vornwend

Its amazing how calm we all are!

Slap a turbo on it and head out to heaven, them angels sure can sing

Its ended - what are you still doing here?

Anybody would think its the season of goodwill! We have 2hrs and 13 minutes left to get our act together folks

Very happy to do that. Some suggestions (which are by no means just mine) are fairly straightforward I think ? I summarised them in an earlier post as best I could taking the various comments that have been made into account.

Paul - Just think its inevitable that CCGB stuff gets posted up on here - far more people use this forum than the CCGB one. I suspect that pretty much all of the CCGB committee and membership have posted stuff up on here about CCGB shows etc and I don't get the impression that anybody has objected to that? I like the fact (well sometimes) that you get pretty much instant responses on here yet the CCGB forum you often wait for days for a response. Just a factor of how many people use this. I think its been useful to have the discussion here as its prompted some good debate and plenty of ideas and reactions. Some of those have come from people who won't normally attend the AGM , some have come from non CCGB folk but I think its important to canvas that group as well as ultimately if we don't attract more of them then the club will start to struggle. This forum is probably the most fertile recruiting ground we can sow. Jim - Can we not make it very light touch? - as VR6 suggested? Hopefully no extra work for the mods once the URLs, banners and such like had been set up? I think the CCGB is more than capable of generating show income for example. If we do agree to co-operate we should be able to draw the lines quite clearly so there is no mission creep and everybody knows where the roles start and stop. In my opinion each camp has its strengths and weaknesses and I think a partnership along the lines suggested could be a win-win?? The CCGB does a fantastic job with getting shows organised - I honestly don't think the majority of them would happen without them as the organisation required is sometimes huge. Then there is the Sprinter which everybody agrees has been great and merchandising as well . We are fortunate indeed to have people with a passion for what they do on both sides (and lets not forget, unpaid) be they CCGB Committee members or Forum Mods and system administrators (some do both). I just think that if we worked together we would be greater than the sum of the parts and that now is the right time to do that. I can't make it to the AGM I'm afraid but I would like to submit my votes to the secretary as well as suggestions for discussion around this topic if required ? How do we get proposals for a vote onto the agenda? ---------- Post added at 11:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 PM ---------- [/color]G-Lad and I were typing at the same time but he said it better than me! I would not want the reserves level (which after all is a rather academic arguement) to be the sticking point to closer collaboration although I do think we need some investment. Hopefully with collaboration generating some new member income and a fee increase we can afford that without taking the reserves below a level which the committeee and club are unhappy with.

A partnership of sorts does seem to make a lot of sense. How about a contribution based on say £1.50 for each CCGB member towards the cost of running this Forum? So I think we have 4 emerging and somewhat connected themes to consider: 1) Increase CCGB Membership Fee to £15 (possibly staggered) - generating an extra say £1,250 (assuming say 250 members) 2) Annual CCGB contribution to Corrado Forum - c£375 - to be renewed on annual basis - subject to Andi agreeing? 3) All weather Gazebo c£1500 (subject to Yans costing) 4) Purchase 15 Bentley Manuals for hire by club members c£750 All other things being equal that would deplete the CCGB reserves by around 25% - so leaving £4,500 in the kitty. On an ongoing basis it would balance income and expenditure with the chance to pull in some more members and income and do even more as funds permit. We could ask for a vote on the fee increase on the basis that if its passed then the rest of the suggestions will be deemed to have been approved? If the fee increase is rejected then we could still take a vote on the individual ideas for spending the reserves on a case by case basis Thoughts?

Thanks Yan - that will get my vote! Shame about BVF

Pack looks very good! Lets brain storm some more ideas at the pub on Saturday If 270 is correct then we've lost 1/3 rd of the membership in a little over 2 and a half years. If the club is to have a viable future that rate of decline needs to be slowed or reversed or activities will inevitably have to be scaled back. Hopefully enough people have been stirred enough to contribute some more articles for the Sprinter as I'm sure that would be a big selling point. Jim has done a brilliant job but we need a regular flow of articles folks! Looking back at old editions I did like the technical items and how to s. Given the age of our venerable fleet there may be some merit in a series of articles on how to preserve them and tips for storing over winter?

