you are away from the PC for a couple of weeks a lot gets posted

For the future if Briskoda starts to attract the mindless posting of other forums could paying to be a member, maybe to an "inner forum" weed out the juviniles

You 'avin' a pop?

All,

Going to print this out as it seems I did not go to Oban, but was abducted by Skoda owners and had my thoughts for the last few weeks and months typed into a forum...

Here was me worrying how some comments would be taken...

...will be back soon, need paper.

i think briskoda is fine as it is and should not be changed into a fun fare car club like the ford capri club. Im sure starting a club is for good intention until it becomes a profit making club with overheads, members taking a disliking to more active known members etc.

This site is great.!

Tavia, not having a pop as you put it, I kind of like the humour bits. I was refering more to the slagging & personal insults that seem to creep onto the likes of Scoobynet & the RS forum

hehe - I hope at 24, I'm not considered one of the "juveniles" who just come on here to make mindless posts... - Some may accuse me of that, but I beg to differ.. well, most of the time anyway

lol, what have I done?

I said to darren "maybe one day we'll move to a club of sorts"

....but glad it's provoked discussion!

Totally biased, I would love to see Briskoda become more of a club, the name (from Brisk Skoda) was designed to try and include all, not exclude the smaller engined versions, or indeed non octavias, as originally we were virtually all octy owners.

A club, like this site, does cost money, but divided by the numbers we have that could be quite a small cost -

I'm against making it a "club".

At the moment we have a good mix of cars and drivers. The danger in setting up a club is that some may feel excluded, same as making the site pay per view (so to speak). Plus, there is already a Skoda club in the UK. OK, join that and stir things up? The more members they have from the VAG era, the more things will be targetted at that group. Why re-invent the wheel as they say.

I like the site as it is and I for one love the lack of banner ads. However, this lack of commercialism has a flip side in that the site (ie Colin) doesn't recoup his costs for putting together and hosting this site because there is no way (at present) for "advertisers", for want of a better word, to get anything out of it.

I think there needs to be a clear division between this site and a "club", although not sure how feasible that is.

This has come up before and (even in the vortex days) it never really changed anything.

We have had some contact with the "official" club, even (hypothetical) discussion about some form of "joined forces".

They are far more established on the "meetings side" - we are more active on the "web" side of things, they seem to be more "pre VW" skoda's, we seem to be more (almost exclusively) "post VW" skoda's" - I do feel that maybe we compliment each other rather than be an "either \ or" option.

That's where I was heading with the second paragraph and why I'm against making "Briskoda" a club.

I guess when it comes down to it, the definition of a "club" really is the deciding factor.

At the moment, there's an open forum whose members have to seek out information they

need. A periodical publication summarising new developments and plans both within

Skoda and Briskoda would be useful to active members, and also a great opportunity to

blag test drives and freebies for those involved...

Furthermore, merchandise and parts deals, dealer discounts and other stuff would be of

benefit to everyone - bargains for members, promotion of Briskoda for the admin team,

promotion of the Skoda brand for Skoda, more profit for R&D, so better cars which benefits

members...I could go on...

I do agree with those who've made the point about making things "members-only" being a

bad thing. However, I think options such as the stickers are good - you're no less a member

in terms of the site if you don't have one, but if you want to promote Briskoda and get the

free webspace you can.

Rob.

Hmmm... my thoughts on the subject.... as I'm against the idea...

*lights blue touch paper and gets ready to retreat...*

If there's already a very well-established owners club, why aren't people looking to them, instead of wanting to start their own?

If - as John says - they're been around for 40 odd years, then it stands to reason that they're going to be interested in the "dreaded" pre-VAG era.

Then again, maybe that's because most of us "VAG era" owners aren't members?

So what is the purpose of starting a new owners club?

Will it be VAG cars only? :confused:

A cliquey vRS-only club? :confused:

By all means build on the success of Briskoda - get some merchandise deals in place, get talking to Skoda Uk for test drives / days out / etc... but do we need to become a club to do that? I can live without a printed mag/newsletters and a badge...

