all your comments. All hell won't break loose, it will just be another nail in the coffin which is the RTOC. It seems a shame that some people can't just get on with it and enjoy the club in which it was meant to be, which is outlined in the mission statement on the home page. I don't think you're wound up at all I think you're points are valid and sound as indicated, and if you want to contribute have a word with the comitee they may be able to help you there also.
With the greatest of respect mate, I think you've missed/misread the comments that I've posted previously in this thread.
I've already acknowledged that the club coffers are seemingly ok, otherwise we wouldn't be holding Pod days etc, let alone a yearly ND. If you read back, I said IF the situation should arise that the money pot is looking low, then we should look into alternative ideas.
Not sure where the shpiel about newcomers being at ND was being aimed towards, but if it was in my direction, you're way off the mark, as none of that has anything to do with what I was originally getting at in my previous posts. I welcome all & sundry to our ND's; even those that don't own an rtoc/Renault turbo/RenaultSport motor, if it's to look around on the day, chat to the owners, etc etc.
My problem is with the non-rtoc/non-Renault(turbo)/non-RenaultSport owners that are blatently signing up just to obtain cheapy track action in the process.
I'm now bored of posting the same sh1t over & over again. I've made it clear several times what the score is from my point of view, and I'm bolloxed if I'm gonna repeat it all again
Chow mein.
This is all being blown out of proportion ...we have 3 or 4 non-renault/turbo/sport type dudes turning up ...that's all .
I still have over 70 track spaces and 200 entry tickets left .
Now who needs to buy a ticket ? Trackday Organiser
I've already mentioned I won't ever track my current gtt, and likewise, already mentioned that I wouldn't bring the Evo/take it on track at an rtoc/Renault related event.
There is an rtoc trackday already in the pipeline for Autumn time though, that'll be posted about after ND (as to not take away any potential ND track ticket sales in the meantime).