Club Magazine

[Branno]

Okay, so I have had a pretty big and complicated thought about this.

How about we organise a club magazine? It could be possible. I have thought about it hard and have come up with many obstacles. I shall list these below with possible solutions in RED

1. How will the costs be covered?

When subscribing, there can be an option to whether you want to subscribe to the magazine, 12 issues for $10

2. What will be included in the magazine?

Things which could be included are; What happened at the different states monthly meets, updated forum moderators, new members to the forum, most popular modification of the month and the 2011 ANNUAL MEET ITINERY.

3. Who will be interested in the magazine?

I think that allowing silver members and regular members to subscribe to the magazine will be better as it will have a better popularity and there should be an option when subscribing that you may only want to subscribe to the magazine for $10 instead of silver member for $30

4. What design would the magazine have?

Well I have come up with my own creation of a possible front cover, however anyone else can have their say or even a go at designing a whole magazine if they like. I will post up my possible cover design.

So everyone, it's up to the majority vote. Tell me what your thoughts are.

[VF-X]

Purely opinion and no offense to Branno, in fact, kudos for the effort and creativity for the ideas to improve the club.

I don't see much point in having prints of monthly summary of forums into papers when people can just go to web to see what's going on. If somehow this idea is gonna work by putting things around the club that isn't in the forum, this will affect the activity within the forum in the future. As a result, Less posts, less to see.

Although, Having prints of them ANNUALLY isn't all bad..

[Branno]

Purely opinion and no offense to Branno, in fact, kudos for the effort and creativity for the ideas to improve the club.

I don't see much point in having prints of monthly summary of forums into papers when people can just go to web to see what's going on. If somehow this idea is gonna work by putting things around the club that isn't in the forum, this will affect the activity within the forum in the future. As a result, Less posts, less to see.

Although, Having prints of them ANNUALLY isn't all bad..

Thankyou for your input VF-X. You do have a good point and it was also one which I thought about. If it was going to be a monthly thing, the only way to fix the issue of people just being able to go online to see the things would be to, Restrict more threads to silver members only. However that would lead to less interest due to the cost, or even more silver members due to them loving the forum. Thus, if people dont want to pay the full cost for silver membership, they can just pay $10 for the monthly magazine, that way we can still allow people to see what goes on and allows them to still be apart of the TOCAU community.

These are all thoughts, and I do need more input.

The chances of it succeeding is slim, however i'm not dropping the idea until I exhaust all possible options of it happening.

REMEMBER, ALL OPINIONS ARE WELCOME.

HAVE YOUR SAY

[Steven]

Behold my 2 cents

Magazines require frequent and interesting material to keep readers interested, editors, photographers, writers, distributors etc etc.

I'm going to use the Street Commodores Magazine as an example here as they also have a very large online forum community.

Examples of their MONTHLY magazine include several feature cars, tech articles written by true out-in-the-field qualified experts, DIY guides, meet information, letters from the readers and the staff, and press releases. Combined with the above mentioned staff this creates enough content to sell a magazine for around $8.95

Now assuming having a huge staff to work on this project wasn't an issue, it would still require a fairly steady inflow of content etc to produce the magazine. Sometimes I troll these forums for weeks at a time and the most interesting thing is that somebody bolted some new wheels to their ride. The Toyota community simply isn't large enough, nor are they all affiliated with these forums.

You'd find then, that any magazine we could possibly put together, would be easily outdone by any fast4s or other misc car magazines found dirt cheap on your newsagents shelf.

Further how would you even distribute this magazine? If you were only providing an online download to save trouble here then I think most people would opt to just search the forum themselves and get the same information for free (and even contribute themselves).

Now if you were thinking of something like a monthly newsletter this might have more potential, but it still requires constant effort and input from a variety of people and most people on here already know where to go to find information that they hold an interest in (not to mention a newsletter, taking a month to put together, is already out of date by the time the finished product is out).

The only feasible idea I have that has any resemblance to what car mags do, is have a moderator-speaks section, in which maybe once a month a moderator from somewhere goes out and does a feature on a members ride, including hi-res photos and a full write up, and posts that in a special section of the forum. It could include

- A "moderator's rant" about certain behaviors or pet-peeves they've noticed on the forums, or a write up on a meet they went to.