*pegs it*

BTW, this isn't a pop at anyone - I'm just playing Devil's Advocate... :evil:

When I posted waaaaay back on page 1 of this thread I did say:

"........it depends on what you define as a club and what we would want to achieve with it......" (or something like that)

Funny how once we've been round the houses we get back to what I said.

Now that there's been a bit more discussion I'm still no nearer to understanding the benefits (hey...it's still Monday morning you know). Not against it just want to understand better:

1) what is a club (and I don't mean something Captain Caveman carries around).

2) how it will benefit "Briskoda" members.

3) what are people's "visions" for the club.

Sorry to labour the points.

Cheers.

Adrian.

We all seem to be in a state of "violent agreement" here

To summarise (if I understand correctly):

1. Nobody really wants/needs a club in the conventional sense of the word (subs, newsletters, meets, t-shirts) etc.

2. On the other hand the website could do with more income to keep it going in its current form - i.e. no banners or pop-ups. The majority seem to be happy with the idea of contributing in some way - nobody wants the webmaster(s) to be out of pocket when providing this fine forum.

3. Some members would like to see a more visible koda presence at shows etc. which they feel is more likely to come from Briskoda members than the established owner's club.

4. Nobody is quite sure what benefits would accrue from being club "members" as opposed to just "registered users" on the website, apart from 3. above. It's already been shown that discounts are available to website users.

5. All website users should be welcomed as members of a "club" rather than targeting it at any particular car or model.

In at least one sense of the word, this site (and its members) constitute a club (IMHO)...

I'm all for some form of subs, newletters, etc. We already have meets, and I'm sure merchandise like tee shirts, etc, are quite possible if there was a demand...

Maybe if there were a "subscriber" level of membership above supporter that received some form of printed newsletter, etc, and was recognised as such on the forums (a tacky logo next to their posts?!), and had some way of "voting" on what direction(s) the site took - content / merchandise / meets / etc?

I just think that if it became an "owners" club, it would dilute/damage the membership potential of the existing owners club (reagrdless of if you think its worthwhile or that they're living in the past, you have to agree that its been around a long time and deserves some respect) - it would be more beneficial to look into working with the current owners club?

(I'm in a fine rambling mood today btw...!)

Originally posted by ncarring in this post

It's already been shown that discounts are available to website users.

True, and I think that's a good thing. However, organising

discounts takes time and effort, and could be a way to fund the

site - for example, even saving 10% on servicing would save

a member

Just to clairfy my earlier comment; I was not considering the creation of a new club, more thoughts around union and "services " via the website to cover hosting in the future...

Okay re Nick's excellent summary,

1: Yep.

2. Okay. I had this feeling, but one does not like to ask.

3. Indeed, I have though about contacting skoda UK but talks with owners club indicate that Skoda UK became frosty when VAG came onboard.

4. Discounts are availble to the right market place, don't forget were 400 going on 500 reasonably specialised customers, if insurance company A could get an extra 100 policys as a result of saving a few, well it's good business nowadays.

5. Totally agree.

Okay; this website for so long as I run the backend will stay banner free and pop up add free! That I promise!

Content, there will always be public content, as much as one can provide, meets etc anybody can and do set up meets.

It's was never, nor shall it ever be used to generate profitable income; it's to cover it's costs only. As a guide the "google" ads that we ran November to March to drum up web awareness cost over 150 quid, and this is for obscure words only. Currently I am running the site at a loss, however at the moment as the information and benefits/savings I personally get are in excess of it's costs it's a reasonable expense. I have from the outset tried to make this community work for all the members, thus rather than ask a supplier for 100 quid for some banners, I'd rather ask them to provide you a discount. I have some thoughts in this area which might change a few things, but I'm not making banners etc.

You have all seen posts disappearing or periods of slowness and instability; this is because I had not accounted for the community growing as it has; to which I say thankyou all again. To cater for the increasing load and requirement to uprate Briskoda's status from small "hobby" site to a medium "professional" site is past. As such a suitable host is been researched so that we/I/subsquent "webmasters/owners" can work throughout it's expansion, knowing what costs are coming etc etc.

