Fade away?

[richard]

ofgs jean and chris , what is the problem ? just do it 

[milnes]

Jean Chris, i will donate £100 for the postage. So if you have the time can you gather as many back issues as possible unto the £100 postal limit and get them to Steve?
But don't forget i'm still awaiting the full set of back issues i ordered a month ago, plus the Hammond collection book?

[steven mandell]

Speak of steping up to the plate!
Way to go Milnes!

[richard]

that is a VERY generous offer - respect 

[milnes]

Thank you Steve/Richard  .
No need for respect to me  though, i think the repeat should go to the people who run this forum and the Rumcars! As Jean has said, some are getting on in years, so who is willing to take the baton from them?
I don't have the time (I'm sure most of us will have the same excuse) but i can help in other ways, as i'm sure most of us can on here. So what's my promise to Rumcars?

1: £100 donation for postal to USA.
2: Purchase all back issue of Rumcar News, at the requested price by Jean, with a small donation on top. (Just waiting on you Jean).
3: Try and post a little more on the forum (i'm on and off quite a bit but don't say much).
4: Post some more pictures.
5: Register all my cars with RumCars
6: Use Rumcars experts to help me register all my Foreign cars, as per latest Rumcar article
7: Make a concerted effort to come to the next Rum gathering (i've not been to any microcar meet yet)
8: Try and be a little more active in the Rumcar and Micro car community in general
9: Try and promote Rumcars in general, even by trying to sign up 1 new member per year.
10 Buy more Microcars .

I'm not saying this will all happen tomorrow but will happen over the next 2-3 months.

[Peel replica, Steve Fisk]

Good effort !!!!! I've contacted jean for rum car posters , flyers and what ever which I will be handing out to interested people at the Enfield show in May ,I know I'm new to the forum and my car isn't in the same category as all your classics but I would like to help in any way that will help rum cars stay alive

[Big Al]

At the risk of running with a batton not actually in the race.

1/ Does the request for back issues mean that RUM is holding copies of all, or the majority, of its publications?
2/ Or is it a case of producing additional copies from RUM held file copies?
3/If the former is the latter a feasible project to replace out of stock magazines? 

I ask this because if 2/ and someone is to create duplicate copies that is a lot of work for one set of magazines. It would make sense to budget for a multiple run. There might be other orders of full sets that would pay for an excess to be put to stock. Additional donations might increase the budget to achieve that. Not only a handy, if limited investment income for UM but it would mean a bigger but only single task for he who does the production. I would suspect saving him a lot of time. 

If 1/ marvelous! Then this is an investment that should offer a limited income. What happens when the copies run out? Is 3/ a fundable project over time.

Clearly these questions are something beyond the time scale of the immediate topic but if there is a need to look at funding for the future, here is a handy way folk can help, offer RUM donations in excess of cover price, and perhaps a way to bolster things up, if needed. I would certainly buy a run of mags to put in my library. I have an inconsistent collection of original publications. There might be others interested too. Please understand that this is a general observation as the topic came up, so possibly might be a different thread.

[Barry]

Digital copies is one solution - print it yourself.

But there are problems:-
Once in digital format it can be copied to anyone and everyone (and it will) - no income.
Some people like an original copy produced at source but it would be impractical to stock or re-publish a never ending supply for just a few enthusiasts.

Would it be better if the income came from actual membership (or just call it subscription) rather than revenue from the magazine.  currently expensive in hard copy but cheaper in digital.
Increased revenue from more contributors / members?
Two classes perhaps - 1.  with microcars   2. enthusiasts without microcars?

The cyclemotor club renews membership at about £4 with hard copy or £3 with email magazine.  (they charge £0.25 extra for on-line renewals to cover PayPal charges)

They send a nice reminder email with a link to paypal to pay.  it's easy and quick and cheap.

   Dear XXX

   Your subscription is due for renewal on 1 April 2014.
   You can renew by PayPal by going to the Renewals page on our Website at http://www.autocycle.freeserve.co.uk/renew_uk.html.
   We now offer the alternatives of receiving the club’s newsletter by post or by e-mail postal. If you opt to receive the newsletter by e-mail, you save a pound on your membership fee.
   If you prefer, you can renew your membership by post. Send a cheque for £4.00, payable to “East Anglian Cyclemotor Club” to EACC, 7 Unity Road, Stowmarket, IP14 1AS along with a print of     this e-mail. If you can't print this e-mail, then just include a note of your name and membership number.
   These are your membership details; please let us know if we've got anything wrong:

[Big Al]

Interesting Barry. Just discussing this elsewhere. With folk not seemingly so club orientated and a lack of folk to run them, the alternative is to have the club membership at a nominal amount to cover costs of internet etc., or free. I think the old postal thing is nigh on outmoded. The magazine is now an interactive website. By offering no services for membership but access to exclusive information downloads for a charge and events at a discounted rate, free or some suitably advantageous option.  Thus club effort is reward by money to keep things ticking along and there is an inducement to go to events cheaper than unbooked or non members can get in. You do not interact with the club on joining, the club does not interact with you. Seems fair to me. I might go further and hold an excluded event, that was really good, forcing folks hand to join so they can attend the really good rally. This is a much more modern model that many web based operations use. Those who are active get reward back, the lazy get nothing and have a choice, don't they.  Could even reward input of info, articles by information trade or some freebies.

Could be the model for a possible Wessex Club. Its the free market option to the tax revenue option really. Sadly the free-market rewards active participation, so will not suit all.

[milnes]

I think there are a lot of plus points to an online forum, newsletter etc but i guess i'm a little old fashioned and still like a proper newspaper, magazine.

