All in favour of a PDF COPY OF DUTTON TORQUE

[Dave Taylor]

Chance to speak out here gents and ladies, would you welcome a PDF version of Dutton Torque to run a long side the hard copy. Say Aye on here.
For those of you with internet access don't answer

[Dave Taylor]

Oops! Taylor get that bloody cat away from them pigeons

[Dave Adams]

An interesting but fatuous discussion...
The AGM has already had its say on this point,
This is not an official DOC site so any thing decided here need not be taken at face value,
I know for a fact that not all regular posters are in the DOC,
this site does not represent any majority of the DOC except perhaps those who are "online"...even then,
Even if there were a quorate number of the committee on this site (I think there are!)....I can speak for at least three of them in saying they wont support it......so no majority.
As I say this is an issue for the AGM its called democracy

[Big Vern]

Its not an issue for the AGM its an issue for ALL members of the club - the committee are not there to take decisions they are there to act on what the membership decide on - its NOT the committee's club its the members club and its time you understood that- all of you!

[1midz0wwbl268]

BV,i fully agree, thats why at this years AGM,i asked for postal,or proxy voying for the full membership, as away of obtaining better member voting on issues, but this was voted down,    i still believe that it can be done, but abide by what the result was, 

[Dave Adams]

The main reason it isnt getting posted is due to problems getting the members names from a workinv data base.......this data base would also be required to issue passwords to members to access the pdf files so you would still be waiting!
It would solve nothing!
If getting 350 odd names from an old data base reliaby has defeated us for the last 3 years the issues in posting pdf's online is not going to end well...........

[1midz0wwbl268]

Dave, obviously the problem is the database,  rather than the publishing side, so are we looking at this the wrong way round? what system do we currently use?  i work with the person that manages the membership database for the  outfit i work for, i could ask him what system he uses if it might help in the future 

[1midz0wwbl268]

I can see the attraction of an PDF copy, as long as the database and passwords are sorted out, otherwise there would be no point , because no one would be able to access it,  

At the moment DTcosts more than what the club gets in subscriptions, so something needs to change, either less mags per year, or an increase in subscriptions, £12.00 does not cover costs. or as Nick advocates published as default PDFcopy.or maybe all three.  just out of interest, what does the printed copy work out each  to cover the costs, one way may be that members who  want to recieve printed copy have to pay extra , or we increase subscriptions so that it balances out the printing and mailing cost, what would that add to the membership, for instance if we increased the  membership to £15.00 would that cover the cost?

[Dave Taylor]

Here another stone in the pond, Subscriptions should be £20 minimum.

[1midz0wwbl268]

Is that what other car clubs charge?  a car club normally is only allowed to cover its costs and have a small working capital carried over for next year, at least thats the case in the railway heritage sector, 

[Big Vern]

Why?

With DT as a downloadable pdf from the members section of the homepage the printing and production/distribution casts fall to almost nothing. Since that money would then be available for other uses why would the subs need to go up?

BV

PS Yes I would like DT to be pdf and have been asking for a membership wide free vote on this for some time now as many will already know!

[Adrian Southgate]

BV. This is all about customer feedback.

I don't think the questionnaire in the latest one raised the issue of DT going PDF, maybe it should have. Maybe I can include it as an option on renewal.

It does mean a higher workload for the editor and will mean more work for me to do as memsec. 

The main problem I see is if we stopped printing entirely then the whole nature of the mag would change as we went electronic. One thing is for sure, we would need a team to work on and maintain the website and back office server instead of the one man operation it's supposed to be at the moment, even more so if you start issuing individual user id's and passwords. My own opinion is for the option to go electronic to be offered and see how many people use it.

[Big Vern]

That much more backroom work just to post a PDF in the members pages 4 times a year?

I have not said anything about individual usernames and passwords why would you need that? There is already a password entry to the members pages

These do sound like excuses and given the amount of work that goes into making and distributing the mag as it is currently I dont understand the problem after all everyone producing the mag as it is keeps on about how much work is involved.

As for changing the nature of the mag nothing stays the same and much of the mag is already outdated. We can bury our heads in the sand and stay with the current backward facing view or accept that the world has moved on and embrace the new.

As for customer feedback thats only of any use if you choose to - a: collect and collate and - b: act on the results!

Since neither a or b has happened I don't see where member feedback enters into this.

What I asked and have asked for is for the members to be canvasses properly as to how they would like to recieve DT and to be given the honest truth about how much it costs to produce. NONE of the committee have been prepared to do this but instead roll out the same set of excuses whenever I ask.

If the members are in majoriy favour of the electronic DT the its the committee's job to put it in place regardless of whether they, the committee, want it.

If a free and fair vote shows the majority dont want an electronic DT then I'll go along with that decision. What I don't accept a decision made by the committee where I don't believe its a decision the committee has a mandate to take.