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Hi all – Your Chairman here..
Many of you will be wondering what has happened with the club magazine as you may or may not have noticed that it’s been a while since we sent one out.
Well the truth is that your club is totally reliant upon the materiel you send in to publish the magazine – and as we’ve all got day jobs there’s only so much that your committee can do to garner any material and it’s generally falling upon just a few die hards who write anything.
Very soon we will be looking at other options – It’s generally felt that members do prefer a hard copy magazine to read rather than an electronic pdf etc. but I’m wondering if the digital age has now overtaken the paper magazine..?
There will be a publication sent out in the next few weeks but we are now dropping the 3 monthly issue objective – we hardly ever get enough materiel for that – and could be considering just an annual edition now. We will of course review the impact that can have on membership fees since mazine production and postage is our single greatest expenditure.
So folks – please air your views and let us know what you think…?
Cheers.. Glenn
Hi Glenn,
In my opinion the size of the membership or indeed, just by nature of the number of bikes built means that the amount of people possessing these great machines is small. With several owners having more than one, myself for example, then again the pool of owners is again reduced. Less owners means less people to write about the bikes. I, as have you, have contributed on numerous times to R World over the years and have always enjoyed receiving my copy, even when I was helping to edit and produce it.
Now though I feel that a magazine is really an unnecessary drain on time and resources for the Club. We live in the digital age now and that is the where I feel our efforts should be focused.
My first suggestion would be to make the forum easily accessible to anyone to read or even contribute to once registered. This may be the case now, I am not sure. For the committed enthusiasts then keep a membership option open but reduce the cost to a marginal amount to keep the Club and its various events financed with some benefits for those who chose to be part of a collective. That would certainly be me.Hope this starts some debate.
AndyI enjoy getting my printed copy of the mag here in Oz, it’s a kind of reminder of how spread out we are, which you sort of become immune to with the internet. However I understand the costs of producing it and the frustrations brought about by lack of contributions…I was heavily involved in the vjmc here so know what it’s like. Having said that I am one of the guilty ones for not contributing to this club mag (glows red with embarrassment).
I think the mag is an important part of the club, and would like to see it continue (with more push to get contributions), but perhaps to keep costs down (and hence reduce membership fees) we explore just an online version?
I should also add a big thankyou to those that put in the hard yards to make it happen.
Cheers,
Peter’s 2 bobs worth.Andy, Very good post, and really I must say I agree with you. I thoroughly enjoy the magazine. Looking back on past copies is always a favourite for me. It is an amazingly good production for such a small membership and I congratulate you and all involved for their time and professional input.
Myself, the most desirable part of the club is the merchandise. Possibly a source of income, and possibly not fully exploited to club members. My club polo shirt and T-shirts are an accessory, almost as valuable to me as my 1100R owners manual.
I wonder if others feel the same way.JohnS
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