RW1 Agree we need a sensible level of reserves Agree the committee members should not have to pay from their own pocket ever - and at the moment we are a long way from that At the current fee level the reserves represent almost 3 years worth of membership fees At the proposed level of £15 reserves are still almost 2 years of membership fees I'd suggest a more appropriate level is c9 - 12 months - so around £2,000 max - allows plenty of time for fees to come in and no danger that any commitments cannot be honoured. That would free up c£4,000 to invest over an above the normal level. By way of context the 20th anniversary in 2008 cost the club £1,100 so even if we had to pay for that a year in advance there would be no danger of running out of cash As far as I can tell membership numbers have been dropping by c20% every year for the last 3 years - the pressing need is to encourage more members to join and stop more leaving - it seems unlikely that putting the fees up and maintaining £6,000 in the bank is going to help achieve that? I think we need to spend our reserves so they get down to a reasonable level and set the annual fee to cover annual costs on an on-going basis. Since the membership is in rapid decline in makes sense to try and spend any money we have spare on making the club more attractive to new members otherwise it will be a downward spiral from which we won't easily recover. Also worth remembering that its always better business sense to keep a customer than have to find new ones. I like Jame's idea of spending the surplus over a defined period of time - that's what charities who have built up surpluses are usually asked to do. I also like Michael's chrome badge idea. The priority should be to look for things which makes membership more attractive. Having been a member for donkeys years I'm not at all familiar with the membership pack that people now get or how we sell it to prospective members but I'd be happy to work with a committee member(s) to help shape it up.

Eric - I'm very happy to trust the committee to make decisions about how to spend the money in year - there's always the chance to hold them to account at the AGM! Maybe the AGM could have a list of suggested expenditure (over and above the day to day running of the club) and then take a vote? Gazebo £1,500 20 x Bentley Manuals £1000 Xmas cards £600 Flags and Banners £500? 25th Anniversary £2,000? ---------- Post added at 4:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 4:49 PM ---------- Hehe ---------- Post added at 5:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 4:50 PM ---------- This weeks Euro millions then we could buy a track :dance:

When I say balance I mean end each year with £2,000. The new year fees would come in after that so you never normally drop below that amount. ts really just for emergencies or exceptional expenditure. I agree that the reduction in members probably has nothing to do with the fee (although it may be an issue for members who join on the day of a CCGB event?). Most likely the reduction is a factor of reducing numbers of cars on the road and not being able to persuade enough owners that there is value in joining hence wanting to spend some of the money we have languishing in the bank to improve that. Quite a debate we seem to have sparked! I'm only using this thread to keep my post count ahead of Wendy's :-)

Not read it yet Jim a I've been away this week. Great minds think alike then!

Wendy - I think its good to start to spend the built up money and I support that. The club is in rapid decline (or so it seems when you look at membership numbers) I am therefore questioning the logic of increasing the fees when we are shedding members at that rate and have large brought forward balances. The issue here is not the membership fee its what we spend the money on. I will happily vote for the increase if I see a plan to bring the balance down to below £2,000. The £1500 Gazebo is a start. Just doing one without the other is short sighted - fees up, members down, fees up again, members down. Eventually you'll be left wiith a hardcore (we know who we are!) paying £50 a year and meeting in a cafe once a year. I exaggerate a tad for effect :-) but you can hopefully see what I'm saying? ---------- Post added at 4:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 3:37 PM ---------- Good idea on the staggered fees! Agree the club needs a float - but not £6,000! A lot of people are emphasising the importance of the Sprinter. I agree its an important part of the club but as Jim has said its hard to keep it going unless people contribute. The content is also important. Looking back at old copies (I have some from 1997!) we used to issue it 4 times a year. However a lot of the content from then is now better served by more modern means - website, forum discussions, build threads etc etc. There used to be for sale ads in the old Sprinter but these days we can just post up an ad on here in seconds. Maybe its worth reviewing some old copies to get ideas for content? Bit of a cop out but we could even re-print some old articles - blast from the past kind of thing? Is it possible to grab some content from the Bentley manuals or do we risk infringement of copyright? I think a lot of people would be interested in that. Could the club buy 25 Bentley manuals for lending out - get people to put down a deposit if required? charge them postage

Do we actually know how many members we have? - I can't see its much above 200 -225 and rapidly declining, either that or a lot of people don't pay! Our total income last year, including merchandising, was only £2400 The last 3 years reported membership income is £3700, £3200 and £2,800 at that rate there won't be a club in 5 years. There is no point in having a huge surplus sat in the bank earning no interest is all I'm saying. Lets spend it and drum up more interest (excuse the pun!) before its too late.

