traders page

[crazylegs]

Just found this section. so a couple of suggestions.
font size is a little small
a traders section (fee paying)
link from forum back to home page
tiny link to imoc ( its only fair! )
if this is the wrong way of going about the suggestions the feel free to tell me to b....
try another method

[waynestoyotamr2]

Hi Kev,

Good input as always.

Were working on an Affiliates area as page of the website. It will NOT be fee paying for those who want to be Affiliates - as we want to deliver the value back to the members.

There is already a link back to IMOC on the "On the Web" page.

Wayne

[Lauren]

Hi Kev,

Good input as always.

Were working on an Affiliates area as page of the website. It will NOT be fee paying for those who want to be Affiliates - as we want to deliver the value back to the members.

Wayne

Affiliate fees are a drop in the ocean Wayne and tax deductable, so not charging fees will not benefit members.
Affiliates can also be a lot of hassle and obviously they join to profit from advertising on your forum.

[Tony Jinxy Froude]

I strongly disagree Lauren, the affilites fee's are certainly NOT a drop in the ocean, i dont considder a price hike of £25 per year to £80 per year which IMOC charged are a drop in the ocean :roll: dont get me wrong i dont mind paying a fee & i was prepared to give it a go for a year which i did, but it didnt really benefit me & what made it worse was that as traders we couldnt even advertise in the for sale section ??? how mad is that !!, at least this way it will encourage company's who stock mk1 related item to advertise their wares on here free which benefits all paying members & affliates alike, hows that a bad thing ?.

[Lauren]

I strongly disagree Lauren, the affilites fee's are certainly NOT a drop in the ocean, i dont considder a price hike of £25 per year to £80 per year which IMOC charged are a drop in the ocean :roll: dont get me wrong i dont mind paying a fee & i was prepared to give it a go for a year which i did, but it didnt really benefit me & what made it worse was that as traders we couldnt even advertise in the for sale section ??? how mad is that !!, at least this way it will encourage company's who stock mk1 related item to advertise their wares on here free which benefits all paying members & affliates alike, hows that a bad thing ?.

Tony I didn't realise that we were talking about IMOC. Isn't this the mk1 club? Still such things are tax deductable anyway.

I also think it might be worth bearing in mind that seeing as you are a committee member of the mk1 club and a trader that some could perceive this as a conflict of interest and a reason for not having traders paying fees as you yourself could be seen as being motivated to benefit from your association with the mk1 club.

Also if you don't charge you can fully expect to be spammed by all and sundry and this in itself is reason enough to want to effect some control.

I am only trying to offer some advice based on a fair amount of experience. Traders can be seriously difficult to deal with, they tend to trangress rules and their motivation is obviously to ensure that their best interests are acheived. You remember what hapenned with Tim?

[Tony Jinxy Froude]

Yes i see where your coming from Lauren, wayne / Alex have made the necessary plans so that we hopefully dont have problems with traders etc. My involvement with the committee & my interest with the parts side are two totally differen things Lauren, If my intention was purely to get a free window in which to advertise my wares, i really could have thought of a less stressfull way since the AGM to do it to be honest :lol: in fact i spoke to the rest of the committee regarding this issue & was prepared to pay a fee, but it was decided that this area of the club is just one way we could serve the club members which we didnt really have before.
Its very different to run purely a forum based club like IMOC which charges a minimum fee for its 1000's of members than it is to run a club which isnt purely forum based like the MK1 club, we cater for just the MK1 which is in itself a minority, but we wanted to offer that Minority the very best we can from the start & this is just one way of doing that. Any member who thinks there is a conflict of interest with regard my parts & my committee involvement , then feel free to let the chairman or rest of the committee know & something can be sorted, im happy either way, i honestly want members to feel proud of their club & happy to be a part of it even if it means slight changes.
Lauren , your help & guidence is always appreciated you know that 8-) , Jinxy

[Lauren]

That's fine Tony. I guess all I wanted to point out is that members will from time to time tend to challenge you as you would not believe how petty some can be, as general members can seem to think that being on a committee offers priveledges when actually it does not! so it does pay to be as transparent as possible when in a position of management.

I do think though that all car clubs these days are forum based, it's just the direction in which clubs have had to move. I honestly can't see the difference with what the mk1 club offers and IMOC. Both do events, merchandise, offer discounts, have regional meets etc.

I think you may well find that the Mk1 club to a large extent is already forum based, although as I well know it certainly didn't start out that way and obviously you have your club mag, but I do think that forums are a result of the changing technology available. Remember IMOC was originally an email list that then went into yahoogroups, but has become a full club nowadays and a company to boot. So we all have to move with the times.

Unfortunately in these days of litigation and legal threats, it makes good sense to ensure that the club and you yourselves are well protected as committee members.

[waynestoyotamr2]

Some valid points Lauren - always good to see things from a different angle.

[Lauren]

I thought it might also be worth mentioning that IMOC uses affiliate fees to cover running costs of our servers which do cost a few grand a year to run. That way we can pass on the savings to members by not having a necessary membership fee. So in terms of passing on benefits to members it is a different approach to the mk1 club.

