2008-9 USA7s Club Membership Info

[Al N.]

Al Navarro here.

 

On behalf of the USA7s Club, I’m proud to announce our membership policy for 2008-2009.

 

After some consideration by the officers, we are moving to an annual enrollment as opposed to a “rolling” enrollment as we had in the past. Meaning all memberships will now start and expire on the same date. We have set this date as July 7th.

 

This will greatly simplify the administration of memberships. It will enable us to do one bulk email and fulfillment of membership materials, instead having to be constantly monitoring memberships and sending out materials year round.

 

NOTE: For members who joined before July 7, 2007 you will enjoy membership through July 6, 2008. Current members who joined after July 7, 2007 will be grandfathered through July 6, 2009.

 

For the 2008-2009 membership year, we will provide the following to paid members:

 

1) Coverage under the club umbrella insurance policy — this allows members to attend events and save vs. the “non-member” event fee, as well as host local events for other club members with some degree of liability protection

2) A club membership card

3) 5 "Tell a friend cards"...with the forum URL printed on it

4) 1 club logo car decal

5) Ability to participate in Club “Group Buys” such as the recent watch group buy

6) Ability to list items in “Cars & Parts for sale” sections of the USA7s.org forum

7) Ability to start a thread in “Technical” section of the USA7s.org forum

8) Ability to start a thread in the “Events” section of the USA7s.org forum

 

Additional Club logo stickers will be available for a small additional donation. We are also working on other benefits.

 

Dues for the 2008-2009 membership year will be $20.

 

Dues will be collected online and by check/money order. We’ll post details of how to join/renew your membership as July 7th approaches. We invite people to pre-pay, but keep in mind that your membership will begin on July 7, 2008.

 

Remember that USA7s is a not-for-profit organization and all dues and proceeds go toward supporting club activities and materials — including the hosting of the USA7s.org online forum.

 

If you are a forum member but did not attend any events in 2007, we ask that you consider becoming a dues-paying member of the USA7s Club and either attending or organizing a local meet in 2008.

 

If you have any questions about membership, feel free to write to the officers at the following addresses:

 

John Viviani, President

geeno at supersevens dot com

 

Mazda Ebrahimi, Treasurer

mazda_ebrahimi at yahoo dot com

 

Al Navarro, Secretary

al at mintadv dot com

 

 

[MHKflyer52]

I like it. The fact that it will lessen the work load on our club officers and make membership tracking more advantagous for the treasurer is great and easy for member to know when their renewal is due.

By the way dose the club have it own mailing address, if not maybe one should be discussed by the club officers.

[Al N.]

Martin-

 

The club was incorporated in Maryland. The mailing address is:

 

USA7s Inc.

14209 Secluded Lane

North Potomac, MD 20878

 

We don't have a club email address, though this would probably be a great idea and relatively simple to implement. Thanks for the input.

 

-Al

 

-----

 

A point of clarification (prompted by a PM from another forum member):

 

Please note that there is no cost to be a member of the USA7s.org forum.

 

However, for a variety of reasons, there is a cost to "officially" belong to the Club behind the forum. Everyone who attended a USA7s event in 2007 is a Club member (the dues were incorporated into the event fees).

 

In reviewing what people get for their dues, the officers decided to grant Club members some forum privileges not available otherwise:

 

- Ability to list items in “Cars & Parts for sale” sections of the USA7s.org forum

- Ability to start a thread in “Technical” section of the USA7s.org forum

- Ability to start a thread in the “Events” section of the USA7s.org forum

 

These privileges will get instated on or around July 7, 2008.

 

The point of the announcement was really just to give people a heads up about a Club policy change for 2008 going forward. Forum members should feel no pressure to join the Club — though we will welcome you warmly and appreciate the financial support! The move to allow Club members to start threads in selected areas or list for sale items is a way to give dues paying Club members a little more value for their dollar.

 

 

 

 

[S1Steve]

To the Officers,

 

Great idea, I think the club should have some funding.

I will send a check to the listed address.

:cheers: Steve Novelli

[Al N.]

Steve et. al -

 

Please hold off for a bit...we'll post deets on dues payment soon. (I'm trying to streamline the process for the Treasurer!)

 

Thanks all for the interest and enthusiasm.

 

-Al

[JBH]

Sounds good and I am glad to join. Let me know how and when.

[solder_guy]

Making the members' dues date and date of expriation on July 7th .. is inspiring! :7fume:

 

Great ideas here!

 

Rob

[tnttim]

I like the idea of limiting access to some areas of the site to non-due paying members. But I would like to bring up the idea that if we limit the 'Parts' for sale area to members only you may not have as much postings from people.

 

Example, If I had partially built a frame or a bunch of seven-ish parts laying around I would post them on a free site long before a site I have to pay to be a memeber of. Also if I am selling off my stuff why would I want to still be a member?

 

This would limit the ability of our member getting those "First Come" type sales. And we all know how happy we are when we find one of those.

 

I do agree on the Cars lisiting and Events though. There you are selling a very specific item for a large enough cost to cover the $20 fee. Most "Car For Sale" sites fees are much more than that. And we do have enough members here that will usually post the link of a seven when they find one somewhere else.