Wendy, When I looked at the last years accounts I see the Sprinter costs around £800 on average so we have enough in the bank to fund almost 8 years production costs of that. The AGM costs around £1,100 per year The point here is not that £15 is too high (its cheap!) but that its ridiculous to have £6,000 just sat in a bank account doing nothing (last year we earned not one single penny of interest on it) We are no where near running on empty My business logic is keep the fee low to encourage as many new members as possible and retain existing ones, spend the £6,000 on things that hopefully re-enforce the attractiveness of membership over the next 2 or 3 years and up the fee only when the annual costs exceed the income and balances. It seems to me that membership has been falling. 2 or 3 years ago income was about 25% higher than is now being reported. In that situation it makes very poor business sense to put prices up because people will vote with their feet. In any case the club is not a business its a not for profit club! At the end of the day this is not a savings club and there is no point in carrying forward these huge sums of money from one year to the next. Yes they've gone down which in a sense is good but they have a long way to go before we need to out fee up For anyone who wants to see in detail where the money is spent there is a downloadable file on the CCGB website. I hope none of the committee think this discussion is in any way a criticism of them because its absolutely not. The club would not be here at all if it were not for them!

I'm probably one of those members who could be persuaded to pay £15 but I still don't think its necessary with £6K in the bank. If there are c200 members and they pay another £5 then you get £1000 more every year. Does that balance the books on an annual basis? if so that suggests an annual deficit in a normal year of c£1000. Therefore it will take c6 years to deplete the bank balance if we stick with the existing fee and do nothing to reduce costs. Even if these estimates are 100% out then we have enough to hold off on an increase for 3 years. Therefore I don't think we need to have a change in the fee until the balances are below say £2,000. I would only support the increase if there was an agreed plan to spend most of the £6,000 over the next year or so

Not sure where best to post this but as many CCGB members are on here it seems as good a place as any The recent Sprinter mag has reference to a proposal to increase the annual fee from £10 to £15. This will be voted on at the AGM in April My views on this are; A) The fee is still quite small but a 50% increase may discourage some. I'm not sure how many members we have but looks to be around 200? many already question the value from the £10 fee (not me by the way!) but nevertheless they do, so an increase is not going to attract those people - in fact we may trigger a downward spiral - fee up, members down, fee up, members down etc etc. B) The accounts are still very healthy - with >£6,000 in the bank and whilst there was an overspend of £1,500 last year I don't think that means we have to react quite so quickly - what drove the loss - was it one off or part of a trend? C) The purpose of the annual fee and the reserves is to pay for recurrent expenditure not to to build up a surplus! Most not for profit associations are encouraged to get their balances down not carry them forward from year to year. D) There is mention of increasing postage costs - is it time then to make the Sprinter electronic only - would save a few hundred pounds a year? My vote would therefore be to keep it at £10 for now and review each year, especially whilst we still have such healthy reserves.

We recently bought a Nexus - absolutely superb tablet. Lack of expandable memory was a downside but I bought an micro usb adaptor for a £1 on e-bay and can now connect to a flash drive if I need more memory - may be useful for taking several films, TV series etc on holiday. Otherwise the supplied 32gb seems adequate - I have a few videos, 1000 songs and about 100 apps and only using half of the memory. If I need internet and no wi-fi I can tether to a sim card in a mi-fi or phone. Not too big , not too small and a very good price!

John - I'm surprised but then again not. You once did me the very great honor of allowing me to be a passenger with you for a few laps round Castle Coombe a few years ago (can't remember exactly when and can't find the photos but will keep looking) That was an amazing experience and I still clearly remember my instinctive need to try and brake at every corner while I got used to the insane speeds you threw the car in at! I think we had one lap where you were out braking an Audi R8 into Quarry. Still the most fun I've had in a Corrado! I wish you well in the future and look forward to seeing what you decide to get to fill the gap. Hopefully we will see you at some future meets! Quick photo of the grey beast (replete with sticking plaster) at some show way back when

More odds and sods...... Heater pipework: £5 (3 pieces) Brake master cylinder: £20 Steering U-joint knuckle: £25 Radiator air guides (2 pieces): £10 2.016v 9A intake elbow: £5 2.016v 9A Metering Head Cover: £7.50 2.016v 9A Intake pipework: £7.50 2.016v 9A HT Lead Holder: £2.50 Sunroof air deflector (ideal for colour coding- see Rams' Gallery thread ;) ) : £7.50 PAS metal front pipe: £5 Bulkhead heatshield: £10 2.016 ABS Pump Heatshield: £3 Brake Servo: £10

Thanks for posting - not seen this one before. Wonder if he ever will eat his trousers on toast!

Couple of small bits. Seat belt height adjuster knob and orange HT lead clip? £2.50 posted each

And some more black bits plus a fuse box with free fuses!

I couldn't see mine in the link but it sounds like its not the final list anyway - The tension builds!