Tips For Organizing A Car Club
Saturday, May 28, 2011
By Owen Jones
Are you thinking of organizing a car club? Or perhaps reorganizing one? Car clubs are a great method for enthusiasts of a certain make or type of car to share their information.
Most car associations are based on ownership of a marque of car or even ownership of a certain model, but it could also be a club for owners of cars of a particular age.
Therefore, the first thing to do when setting up or reorganizing a car club is to establish who the club is for. The more strict you make the club, the less members you are likely to have, which could become a difficulty unless you live in a big city.
It is a great deal of work to set up a good set of rules and a mission statement, so it is best if you can find some help, possibly by getting a few others to form a small committee.
Maybe the easiest method of finding a couple more enthusiasts would be to either put an advert in the paper or go down to the showroom of the make you are interested in and talk to the sales staff.
The committee can decide on how what the club will focus on: for instance sports cars, Mercedes, pre-1945 or whatever. Then choose how frequently the club will meet: monthly or quarterly or whatever and who is eligible to join: owners of these cars only or enthusiastic non-owners too.
Other items to decide would be whether there is a joining fee and / or annual membership fee; whether there will be a magazine or newsletter or / and a website. What sort of activities and dos will the club hold? Races? Rallies? An annual dinner-dance?
A bring and buy sale of spare parts and accessories is usually a well-liked event. Members can bring along superfluous parts and accessories related to the car that the club is focused on. Where will you hold your meetings? In a church hall or in a spare room in a pub?
A website is a good way of keeping in touch with club members, but a blog is even better for permitting members to interact with each other. Best of all would be a website which only one person is allowed to update and a blog on the same domain name.
Every club member can be given a user name and password to the blog and then members can sign in and chat to each other in real time. This is not difficult to set up.
All you have to do is rent hosting space (less than $100 per annum) and purchase a domain name (less than $10). Wordpress, a free blogging program, is usually accessible with the hosting.
Then you will have to either pay a designer to make a web site for you or get someone to do it for you. Lots of people under the age of 30 can design and set up a straightforward but effective website.
The web site will be an important part of your recruitment drive and generally reduce your advertising costs as well.
Most car associations are based on ownership of a marque of car or even ownership of a certain model, but it could also be a club for owners of cars of a particular age.
Therefore, the first thing to do when setting up or reorganizing a car club is to establish who the club is for. The more strict you make the club, the less members you are likely to have, which could become a difficulty unless you live in a big city.
It is a great deal of work to set up a good set of rules and a mission statement, so it is best if you can find some help, possibly by getting a few others to form a small committee.
Maybe the easiest method of finding a couple more enthusiasts would be to either put an advert in the paper or go down to the showroom of the make you are interested in and talk to the sales staff.
The committee can decide on how what the club will focus on: for instance sports cars, Mercedes, pre-1945 or whatever. Then choose how frequently the club will meet: monthly or quarterly or whatever and who is eligible to join: owners of these cars only or enthusiastic non-owners too.
Other items to decide would be whether there is a joining fee and / or annual membership fee; whether there will be a magazine or newsletter or / and a website. What sort of activities and dos will the club hold? Races? Rallies? An annual dinner-dance?
A bring and buy sale of spare parts and accessories is usually a well-liked event. Members can bring along superfluous parts and accessories related to the car that the club is focused on. Where will you hold your meetings? In a church hall or in a spare room in a pub?
A website is a good way of keeping in touch with club members, but a blog is even better for permitting members to interact with each other. Best of all would be a website which only one person is allowed to update and a blog on the same domain name.
Every club member can be given a user name and password to the blog and then members can sign in and chat to each other in real time. This is not difficult to set up.
All you have to do is rent hosting space (less than $100 per annum) and purchase a domain name (less than $10). Wordpress, a free blogging program, is usually accessible with the hosting.
Then you will have to either pay a designer to make a web site for you or get someone to do it for you. Lots of people under the age of 30 can design and set up a straightforward but effective website.
The web site will be an important part of your recruitment drive and generally reduce your advertising costs as well.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on lots of topics, but is at present involved with car detailing prices. If you want some suggestions on detailing cars come over to our website now at Detailing Car Interiors.
Posted byBertie at 2:14 AM
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