Club call to embrace digital
The FBHVC’s newly appointed vice president has called on clubs to improve the quality of their websites to help boost membership numbers.
David Davies said that while he praised clubs for the quality and high standard of their magazines and newsletters, more should be done to improve their electronic communication to help deal with rising costs and a decline in membership numbers being experienced by some classic car clubs.
He said: ‘Many clubs are not getting bigger; and many clubs are, in fact, getting smaller. This makes their continued existence less viable, and means that amalgamations will be almost certain to occur. Communications is the lifeblood of the federation and its members, but many are facing increasing costs, to the point where the price of postage is approaching the cost of production. We have to think hard about where we’re going from here.
‘Some clubs are using electronic communication very well, others not so well, but in this country we are faced with rubbish internet –particularly so in rural areas – and the number of club members who take up electronic publication is small, particularly when compared to countries such as Canada, where 50 per cent of the membership of the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Group receive their monthly magazine online.
‘To improve the acceptance of electronic communications there is a need to generate websites that fully exploit the potential of the media and for clubs to resist the temptation on simply scanning in their existing publications, in addition to financial incentives to adopt modern technology.’