Its come to my attention over time thats parts for our cars are hard source and expensive. Availability of quality kit is poor from within the uk and oem parts are dropping off the availability list like flys. Being an entusiast club part of our responsibility is to ensure the marque is represented and preserved. A serious prerequiset to this is availability of parts. Most other cars have many pattern parts available, and aftermarket stuff, we simply dont. I do not wish to pick on anyone but compare our z part retailers to those in the us or oz, zcentre is tiny, its not even affilated with the owners club! Not to mrntion the price. Getting onto the twinz range, that cannot be sorted.

It's a sad state that the 3rd? Biggest ownership worldwide cannot produce a sustainable and progress range of parts, that we have to make international orders to a country on the otherside of the world to get things of decent quality, and price. I applaud companies like sfs for making good parts for us, but I think its high time we started brain storming a better way that the current reliance on the us.

So how do we move forward? How do we push the z32 out of this stagnent position of poor parts, high prices and poor availability. Theres enough.of us at the end of the day. How do we move the club away from the screen and into an owners club, are we the offical uk zxclub? Is there even one? I know this sounds like a rant but I want to still own my z in 20 years time

Its high time the z comunity raised its profile.

Official takes you into another realm of legality, premiere, the best, the top are all names that anyone can bandy about without retribution.

 

Which is exactly why they lack credibility, I could start s new forum tomorrow and call myself, 300zxworldwidepremierclub.co.uk. I realise theres a degree of work or finance involved in becoming offical but surly its worth the headache.

Gary is right - we are officially known as the "300zx.co.uk CLUB" already so what exactly do we need to change? Adding "club" to the web address just makes for more typing, when "300zx.co.uk" says it all.

 

We do welcome suggestions from our members though; it's you guys that make "the club" so as Gary says, it's one for us committee to ponder over. But our priority is to ensure that this club is does its best for all our members and continues to promote interest in the 300zx (z32); we'll always endeavour to do that anyway, so what's in a name!!

 

Richard:thumbup1:

 

Morning Rich but dont you agree 300zx.co.uk does seem to read more like a website then a club! when searching for us on the interweb we seem to come up under 300zx forum!

 

The z club sounds what it is .....but 300zx.co.uk does not sound like a club, what ever way you look at it:biggrin:

Actually I disagree with you on that one -

 

The title of the webpage is "300zx.co.uk Club Bulletin Board" and under it the sub title reads "This is a discussion board for the UK 300zx owners club."

 

So far the only point i agree with you on is that the new logo does not say club in it and as it was me who designed it then it simply an oversight which

no one apart from yourself has mentioned until now.

 

In my original designs i did have a slogan under the main 300zx.co.uk words but i decided i didn't like it and it made the logo cluttered and not as tidy.

 

One thing we possibly could do is put a design of our own banner into rotation which says welcome.

 

The other option would be to enable the CMS of the forums so that the main page is a website rather than the forums and fill it with content,

but we would need moderators to constantly update the sections to make it fresh, i will put that idea to the mods and committee.

 

Lee

 

Now that is an idea, a frontage page with 300zx related news, mission statement, the registation part and media linls for example. This would certainly create the impression this is a club not just a forum.

Now that is an idea, a frontage page with 300zx related news, mission statement, the registation part and media linls for example. This would certainly create the impression this is a club not just a forum.

 

Also maybe a car of the month article where the owner can write a few paragraphs or for those that whittle on lol a few pages!! (joking) all about their car and what they have done to it etc etc (just an idea) :)

I've put it to the rest of committee and I'll get back to you on what we decide.:biggrin:

Now that is an idea, a frontage page with 300zx related news, mission statement, the registation part and media linls for example. This would certainly create the impression this is a club not just a forum.

 

A bit like the z club

I wondered how long it would take for a comment like that to show !:glare:

 

Although CMS is part of vBulletin its a function that we never thought was needed as is the blogging feature which is also disabled.

 

If we enabled the CMS it wouldn't be just because z club has it but rather for member features, and I wouldn't say its directly copying

them either as there is thousands of car sites that likely use vbulletin and also use cms as there main front end web page.

 

We have a stable relationship at the moment with zclub but if they believe we are copying ideas then they are free to have there say.

 

 

A bit like the z club

]I wondered how long it would take for a comment like that to show !:glare:

[/b]

Although CMS is part of vBulletin its a function that we never thought was needed as is the blogging feature which is also disabled.

 

If we enabled the CMS it wouldn't be just because z club has it but rather for member features, and I wouldn't say its directly copying

them either as there is thousands of car sites that likely use vbulletin and also use cms as there main front end web page.

