Are you thinking of organizing a car club? Or perhaps reorganizing one? Car clubs are a great method for enthusiasts of a particular marque or type of car to share their knowledge.
Most car clubs are based on ownership of a marque of car or even ownership of a particular model, but it could also be a club for owners of cars of a particular age.
Therefore, the first thing to do while setting up or reorganizing a car club is to ascertain who the club is for. The more strict you make the club, the less members you are likely to get, which could be a difficulty unless you live in a large city.
It is a great deal of effort to establish a good set of rules and a mission statement, so it is best if you can find some help, possibly by getting a couple of 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 choose how what the club will focus on: for example sports cars, Mercedes, pre-1945 or whatever. Then choose how often 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 targeted on. Where will you hold your meetings? In a church hall or in a spare room in a pub?
A website is a useful way of keeping in touch with club members, but a blog is even better for allowing members to interact with each other. Best of all would be a web site which only one person is permitted to update and a blog on the same domain name.
Each 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 lease hosting space (less than $100 per annum) and buy a domain name (less than $10). Wordpress, a free blogging program, is usually available with the hosting.
Then you will need to either pay a designer to make a web site for you or get someone to do it for you. Many those under the age of 30 can design and set up a simple but effective web site.
The web site will become an important part of your recruitment drive and generally reduce your marketing costs as well.
Most car clubs are based on ownership of a marque of car or even ownership of a particular model, but it could also be a club for owners of cars of a particular age.
Therefore, the first thing to do while setting up or reorganizing a car club is to ascertain who the club is for. The more strict you make the club, the less members you are likely to get, which could be a difficulty unless you live in a large city.
It is a great deal of effort to establish a good set of rules and a mission statement, so it is best if you can find some help, possibly by getting a couple of 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 choose how what the club will focus on: for example sports cars, Mercedes, pre-1945 or whatever. Then choose how often 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 targeted on. Where will you hold your meetings? In a church hall or in a spare room in a pub?
A website is a useful way of keeping in touch with club members, but a blog is even better for allowing members to interact with each other. Best of all would be a web site which only one person is permitted to update and a blog on the same domain name.
Each 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 lease hosting space (less than $100 per annum) and buy a domain name (less than $10). Wordpress, a free blogging program, is usually available with the hosting.
Then you will need to either pay a designer to make a web site for you or get someone to do it for you. Many those under the age of 30 can design and set up a simple but effective web site.
The web site will become an important part of your recruitment drive and generally reduce your marketing costs as well.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with car detailing prices. If you want some suggestions on detailing cars come over to our website now at Detailing Car Interiors.