- The featured ride

- General upcoming club information (proposed changes, upcoming meets etc)

But this does require a fair bit of effort on our moderators as the above content can take a while to put together.

[Branno]

Very fair point Steven, I wasn't thinking about making a magazine like fast 4's. More like a 10 page paper thing. Mainly for those who dont want to go the hard yards and get silver membership and for those who cant keep current on the forums but want to see whats been going on.

I appreciate your great input, Its greatly appreciated.

[01 VEY]

Speaking from a personal viewpoint I would like to have something like this available but the logistics for the editor and the others involved would be a bit heavy going unless you had a lot of spare time on your hands.

I would be happy to pay a bit extra to receive it when or if it became a reality. I would not mind making a few 'tech' reports to fill a small column occasionally if I was asked to.

Kudos for the idea and I hope that it works out in the affirmative.

[Branno]

01 VEY: Thanks for your input, every bit of support is better for getting it up and running.

And it's also great to hear that you are willing to help out. With what you said about involvement and having a lot of spare time on your hands.

If we allocated 5 people to the magazine, It really wouldnt take that much effort.

Steven: With what you said about about by the time it is all put together, it is already out of date. Most things can be left until the last week, But big things which need a lot more attention would need more time. But things such as writing an article about the melbourne meet wouldnt go out of date because they dont have two a month.

I believe it can happen, and if it doenst happen for a long time, we have the foundations set out and the ideas already there. Just less work down the track. If we get all the ideas compiled, when the day comes that the decision is made to do it, we know exactly what we are going to do.

I'm not going to jump the gun and say this is going to happen, Im just wanting members ideas. This is a community, one which I believe should be expanded on.

[Branno]

Opinions people

[Andrew357]

My answers will be in RED.

1. How will the costs be covered?

When subscribing, there can be an option to whether you want to subscribe to the magazine, 12 issues for $10

1) Too many issues for the amount of traffic our forums get. Twice yearly would be more 'ideal'

2) Your cost per issue is too low. Think about the amount of work that is needed to get an entire magazine printed (even if it's PDF, it's still too low). I am certain people won't work for free.

3. Who will be interested in the magazine?

I think that allowing silver members and regular members to subscribe to the magazine will be better as it will have a better popularity and there should be an option when subscribing that you may only want to subscribe to the magazine for $10 instead of silver member for $30

Keeping any subscription open to all member is good, but the price should be a fixed price for all members. Silver Memberships should come after being exposed to the forum, not be required in order to be exposed.

4. What design would the magazine have?

Well I have come up with my own creation of a possible front cover, however anyone else can have their say or even a go at designing a whole magazine if they like. I will post up my possible cover design.

You won't win any hearts over with errors on the front cover (spelling, colour + image choice etc) so I wouldn't put my hands up for the job. Another job that's probably not going to be cost free.

[1stKill]

Just a thought....one jam packed mag released once a year,could be a month or so after each annual meet,then we would all be able to contribute with bits & pieces like tips/pics/meets/upcomings/tech talk/stories ect ect.This could turn out to be a very eagerly awaited annual edition and worth saving and looking back as the years roll on.

as i said just a thought.

[Evo7]

Just thinking, how about turn the mag idea into a monthly newsletter? that is sent out to user's email addresses? and you can choose to opt out or not...?

Thoughts???

Evo

[Andrew357]

Just thinking, how about turn the mag idea into a monthly newsletter? that is sent out to user's email addresses? and you can choose to opt out or not...?

Thoughts???

Evo

A newsletter would be far easier provided you don't worry so much about pictures and things (think more like your School's weekly newsletter); but otherwise it's going to be more like a magazine/leaflet/brochure which will require too much work.

[Steven]

Just a thought, but what about a once a year Mag or something that's basically based around the National meet of that year. Content is readily available in the form of pictures etc, it would give a chance to tell more to those who couldn't make it whilst at the same time promoting attendance for the next years meet.

We've got cruise feedback, the show n shine, dinner, karting, personal stories, photoshoots - And being only a once a year release with no set date (within a month or 2 after the meet is over) I doubt it would have too many troubles as volunteers could contribute whenever they have free time.