 

We have a stable relationship at the moment with zclub but if they believe we are copying ideas then they are free to have there say.

 

Not a criticism fella:huh:

Great then, just wouldn't like our member base thinking we are ripping off another site.

 

We try to create this site to be as independent and separate looking from any other well known site.

 

Of course there will be feature that's are identical on both sites and that's just the nature of technology.

 

Much like Apple suing Samsung for copying the flat tablet design of the iphone; imagine a company like Nissan invented

the wheel and tried to sue every other company for copying them; its just daft as its a general evolution of design.

 

 

 

Not a criticism fella:huh:

out of interest, theres already that other page zxclub isnt there... when i looked at both, i registered here first, and primarily use this site. its how the place looks, not what its called thats important.

 

if we want to make this more of a club, than there needs to be more emphasis on club discounts and a better splash page which puts more information in your face on club events. I dont know if we should condense the number of regional sections w have too. surely we could get some good club meets going with less regions, and less mini-meets, more big, worth while meets to go to.

 

and as another heads up, its £1 to register as a full club member on the ukstarletowners club (thats no typo, one pound), it was £10 on the rx7ownersclub, and £10 on the VVOC owners club.

Not got time to read through everything posted so far, but it seems pretty clear that If you want to promote this as more of a club than just an online forum then the very first step is the need to drop the ".co.uk" part from the main name.

Edited April 11, 201312 yr by Yowser

Our membership price is based on current active members and costs to keep this place running.

 

For example we have 8,212 members to date and 672 active paying members, either in the primary paid year of £20 or 1/2 price cost of £10 for renewal.

 

The first part of the payment covers costs of the membership pack which gets sent out and the second half covers the hosting fees and funds used at national meets or events.

 

If you take the rx7owners club as an example they currently have 170,059 members and god knows how many subbed users but likely far more than we do so they can bring

the subscription price right down as they have plenty of members to subsidise the overhead.

 

Unfortunately we only have 672 which isn't a lot compared the member base of the rx7owners club and as there site is busy they also receive funding from click banners like amazon.

 

Its not feasible to lower prices to that level currently as we will run out of funds fairly quickly then we would be dead in the water.

 

 

 

out of interest, theres already that other page zxclub isnt there... when i looked at both, i registered here first, and primarily use this site. its how the place looks, not what its called thats important.

 

if we want to make this more of a club, than there needs to be more emphasis on club discounts and a better splash page which puts more information in your face on club events. I dont know if we should condense the number of regional sections w have too. surely we could get some good club meets going with less regions, and less mini-meets, more big, worth while meets to go to.

 

and as another heads up, its £1 to register as a full club member on the ukstarletowners club (thats no typo, one pound), it was £10 on the rx7ownersclub, and £10 on the VVOC owners club.

Not got time to read through everything posted so far, but it seems pretty clear that If you want to promote this as more of a club than just an online forum then the very first step is the need to drop the ".co.uk" part from the main name.

 

It's been with us for a long time .co.uk . It would feel like we have given up on our heritage and reputation of this great club. A club where members keep comming back to knowing we will always be here under 300zx.co.uk.plus the small detail of changing my stock of membership packs and the clubs banners but that would be a minor glinch.Just dose not feel right in loosing our great name which has done us proud for many years.

But some good ideas there that JayKai has already put up for discussing in the Committee rooms.

i think its all ok as it is but thats just me

The .co.uk is just a tld or top level domain and really has nothing to do with the running of the club but it does differentiate us from others,

 

And if we did drop the .co.uk in the name not the domain we could actually cause confusion and complaints as there is other established clubs internationally with that name.

 

 

Not got time to read through everything posted so far, but it seems pretty clear that If you want to promote this as more of a club than just an online forum then the very first step is the need to drop the ".co.uk" part from the main name.

We have a stable relationship at the moment with zclub but if they believe we are copying ideas then they are free to have there say.

 

Now which hat do I put on to post on here

Right Z Club Hat No such thing as copying as near enough every thing that various clubs do is look at what other clubs do have a think about it and if is a good idea you try and incorporate it into your club The same as every different club in the land does

In My view It is a bit like the wheel every body thought it was good so every body used it

 

Now 300Zx hat on I have always for a long time thought of here as a club It started as a forum and developed into a club that has a very good internet presence where as the original clubs started a club and had great difficulty getting old members to embrace the internet

 

To me the essence of any club is its social side whether it be car shows, tours, weekend events, attending Race meeting, Drag racing Hill climbs what ever so that people get out in their cars and meet people instead of sitting behind a keyboard and becoming a recluse

 

From experience it is a nightmare trying to organise events for people to come to You have to prod, Dig, moan at them to come along and then at the end of the day very few from both Here and the Z club come along to meets

 

The problem for both here and the Z Club is that both clubs are very small number wise compared to The 350 club and as such will never get any serious backing from Nissan as there is not much financial return for them to support clubs that are mostly for cars that are no longer sold by Nissan

We are talking about perception here. The general opinion seems to be that this place is really nothing more than an Internet forum, and having a url as a name certainly doesn't help this perception.