I don't know how much your servers will cost to run but affiliate fees is an efficient way of offsetting costs.

[waynestoyotamr2]

Again Lauren, its a valid idea.

[crazylegs]

well thats cleared that up.
so if there is not to be a fee how about a donation ? i feel the club should benefit from advertising in some way. i dont mean for the one off sale but for example me with AW11 Autos. I would hope to get some business from the site so should put something back. Could we not have a simple paypal payment. i dont want a rigid structure like imoc but as Lauren says the server costs money. IMOC use the affiliates to pay this we have a membership fee but the more of the membership money that can be used for the club events and improvements the better.
Just my 1p`s worth.

[AW11 Forever]

Committee,

Possibly a re-think on this one guys, Lauren has some extremely valid points here and we did mention that the Club ought to be run more like a business. Its going to take a few years to financially get the club where we want it to be to then be in a position to invest and put back into the club, increasing funds.

I like Kev's ideas about paying into the Clubs Paypal account, doesn't have to be much but it will all help in the end.

Comments

[Lauren]

To carry on from what Mike has said, I think the biggest problem with traders is that in the event of a dispute say where legal action is threatened, the committee members are each liable for up to £15K. IMOC has been in this position and as i'm sure you'll agree we are all volunteers who receive no recompense for our efforts, the last thing you want is to be liable for up to £15K.

This is why IMOC became a limited company in order to protect committee members from being liable. The problem is with this is that it took us the best part of a year to get all the legal stuff sorted out and our terms and conditions etc ratified. Also if you become a limited company then there are accounts that need to sorted so you have other fees as well as liability insurance etc. The costs do seriously mount up and really without us receiving affiliate fees there is no way we could have done it.

I guess what you need to think about is where you want to take the mk1 club to in the future and in some respects the earlier you can get such important things in place the less rocky the ride will be. I must admit on IMOC we found out the hard way to an extent but have since acted appropriately albeit at the expense of developing other aspects of the club.

Anyways this is all getting deep a bit quickly, but i'm happy to offer advice and hope it's at least of some use.

[AW11 Forever]

Lauren,

Wonderful advice, guys this needs to be addresed and we need to ensure Stuart is fully aware about the potential pitfalls mentioned above.

[crazylegs]

thats brilliant Lauren, your experience will be invaluable. I never knew this would all come out with a simple question.
my first thought is why cant the club have a signed disclaimer from every advertiser accepting responsibility ? could this not be legally drawn up ?

[Tony Jinxy Froude]

Yep, cheers Lauren, your experience is vital, weve all waited years for this to happen, what we dont need now is for anyone to ruin that for the masses. Jinx

[Lauren]

thats brilliant Lauren, your experience will be invaluable. I never knew this would all come out with a simple question.
my first thought is why cant the club have a signed disclaimer from every advertiser accepting responsibility ? could this not be legally drawn up ?

You could try I guess, but disclaimers are not really up to much when it comes down to it and each committee member would still be liable.

Trouble is getting anything done through solicitors costs a fortune, so when you weigh it up it's not that much more to go the whole hog really and get it done properly.

[waynestoyotamr2]

Bloody hell Lauren, seriously, thanks for flagging this.

I guess in todays world we cant rely on the good honour of people that want to work with the Mk1 Club and the last thing we need is being liable for 15k - thats like a weeks wage for Mik Sheavill's and he cant afford to lose that!! :shock: :lol: :D

We need to get this looked into.

Do we need a legal secretary?

(no pervy jokes please! leave them to me!)

[crazylegs]

I may be being naive but how can an advert cause the club to be liable. Is the Yellow Pages liable for every entry? Surely if I take a job from a customer I am liable. The club has no way of vetting my work. As I say maybe in this mad world I am still in the dark ages.

[Lauren]

I may be being naive but how can an advert cause the club to be liable. Is the Yellow Pages liable for every entry? Surely if I take a job from a customer I am liable. The club has no way of vetting my work. As I say maybe in this mad world I am still in the dark ages.

It's not an issue with an advert, it's when you get into a dispute with a trader and they start using underhand tactics and then make legal threats as a result. We had a trader who PM'd members stating how poor other trader's work was etc.. When we wanted to get rid of said trader as there was no way we could let this carry on. We then received legal threats.

Another trader who would not pay up affiliate fees despite obviously trading got his knickers in a twist when we opted to ban him. He made legal threats but fortunately by this time we had our terms and conditions in place resulting in him not having a leg to stand on. So sometimes it's about being able to get rid of rogue traders knowing full well that if they sought legal advice they'd be advised that they have no comeback.

You don't need a 'legal secretary' Wayne. You just need someone from the committe to look into the necessary implications and maybe make moves into becoming a limited company and get a proper terms and conditions drawn up and approved by your solicitor.

As far as trading goes, this forum is new, but we started to realise that as IMOC grew we were leaving ourselves open (both personally and financially) to potential abuse from problem traders.

I would say though that the costs involved would blow your kitty at the moment, so you are in a position where potentially it is a bit of a concern, maybe not now but say in a years time, so I would discuss and at least try and be prepared for it if you possibly can.