But expansion does come with a cost which brings me back to my comments and thoughts on how to plan for this, via annuity of some form or donations, the later been very hard to budget. As a guide the site would run very well on a

Colin, next months hosting fee is in the post, well it will be when I get home to my cheque book.

Reckon thats fair as I've saved more than that this week.

Oh and I've probably contributed to the upping of the bandwidth requirements!

Thanks Nick for the summary; I think it's had the required affect and made people "think" a bit more with regards to this subject.

I personally I don't see the benefit of going down the "Club Skoda" route; to me there's no added goodness apart from raising brand awareness and shouldn't that be Skoda UK's job anyway? I think also by formally becoming a club we may run the risk of becoming too formal; I like the easy going format we have.

As I've already said I consider Briskoda already a club of sorts and am quite happy to contribute to it's running costs. Colin does a sterling job and we should at least cover his costs.

On the subject of discounts these are always welcome. I wanted my RS remapped but thought if there was enough of us who wanted this, why not try get a group discount? Hasn't cost me a great deal other than a little bit of organisation. In going to Jabba with 11 remaps (and the rr day) we've raised the profile of Briskoda and hopefully Jabba will be open to more discounts in the future.

Not sure of the costs for Ian arranging the stickers.....apart from bog roll. :D

Cheers.

Adrian.

Costs from stickers has been covered, and small profit gone towards hosting costs....

I think the agreement here is that what people want, they already have, but are happy to contribute for..

..however, if a regular contribution (small yearly cost) came in we could budget for an plan better things for all \ members.

So, as I see it - you have two options:

1. Just ask for donations. Give people an idea of what level of contribution would be meaningful, where to send it, sit back and wait for the money. (The uncomfortable part of this is that the contribution level is uncertain and may be less or more than that required to run the site on a non-profit basis. If less, then we're still at square one. If more, what will you do with it, and how can that be fairly reflected in the benefits available to those members who contributed in the first place. Answer, it can't, really).

2. Establish a membership list, with a fixed annual subscription. This introduces the concept of "two-tier" membership, which some are not comfortable with, but does allow the sub to be fixed at a level to cover costs, and gives a more predictable income. If it is then feasible to offer other benefits with any surplus income, it is clear who the members are and where those benefits should go. This second option involves more administration, which should be accounted for in the subscription costs, and also incurs responsibilities on the part of those running the "club". More pain but more gain.

I think the agreement here is that what people want, they already have, but are happy to contribute for..

Now that some of the dust has settled, time to say that I totally agree with Ian's comments above and Nick's excellent summary. I'm more than happy to provide a voluntary contribution annually - or pay a membership fee - to keep this site looking professional and to cover development and running costs. But who would contribute? I guess the hardcore posters would, because its a small price to pay for all the use/fun we get, but for those who rarely/never post the site needs to provide incentives for them to become paying members. Some sites allow members to join but not contribute (post) unless they have paid a membership fee, eg the Nissan SX Owners' Club (SXOC - www.sxoc.com), but if we go that route we would probably lose a lot of our less vocal members. And how would overseas members pay? I must say that I like the broad spread of membership we currently have, including those who live overseas. There is a definite camaraderie amongst Briskoda members, even if 4X4 owners do have to shout to make themselves heard at times!

My feeling is that we should not restrict non-paying members from posting since it would devalue the site. Perhaps once someone has been a member for, say, 6 months and seen how good the site is, they could be invited to contribute a nominal sum (

Or how about pay

And anyway, how far does

I for one would contribute to a fee of some sort , most nights i find Briskoda to be more entertaining than the telly! (and that with Sky TV as well!) It would be nice to have some sort of presence at car shows too , but I guess theres no need to be a formal club to do this.

Looks to me like this is going the right way, some sort of dare I say voluntary donation, maybe linked to the sticker purchase.

Im a member of the GRRC & every year they produce the windscreen sticker with a different colour background, a sort of annual licence disc, just a thought to encourage "annual donations.

If it was then say