Premium Membership Poll - Your thoughts please

[Justin]

Continued thanks for everyone's feedback here. Membership hasn't dropped off, it's remaining constant. The £10 gives you access to discounts not available to non paying members and can be recouped immediately. It also helps to cover forum costs which I'm sure you'll appreciate aren't cheap. Any money leftover is used to keep me in silk clothing and fine dining, I also drive a very expensive car and need to refuel daily, whilst my chauffeur does this for me he does insist on being paid.

[Justin]

Would be great if 'non premium' members could respond to this thread as the title suggests, the poll is the most important factor but it's all great feedback to see why you decide not to join etc.

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Justin

Not sure if Mrs M, or indeed any of us are entitled to see where the membership fee go's. As far as I am concerned although this is a open forum it is still effectively a business and I either decide to join or not. I hope you make a million out of this forum, not only do you deserve it for the many years that it has probably cost you more than you have received, but good ideas deserve financial reward (okay its not reinventing the wheel but its still a good forum )

I for one have saved thousands by joining this forum, either through discounts offered by various suppliers, or tips that have been freely given. Although very individual to me I can now take a holiday and know that should the need arise there is someone close to where I live that can fulfil any urgent order I have without me needing to return early (something that has happened pretty much every holiday before then).

Double the price of the membership is what I say!

Just one tip, get the chauffeur to fill jerry cans on his way to work and then refuel when he arrives. Saves time that could be well spent on polishing :biggrin:


Feel free to delete this post as I may have digressed from the original thread and fear this may well go off topic very very quickly!

[JSR]

Any money leftover is used to keep me in silk clothing and fine dining, I also drive a very expensive car and need to refuel daily, whilst my chauffeur does this for me he does insist on being paid.

Oh, that was you I saw being driven about was it? That explains everything. :biggrin:

[Craig]

I totally agree with Social I do not think anyone should ask to see how or where the money is spent as that is nobodys business, We sign up to the forum and nobody has too but lets be honest we have probably all used the discounts in 1 way or another and most have had there member money back if not alot more no only from the disounts vailable but the help and feedback from members.

I agree with some when they say the BMS discount is a miss. This has probably affected a few members wanting to join but I do think there needs to be bigger adverts regards discounts available as I remember seeing a post the other day about someone joinging up as they had read the forum and seen BMS discount being mentioned so they signed up and paid only to orde from BMS and find no discount so this issue needs clearing so others dont mae the same mistake.

[JSR]

I totally agree with Social I do not think anyone should ask to see how or where the money is spent as that is nobodys business, We sign up to the forum and nobody has too but lets be honest we have probably all used the discounts in 1 way or another and most have had there member money back if not alot more no only from the disounts vailable but the help and feedback from members.

I agree with some when they say the BMS discount is a miss. This has probably affected a few members wanting to join but I do think there needs to be bigger adverts regards discounts available as I remember seeing a post the other day about someone joinging up as they had read the forum and seen BMS discount being mentioned so they signed up and paid only to orde from BMS and find no discount so this issue needs clearing so others dont mae the same mistake.

If people are signing up just for what discounts they can get out of the forum, then that's the wrong reason to be signing up. Discounts, etc, should be the icing on the cake - not the whole cake.

I pay my membership fee not for discounts but to support the forum, to ensure it keeps going. On that score, I admit to a curiosity of how much the forum requires to keep going, whether those costs are being met, and if the costs are being exceeded then what the extra cost is going towards.

After all, if the costs are not being met, then we could pay more to meet those costs. And if the costs are being exceeded, then I think it's only right that we should know what the excess is being put towards - future server costs, better forum software, forum enhancements, or whatever.

This kind of transparency might encourage others to sign up. For instance, many might think that putting a forum on a bit of web-space isn't so expensive that it requires a hundred people paying a tenner plus paid adverts. If the money spent, and money received, was made more transparent, it might sway those who currently aren't premium members. Not everyone is swayed by discounts. Some people are swayed by whether their money is going to a good cause and being wisely spent.

It doesn't sway me particularly, beyond idle curiosity, otherwise I wouldn't pay each year, but it may sway others if everything was made more transparent.

[Paul]

Can i ask what proffesional section means?

[accdave]

In hindsight mybe I was being a bit grumpy and have now paid. Better to see the forum survive. I do though stand by my original statement.

[mrs maggot]

JSR has put what i was meaning into words very well - thank you JSR - perhaps that will help explain it to SG, as it was not meant as a go at Justin, which is how these things are always taken, just well as JSR has put it

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Mrs M and JSR

I did not think that you were having a go at Justin, far from it. Healthy discussion is always good and never personal

But I do think you and JSR are wrong to expect transparency. If Justin wants to invest in new servers etc then so be it. Those sort of investments are driven by the customer usage and like any other business, they would not explain that money from sales will go to future investment, they simply announce the investment when they have the money to do so. Likewise if Justin wants to spend it on fine dining and silk clothes then that is up to him. I am sure he realises that should he not invest in new technology (for example the mobile APP poll recently) then someone will come along and do a better job.

Look at this forum as a business, I do not tell my customers anything about investing in the future or profit made after expenses because it is simply not the way a business works.

I do agree with the fact that discounts are the icing on the cake and not a reason to join.