 

Changing its name, so that Logo's read something like :

 

The 300zx UK Owners club

- http://www.300zx.co.uk -

 

I can't imagine any real confusion there.

 

As for costs of mechandise, its something you would change over time. Membership packs get updates as new stock is ordered, and when it comes to items like club banners the cost is not really an issue with the clubs financial situation, and no reason why existing banners cant still be used alongside new banners, they mostly just show the clubs website address.

 

 

Ofcourse the club would need to do a lot more than just change its name to become better recognised as one, but the name is surely an obvious first step.

Edited April 11, 201312 yr by Yowser

I don't think anyone meant to suggest losing the .co.uk or to alter the domain name in any way, just to have more of a focus as a 'physical' car club.

 

I don't want anything I type to come across as criticism for criticism's sake. I am genuinely passionate about the Z32, the work I do as part of this club and the fellow Zed Heads I've met. I really wish there were more meets & there was more of a proactive community effort away from the boards. Anyone that's met me knows I live & breathe all things Nissan, I really want to push awareness of the car & this club, both from a trader's point of view and as a genuine enthusiast. My local section, the Midlands, is woefully quiet. There hasn't been one official event organised in a long time, which is a real shame. On the other side of the coin, when a karting meet was put to the Midland Massive, there wasn't a great response. But it was more like a few of us trying to do some karting, rather than a 300zx.co.uk Karting Competition, for example.

 

For me, personally, I want to wear this Club's colours loudly & proudly at every show, meet, track day, drag day, barbeque etc etc, but it's a bit difficult as it is very internet-based at the moment. It's a great forum populated by a diverse userbase judging from the people I've met, it would just be nice and a real positive step forward to see it all in person on a much more regular basis, rather than a few die-hards at Santa Pod on occasion. Maybe a more 'club'-oriented focus would result in this.

 

I think any person's posts that come across a bit frustrated, ungrateful or pushy is borne out of a genuine enthusiasm to have the marque more widely recognised & respected as it should be.

 

:)

Our membership price is based on current active members and costs to keep this place running.

 

For example we have 8,212 members to date and 672 active paying members, either in the primary paid year of £20 or 1/2 price cost of £10 for renewal.

 

The first part of the payment covers costs of the membership pack which gets sent out and the second half covers the hosting fees and funds used at national meets or events.

 

If you take the rx7owners club as an example they currently have 170,059 members and god knows how many subbed users but likely far more than we do so they can bring

the subscription price right down as they have plenty of members to subsidise the overhead.

 

Unfortunately we only have 672 which isn't a lot compared the member base of the rx7owners club and as there site is busy they also receive funding from click banners like amazon.

 

Its not feasible to lower prices to that level currently as we will run out of funds fairly quickly then we would be dead in the water.

 

I personally don't have an issue with the pricing structure. What you have provided there though is a great set of figures, 672 paying members, honestly when compared to the amount of zeds in the uk presently that's crap, I would say the vast majority of z32 owners are not only not members, but not aware or possibly interested in our existence, this is one of the key things that must change, it also raises its own questions, why arn't we reaching these people? I've also seen that we gain members that then don't hang around, why?

I would be extremely surprised, if there are more rx7's in the uk, than 300zx's, I assume that's a global club? but even so that's a massive number in comparison.

I personally don't have an issue with the pricing structure. What you have provided there though is a great set of figures, 672 paying members, honestly when compared to the amount of zeds in the uk presently that's crap, I would say the vast majority of z32 owners are not only not members, but not aware or possibly interested in our existence, this is one of the key things that must change, it also raises its own questions, why arn't we reaching these people? I've also seen that we gain members that then don't hang around, why?

I would be extremely surprised, if there are more rx7's in the uk, than 300zx's, I assume that's a global club? but even so that's a massive number in comparison.

 

 

when i checked about a month ago there were only just over a 1000 or so in uk in total

We are talking about perception here. The general opinion seems to be that this place is really nothing more than an Internet forum, and having a url as a name certainly doesn't help this perception.

 

Changing its name, so that Logo's read something like :

 

The 300zx UK Owners club

- http://www.300zx.co.uk -

 

I can't imagine any real confusion there.

