What do people want from an Austin Seven club these days?

[JonE]

I'm 64. This forum is fantastic, but I don't feel the need to join a club. 

Being completely unemotional and budgetary about it all, you get great value from being member of A club because that includes the Association magazine (and other occasional publications)... as part of your local club subs which gives you regional magazine, access to a local network and v.specialist help for things like re-registering a car. You also get cheaper insurance being a club member.

I've looked through quite a few local club mags recently as whilst I am "with" my geographically-closest organisation, I don't gain much from the magazine which I think contains a lot of material which could be dealt within the sub-groups of a large club. However, I realise that many regional clubs use the same model and it comes down to the editorship as to the split of the accounts of social activity (i.e. a car-club equivalent of Hello magazine or Tatler - reports of who and where and what type of coffee...) and genuinely 'useful' information to someone trying to learn more about running an Austin 7.

I realise that owners are getting older and that printed paper transmission is trusted and easy, but I think in the modern world we all have a duty to start to reduce such material, and I'm amazed that regional printed magazines are monthly when they could be better if slightly less frequent and interspersed with simple e-newsletters legible to anyone with an email address. Many clubs have the latter, and great they are too.

The local club sub-groups are very useful for the network provided, and I find that for me (50 but with young kids) they mostly result in rich, ongoing conversations, online and through occasional personal visits, with people who are on your wavelength about some such subject area. [I have found that my car generally doesn't appear to be going and so I never get to formal groups even if I was free. And when the car IS going, it inevitably gets replaced with another interesting orphan in need of resuscitation so the cycle restarts!]