I can imagine the costs of a production run of old Rum news prohibits reprinting them, which is a real shame. As  can imagine there will be a lot of interesting articles i would love to read. As discussed before these could then be used at car shows, car museums to sell and promote the Rum car forum & magazine.

Al i've been told by Jean that not all old copies are available, some they will have to photo copy. So this would make me believe the ones they have are left over ones from the original print run.
I'm not sure how much each magazine would would cost if Rum cars were to say have a limited print run of 50-100 for each edition that was missing.

It would be good to hear from the administrators on this, as this might be a viable business decision to 1: Shore up stocks of missing back issues, 2: Allow new members to complete the collection of magazines, 3: Allow willing members to sell back issues at the various classic meetings, this will promote Rumcars and also bring in much needed funds, no matter how little that may be!

[milnes]

Just another thought 
What about merchandising?
If funds are a problem, how about selling some branded RumCar products?

I think Micromaniacs have done a fairly good job in self promotion, especially at things like the Classic car show in Birmingham. Some on here may be a member on Micromaniacs, so would have ideas on fundraising ideas?
Now i know if you start selling lots of Tee shirts/cups etc, then it's someone else's time. So what about limited edition runs, 100 special edition tee shirts etc?

Another idea, a special edition book/booklet.

I'm sure there are enough members of the RumCar community that have enough unique cars to fill 50-100 pages. Lets say 1 page per car, at least one picture, then some details of the car, details of the owner if thats the way we go!

I'm just trying to throw some ideas around 

[Big Al]

I think there are a lot of plus points to an online forum, newsletter etc but i guess i'm a little old fashioned and still like a proper newspaper, magazine.

I can imagine the costs of a production run of old Rum news prohibits reprinting them, which is a real shame. As  can imagine there will be a lot of interesting articles i would love to read. As discussed before these could then be used at car shows, car museums to sell and promote the Rum car forum & magazine.

Al i've been told by Jean that not all old copies are available, some they will have to photo copy. So this would make me believe the ones they have are left over ones from the original print run.
I'm not sure how much each magazine would would cost if Rum cars were to say have a limited print run of 50-100 for each edition that was missing.

It would be good to hear from the administrators on this, as this might be a viable business decision to 1: Shore up stocks of missing back issues, 2: Allow new members to complete the collection of magazines, 3: Allow willing members to sell back issues at the various classic meetings, this will promote Rumcars and also bring in much needed funds, no matter how little that may be!

I thought that this might be the case. But still a handy stock to own. As to a marketing possibilities I think that needs to be digested by those at the sharp end even before start up investment is considered. A management framework may already happily exist.

[Big Al]

Merchandising is a harder investment. I have never really got to the bottom of what people want and why they buy. I have been in many clubs and all ended with stocks of unpopular items they had to right off in some way. Needs careful management.

[Jim Janecek]

But there are problems:-
Once in digital format it can be copied to anyone and everyone (and it will) - no income.

this is not really as big a problem as people make it out to be.
I have experimented with making MICROCAR NEWS magazine available as a Digital copy available to ANYONE that signs up for our forum (paying member or not) and to date those downloads have been less than 50 for any issue.
I also think that the person who would download a digital issue without paying would not have paid for a print copy in the first place, so there is no income lost.
The market audience for both MICROCAR NEWS and RUMCARS magazine are people that want a paper copy in their hands.

Re-printing back issues is another can of worms though as pointed out already.
I have the original digital files for all copies of MICROCAR NEWS, but the previous incarnation of the Microcar & Minicar Club's MINUTIA was done with a hodgepodge of programs and files and they are all gone now. 
A similar thing probably exists for Rumcars as they have had several editors over the years and I can tell you first hand that the last thing you think about after pushing out another issue is "how can I archive this information so it can be easily be reprinted later should the need arise?"

The older issues appear to be photocopied from an original. For small runs that was probably more cost-effective in the day.  I know that Chris needed some copies of some back issues recently and could not find them and I supplied him with something I had, so I don't think a complete set of back issues to reprint even exists today!

[steven mandell]

I think that we all agree that the paper copy is what we value.
Copies missing from the club archives could be listed on a page dedicated for such on this website.
They could be mailed back to Rumcars, dropped off en masse, if anyone has a pile of the wanted issues, or better yet- scanned into a modern format and emailed to Rumcars, eventually completing the collection.
Existing non properly formatted copies could be scanned into the Rumcars data base, then copies made as needed on a per request basis, so currency of stock would not need to be maintained.

There are some Lexmark scanner/ printers that still make black and white copies for 1 cent per page, color pictures adding proportionately to costs.  So a good profit could be realized from each issue printed.  A black and white only option, could be made available for a lower fee than the one with color inclusion.

Members sending in copies for scanning could be rewarded by including a complimentary copy of their choice bundled in with their returned original and next RCN copy at the time of its issuance.  En masse contributors that drop off a significant number of copies, would have to pick up their originals and complimentarily awarded copies at RCN headquarters, or pay costs of mailing back to themselves.

If properly set up, this could be a fairly well automated process.  Order gets emailed in with Paypal payment- dates of requested issues typed in/ clicked on in computer data base- printer prints copies- human sorts, staples  and mails.
A good source of profit for Rumcars.  Just need the right printer and a properly compensated volunteer(s) to input into the data base  and do the stapling and mailings.

Speaking of which, I am spending every moment that I can spare now getting ready for this weeks Unique Little Car Show, but as of this time, still l have not heard from anybody sending me issues of RCN to hawk or display.  Somebody in a position of power needs to follow through ASAP or Milnes' extremely generous donation will go down the tubes, and Rumcars will miss out on all the benefits that would be realized by my manning a booth next to the largest grouping of Unusuals likely to be on display.
If the present administration of Rumcars lets the gift of bird in hand to their own best interest get away, it is unlikely they will go after the others in the bush.