 

As for costs of mechandise, its something you would change over time. Membership packs get updates as new stock is ordered, and when it comes to items like club banners the cost is not really an issue with the clubs financial situation, and no reason why existing banners cant still be used alongside new banners, they mostly just show the clubs website address.

 

 

Ofcourse the club would need to do a lot more than just change its name to become better recognised as one, but the name is surely an obvious first step.

 

 

 

I don't think anyone meant to suggest losing the .co.uk or to alter the domain name in any way, just to have more of a focus as a 'physical' car club.

 

I don't want anything I type to come across as criticism for criticism's sake. I am genuinely passionate about the Z32, the work I do as part of this club and the fellow Zed Heads I've met. I really wish there were more meets & there was more of a proactive community effort away from the boards. Anyone that's met me knows I live & breathe all things Nissan, I really want to push awareness of the car & this club, both from a trader's point of view and as a genuine enthusiast. My local section, the Midlands, is woefully quiet. There hasn't been one official event organised in a long time, which is a real shame. On the other side of the coin, when a karting meet was put to the Midland Massive, there wasn't a great response. But it was more like a few of us trying to do some karting, rather than a 300zx.co.uk Karting Competition, for example.

 

For me, personally, I want to wear this Club's colours loudly & proudly at every show, meet, track day, drag day, barbeque etc etc, but it's a bit difficult as it is very internet-based at the moment. It's a great forum populated by a diverse userbase judging from the people I've met, it would just be nice and a real positive step forward to see it all in person on a much more regular basis, rather than a few die-hards at Santa Pod on occasion. Maybe a more 'club'-oriented focus would result in this.

 

I think any person's posts that come across a bit frustrated, ungrateful or pushy is borne out of a genuine enthusiasm to have the marque more widely recognised & respected as it should be.

 

 

YES and YES

 

This needs to become more than just a forum, currently its my opinion that this is a forum first and a club second, intentionally or not. This is what I mean when I say aboutr becoming more official, I think the main issue here the fact that the club doesn't transcend beyond this forum, for too many members there involvement starts and stops right here at 300zx.co.uk. This is sad, and really needs to change. Im going to have a chat with the capri club this week find out exactly how there club model works and report back here explaining there method, I really think we can take something from this approach.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

when i checked about a month ago there were only just over a 1000 or so in uk in total

 

z32 or rx7?

We are talking about perception here. The general opinion seems to be that this place is really nothing more than an Internet forum, and having a url as a name certainly doesn't help this perception.

 

Changing its name, so that Logo's read something like :

 

The 300zx UK Owners club

- http://www.300zx.co.uk -

 

I can't imagine any real confusion there.

 

As for costs of mechandise, its something you would change over time. Membership packs get updates as new stock is ordered, and when it comes to items like club banners the cost is not really an issue with the clubs financial situation, and no reason why existing banners cant still be used alongside new banners, they mostly just show the clubs website address.

 

 

Ofcourse the club would need to do a lot more than just change its name to become better recognised as one, but the name is surely an obvious first step.

 

Spot on Dave:thumbup1:

Now that I've got five minute's IL explain myself over AMS, Comparatively with the current products available they have a large range of products specifically for z32 that we simply don't have, I'm aware there have been some quality issues on some products, I 'am also aware of the great reviews other products have gotten. In the ideal world it would be great to have companies like Ashspec on board but in reality I see a real bug bears here, firstly costing, they come at a premium that most wont be prepared to pay, those that will be will also be prepared to purchase them straight from the states, im not writing the idea off and I will certainly get in touch with them, we may be pleasantly surprised. Ams have the range and the prices that are going to be of most interest to the uk market, rightly or wrongly, the ozzies and the yanks have had exposure to their products for a while and their experience's are for us to learn by, research is key here, and we don't have to buy everything, the current offers of pricing structure are seriously good, as are the offers they run, when compared to japspeed, a similar sort of company the following pros come into play, wider variety of z32 specific parts, similar if not better prices and more relevant group buys, as for quality you get what you pay for and the exhaust systems they do have recently been commented on by a few that they require a little persuading to fit, I don't expect the AMS products to be any different.

I will be contacting Z1 tonight aswel, as they are a sponsor here, according to the top of the page yet we have no z1 rep, without a rep group buys and offers will hav eto be sought out not offered freely, and it may well work out that some sort of co-op situation may occur where they will be able to offer better prices and shipping costs by combing orders. That's where I'm at, at present.

67% approx of the Z32 owners being subscribed members is exceptional bearing in mind a few of the member have more than one Z32

I would imagine that must be one of the best % wise in the country