Folks,
Given you have used TR7/TR8 World Wide Owners Club as the title I felt I should try and address some of the points you have made.
Richard Connew
The first origins of the club were a web site I put together in the late 80's just to show off my own cars. This gathered momentum over the years and eventually became a club after I was pushed into it by believe it or not Chris Turner and a number of others. Initially we have an online chat room, forum, map to put your location on, thousands of records, quarterly e-magazine and LOADS of gigs of information. The initial charge was £30 per year which as members grew I reduced and reduced to the point where it's just a tenner now and will over time drop again. The reason is simple it costs a great deal of money to host VIDEO and that has to come from somewhere. Currently the club streams up to 75+GB of video per day! When we have enough members to cover a drop in membership fees I’ll drop it again and that will continue until it's possibly as low as a £1. If we stand static then it will stay as it is and if we drop numbers then it may have to go the other way although I would hope by then that bandwidth charges will have reduced. The deal I struck with a number of media companies to show some of the video content binds the club to only showing it to club members so currently opening it to all would mean having to remove the Video's which if I did would drop the costs massively. So in simple terms to keep the video I have to charge a fee if I didn't have the video then it could be free.
Over the years many of the original features have been dropped quite simply because no one wanted it or there was something better else where and thus it seemed pointless to duplicate. Perhaps surprisingly to you guys because you all want to talk TR7 all the time the majority of the members simply just want information as and when they want it. As a result we’ve evolved to feed that need and the search system is becoming increasingly advanced to allow you to get what you want when you need it - micro fiche drawings, workshop information, articles etc on what ever it is you are after.
Current country split of members is approx
USA/Canada 75%
UK 15%
Rest of the World 10%
The site was changed late last year to reflect what the majority want and is therefore very much content managed information. Eventually all TR clubs will merge and as an active step towards that goal I have now opened a section for collaboration work between clubs that will always remain open. We currently have arrangements with various club and are actively seeking more as like it or not we will ultimately become one.
http://tr7-tr8.com/CLUB/index.php?cat=9I see keeping records and storing information and media very much the clubs primary aim and that is what we will continue to do and so that it will be there for TR7 TR8 owners in the future whether it’s just this club or one big one!
I’ll try and answer individual REMARKS now
“I am a strong believer that you should keep it free and then, if necessary, ask for donations or try to get sponsors.â€
Regrettably it is a sad fact of human nature that hardly anyone ever donates! Have you donated some cash to Jay to help run this site? It costs him too you know!
“I never go on sites that I have to pay (possibly a Scottish thing … ) But I know all about Richards’s site but I don’t think you should have to pay to go on a Site especially when other sites which are as good as or even betterâ€
How can you know all about my site if you won’t pay?
“I have to say that TRDC seems rather concentrated in the northâ€
Strange one that as they only have one group in the North Chris Turners!
“except an article that seamed to attack the TRDCâ€
I was on the TRDC committee for just over 12 years and put a massive amount of hard work into that club. I did a significant amount of research on the 1981 TR8’s including the UK spec ones and published that information for all to see FREE on my site at that time. Certain members of the TRDC took a dislike to me openly sharing this information with everyone and wrote to Gaydon complaining. The end result was a lengthy legal battle that I eventually won but not with out cost in money and time. When I wrote that article I was understandably very bitter towards them. In hind sight I should have been bigger than that and let the matter drop given it was a minority of individuals that caused me the issue and not the club. I am no longer bitter towards them given the amount of water under the bridge since then and if you check the club site you will find links to the TRDC.
“Don't look at it very often thoughâ€
That actually is pretty common NOW given it’s main focus is on MANAGING and storing INFORMATION. for example “what’s the part number for the foam insert for the breather on an Efi TR8?†TYPE rocker cover into the search box and low and behold up comes the fiche diagram, I can now see it’s part number ERC3209. Guy emailed me only last week to say how pleased he was that he’d joined the club as he’d broken down in Italy on Holiday and was able to download and print off the various information he needed from the site in order for the mechanic to fix the car. Others often need a TR7 TR8 fix in the dark winter months and go online to watch the RAC RALLY from 1979 or similar or even to just browse pictures of TR7/8’s. Given it’s growth over the last few years it is what the majority of members want so that’s what we provide.
“put my wedgie details on his siteâ€
The records were taken down last year in order to move over to a new system that actually common sense checks your information as you input it to avoid bad records. This has proved to be a much bigger and costly (developers time which costs) project than I first thought. How ever the first BETA version for SAT check digit cars currently is now up and being tested. This section is open to all and will ALWAYS remain so.
See
http://tr7-tr8.com/CLUB/index.php?cat=8I hope to open all the chassis sections up within the next month or so and that will include all the old records (4000 plus) yours included.
“it would make sense to tack this forum onto Richards site which has its own hardly used forumâ€
Our own forum was taken down last year purely because so few of the members actually used it, there was no point in maintaining it any longer. Jay’s forum I would say has the most interaction so there seems little point in having others. Same thing for the email list run by bits of the TR8CCA. As its the most interactive in that field there’s no point in another so I haven’t created one. There is currently a link on the links page and has been for some time now.
http://tr7-tr8.com/CLUB/index.php?cat=10But sure why not I have no objection to linking Jays forum system into our pages more prominently no problem. Jay?
I don’t really want to enter into a debate of this so please just take this as is.
Thanks
Richard Connew