I for one would like to see much more interest in next years Melbourne meet and I think this is one genuine way of generating that.

[Branno]

I like the way you think steven. It would be good to get EVERYONE to go to next years meet. This could be a good way of getting popularity.

And thankyou to everyone else for their feedback. Including Andrew for his much appreciated negative feedback. It just helps narrow down what we can and cant do.

[1stKill]

Just a thought....one jam packed mag released once a year,could be a month or so after each annual meet,then we would all be able to contribute with bits & pieces like tips/pics/meets/upcomings/tech talk/stories ect ect.This could turn out to be a very eagerly awaited annual edition and worth saving and looking back as the years roll on.

as i said just a thought.

Just a thought, but what about a once a year Mag or something that's basically based around the National meet of that year. Content is readily available in the form of pictures etc, it would give a chance to tell more to those who couldn't make it whilst at the same time promoting attendance for the next years meet.

We've got cruise feedback, the show n shine, dinner, karting, personal stories, photoshoots - And being only a once a year release with no set date (within a month or 2 after the meet is over) I doubt it would have too many troubles as volunteers could contribute whenever they have free time.

I for one would like to see much more interest in next years Melbourne meet and I think this is one genuine way of generating that.

Hmmmm almost a duplicate of what i said...guess you must like the way i think aswell :P

[Andrew357]

Including Andrew for his much appreciated negative feedback.

Oh don't be so sour Michael. The idea is good, it just needs to be tweaked a little. B)

[Branno]

Okay everyone, BIG UPDATE.

I will officially be bailing on the MONTHLY idea. Thats in the trash.

Ill be chucking a poll up.

Would you prefer:

A. Half yearly

or

B. Yearly

Due to the great success of the national meet, but the such low amount of people turning up, Lazy victorians.

I want to create a BUZZ for the next annual meet. I want it to go out with a BANG.

I really like stevens idea. If we can get something ready. Lets say, for the end of the year and make it really big and exciting. If we then release it, everyone will go, ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG, I WANNA GO TO THE ANNUAL MEET! Because, it is our biggest event in the club. So it is important in getting as many people involved.

@1zzfe05 You sir, you are a legend, 10 posts in the forum and you are making a great impression. If you really want to help out, I have put up a DRAFT version of what the front cover would look like. If you want to have a go at making it look AMAZING, go right ahead. It would even be greatly appreciated.

So people, OPINIONS!

[Tash]

Lazy victorians.

Really??? Sure there weren't a heap of us but I think a fairly decent effort given 3 of us drove up, as opposed to just me and Guni who went to Sydney last year. It is a pretty large commitment to be able to travel that far for one, and we in Victoria understand this will be the case for Melbourne next year also.

That said, there is some merit to the idea but I am with Lee and Steven, an annual publication would be most worthwhile and probably an online distributed PDF rather than a hard copy magazine. It would require a lot of contribution from many different members but could certainly be achieved, its sounding a lot more like a year book really. There are certainly a lot of people on here with different skills and different expertise, so we could come up with something great :)

[Branno]

Maybe we could get this thread sticky'd. We really need more input than from a select few as it is a club decision. And Tash, thankyou for your input. The more the better. Keeping in mind, that I think the majority of us queenslanders will be coming to melbourne. And on topic, it so far seems that it would be better to have an annual newsletter that will be distributed through the email system in a PDF format. But I really want to get this thread sticky'd.

[Adamsy]

I’d suggest judging by the amount of new traffic and people joining the club making any form of magazine more frequent then half yearly is doomed to fail as there simply would not be enough new stuff to talk about...

Ideas put forward so far sounds good though. Few articles on clubs member’s cars. And what club members have being doing in their own states and a spill from mods and our sponsors is all sounding like a good idea. Could even do a review and road test on a new Toyota product that has just hit the market, all those sorts of things.

[Foss]

Could even do a review and road test on a new Toyota product that has just hit the market, all those sorts of things.

Is this you volunteering your services, Mr Salesman? :P

[Adamsy]

Could even do a review and road test on a new Toyota product that has just hit the market, all those sorts of things.

Is this you volunteering your services, Mr Salesman? :P

Clearly driving the upcoming FT-86 in anger would be for evaluation purposes only haha :)