 

I believe that keeping these in mind will help maintain the general non-member interest in the site.

 

 

Other than that...

 

Will there be a PayPal acct that we can send dues to???

 

Tim Tennant

[slngsht]

I like the idea of limiting access to some areas of the site to non-due paying members. But I would like to bring up the idea that if we limit the 'Parts' for sale area to members only you may not have as much postings from people.

 

Example, If I had partially built a frame or a bunch of seven-ish parts laying around I would post them on a free site long before a site I have to pay to be a memeber of. Also if I am selling off my stuff why would I want to still be a member?

 

This would limit the ability of our member getting those "First Come" type sales. And we all know how happy we are when we find one of those.

 

I do agree on the Cars lisiting and Events though. There you are selling a very specific item for a large enough cost to cover the $20 fee. Most "Car For Sale" sites fees are much more than that. And we do have enough members here that will usually post the link of a seven when they find one somewhere else.

 

I believe that keeping these in mind will help maintain the general non-member interest in the site.

 

 

Other than that...

 

Will there be a PayPal acct that we can send dues to???

 

Tim Tennant

 

There will be a shopping cart, and you'll be able to pay by paypal or credit card.

[Al N.]

I like the idea of limiting access to some areas of the site to non-due paying members. But I would like to bring up the idea that if we limit the 'Parts' for sale area to members only you may not have as much postings from people.

 

Tim, you raise a very good point. We'll take it into consideration before making everything "official" in July. Thanks for your input.

[Mandurath]

Or perhaps a requested "donation" of items purchased though the site. ie, on another site i frequent its 1% to a maximum of like a few dollars. A painless bit for the buyer/seller and an added bit for the site. That was the for sale/wanted sections are not restricted. There were sites that had items I was interested in, but not a member of said site, therefor could not post in those section, and I bought them elsewhere.

 

 

Paypal would be nice too.

[slngsht]

Or perhaps a requested "donation" of items purchased though the site. ie, on another site i frequent its 1% to a maximum of like a few dollars. A painless bit for the buyer/seller and an added bit for the site. That was the for sale/wanted sections are not restricted. There were sites that had items I was interested in, but not a member of said site, therefor could not post in those section, and I bought them elsewhere.

 

 

Paypal would be nice too.

 

Mandurath... the propsal was for starting new threads in the for sale section... in other words, members could sell or buy, non-members could buy only. As Al said, your point is well taken and we'll talk it over. We appreciate the feedback.

[Kitcat]

OK, July 7 is approaching, where do we send our $20 membership fee?

[pierats]

Guys, how do we know what our membership status is?

 

Tom

[slngsht]

Guys, how do we know what our membership status is?

 

Tom

 

Good question. If you look under your avatar, I created a new group called "Club Member" and marked paid members as members of that group.

 

[slngsht]

OK, July 7 is approaching, where do we send our $20 membership fee?

 

I will get back to you shortly (next few days). Primary means is paypal, although if you hate paypal, you can send a check

[Boxologist]

i'll offer my suggesttion that next year there be the option of 2 year memberships if that is how often the annual meets will be.

 

and quadruple dues on poeple who but the club officers' cars! :bs:

[Al N.]

NOTE: For members who joined before July 7, 2007 you will enjoy membership through July 6, 2008. Current members who joined after July 7, 2007 will be grandfathered through July 6, 2009.

 

I wanted to repost that. Basically, if you went to or signed up before 7-7-7, you should re-up. If you signed up after 7-7-7 (say, for PNW or one of the other Tours), you're good through July 2009.

 

However, if you are "grandfathered" and you feel like being a generous soul amidst the current economic whatever they're calling it, the Club would be grateful. Thanks to the people who gave above and beyond in the past year — and to those who joined without attending one of the events.

 

The 2009 meet will probably be after July 7, so we'll build the 2009-10 dues into the meet fee.

 

---

 

Keep in mind that the officers are very curious to see what dues payment will be like this year in light of the fact that we don't have a national meet lined up.

 

BTW, it's the 3rd anniversary of this forum on the 8th of June. And the 2nd anniversary of the auspicious "Skyline East" blat was on the 3rd! Damn, we're getting old.

[Sean]

Keep in mind that the officers are very curious to see what dues payment will be like this year...

 

Stating the obvious here, but providing mail-in payment information would increase the membership by at least a few.

Not meaning to rush anybody, just speaking from personal experience.

 

edit -- If I was doing it, I would make either a Membership sub-forum or just a sticky post, locked so no replies can be posted to clutter it up, listing the pertinent information about how to join, and nothing else: cost, payment options w/relevant details for each option, and procedure (you will receive an e-mail within 48 hours...). Then I would put a separate post or a reply to the first post describing what one gets for their membership or whatever else, but I think it is best to make it straightforward and easy for people to send money to the club. So many organizations overlook this simple fact.

 

Or, you could do something completely different. Either way...

[Al N.]

Sean- Again, thanks for the input. We are all just volunteers and speaking for myself have never tried to launch/maintain a bona fide car club.

 

I have to say that our inaugural year was very encouraging. We'll get the e-commerce part up and mail-in instructions up soon.

 

-Al