Another brainstorming idea...maybe it will work and maybe it wont, How about using Zoom or some other platform to engage members virtually? Maybe could use this for virtual board meetings where members where can listen in (ATHS did this recently), or perhaps have a weekly or monthly virtual session for members, where there could be open discussion or specific topics for the sessions. It would be great to hear some of our members like Eddie B, Old Magnet, JM, Rome K/G, Neil, and others in person. It probably has its logistics issues such as time zones, limiting to members only, etc, but worth considering.

How to lose membership, seems the store may be causing more grief than it's worth!!!!!
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John, thankyou once again for all your hard work behind the scenes, and that of the other brilliant Directors and Committee members / volunteers trying to keep the ACMOC ship off the rocks for a second time.

Roughly how many members have we lost the past 3 years, I assume they are nearly all American members, because numbers here in Australia I thought were still slowly increasing?

Roughly how many orders a week do we receive at the Store on average, if we look back over the past 2 years, because didn't we move all our Store items into Mary's garage to try and make this whole storage and delivery process easier, and cheaper?

It sure sounds like Mary is drowning trying to put out spot fires all around her, that's not good for her or the Club, so why isn't this $30,000 upgrade achieving the goals that were promised by the suppliers?

I'm thankful we have talented computer folks like you and Neil trying to sort through these issues, but if we keep hiring folks while member numbers continue to decline, we will be trading while insolvent before we know it, just like 3 years ago, because we just don't have any other significant sources of income, that are reliable, but you are aware of that already.

Thankyou
Mike

Thanks for the quick reply John, I wasn't expecting you to be answering at 4am your time!

OK, so I had the wrong info regarding the storage issue, I had thought everything was at Mary's to save her having to commute 2 hours every time she needed to ship a order.

John, I wonder how many members we have near Mary, who might be retired and able to help pack and ship orders say twice a week, sure would be a lot easier having someone who know the difference between a pull grader toy and a scraper toy! LOL

Is it worth writing directly to all our members within 50 miles of our storage area asking for help, or even moving the storage to somewhere that we have good member support, surely it doesn't have to be near Peoria, because we no longer rent a office do we, it could be anywhere Stateside, California even, just needs good access and egress 24/7, with good shipping options, and security.

What is interesting John, is why we are losing so many U.S. based members, because if anything, memberships should be increasing as older / mature members with big collections of old tractors, fall off their perch, or downsize, and 20 or 50 or 80 old Cats, Holts and Bests get auctioned and picked up by a bunch of new owners, maybe 30 or 40 or even 60 new owners, and most possibly not ACMOC members, I mean typically most the old crawlers being sold in 2021 I assume are not going off as scrap so much are they, like they used to?

Here in Australia, during the past 18 months of covid lockdowns, the demand, and prices paid, for old tractors, trucks, cars and motorbikes has gone through the roof, even common 1970's and 80's cars like Ford Falcons and GMH Commodores and Toyota Landcruisers are making ridiculous money.

The decline in US memberships is a interesting issue, and I think as a priority, we need to reach out to those lapsed folks to find out why, either with a phone call or a short polite questionaire, if you never ask, you never find out, do you.

Don't worry John, I have 110% confidence in Sue to keep us on the straight and narrow, she is worth her weight in gold, but Accountants even as talented as Sue can only give us accurate data in a historical sense, like what happened last week, month, quarter and year, because when it comes to making future marketing projections and predictions, it's in the lap of the gods as you know.

Just look at our toy tractor sales, half a million in turnover year after year, now we can't even give them away, they are a liability, not a asset, and who would have predicted our US memberships would have fallen 10% in such a short period of time.......

The work you and others are doing on the new Tech Library is brilliant, if anything will help convert forum "Users" into "Member", it's that library, reproduction parts is another area that needs a kick in the butt big time, because everyone restoring a old crawler needs good quality parts at a fair price.
Enjoy your breakfast John
Mike

I just had a look through the last 2 ACMOC magazines and noticed nearly half the Chapters didn't put in a report in either magazine, including Chapters 5, 6, 11, 13, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 28. There's no doubt Covid 19 has smashed a lot of people and events the past 20 months, and I hope those Chapters haven't suffered major losses, it would be great to hear that everyone in those Chapters is OK coming out the other side.

But does the fact we haven't heard from nearly half our Chapters in the past 6 months, during the northern hemisphere warmer months, suggest they are really struggling to hold members. It would be interesting to know how many members each Chapter has, because I think ACMOC has around 2,500 financial members, but I suspect only about 400-500 of those members are actually part of a local Chapter on a regular basis, or am I out of whack again?

I know my local Chapter 19 has well over 100 members, but at the last 2 meetings I've attended, I reckon we had about 35 people there, but to put it in perspective, many of our members live anything up to 6 or 7 hours drive from our Clubhouse at Lake Goldsmith, I'm only 3 hours drive each way!

Anyway, what I'm getting at is if a Chapter struggles to even put in a few sentences into the magazine every 3 months about what they have, or have not been doing, then it sounds like they need help, because if it was just 2 or 3 Chapters every quarter you wouldn't notice would you, but this is nearly half our Chapters not giving a report, so maybe that might go some way to explain why we are losing so many US members?
Mike

i myself am one of those stand alone members. now the idea of some sort of incentive isnt a bad idea.

a raffle or some sort of renewal bonus maybe talk to caterpillar they might be able to come to the party with some merchendise, the worst theyll say is no!

members discounts in the acmoc store.

and yes i second the idea of a members survey.

and this could be a issue for some people if they are associated with a chapter aswell as being a acmoc member is the cost of dues for both groups.

the machinery club i'm part of is also affiliated with our national association the NHMA and most of us also get our public liability insurance through them and the cost is around $20 for nhma membership and the insurance and then we pay $15 club dues on top mainly to cover photocopying and renewal of the incorporation fees for the club. both fees are paid together and the secetary forwards the nhma portion to them on our behalf.

also some may mistakinly think they are paying dues for both when thats not the case, as each chapter is its a club in it own right.

what could also help is set a renewal date for my club its the 31st of july each year which puts it a month into our new financial yr so it is away from the tax time. but its easier to remember.