This is outstanding! To be able to access this online will be a huge deal going forward with the club! Now just to get some older ones up and going. So very happy with how this site is developing and contributing.

Todd, we will be working on the older WTN's - the club store received a donation of a lot of the magazines back a couple nationals ago. Once we pry them out of Walt Norem's hands we will be working on getting those uploaded.

Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

It's just great having all of these WTNs, eventually, online. Thanks to you and Alex for getting this going! This adds real value to Hudson Club membership.

Even more powerful is if you can figure out how to index the info by Hudson Model, Member name, and technical topic articles, for example. Keep it limited to those areas that members would usually want to search by. That will take a lot of volunteer work, but will make these even more useful. The newsletter was smaller through the 60s to early 70s anyway, so it isn't a completely unrealistic endeavor. All new WTNs should have keywords associated with each issue/article/page, so that they can be indexed in such a way.

I sure like those 1963 cars and parts prices!

Tim, a WTN index is another of my projects. I have several from several sources - just got to find the time among scanning material for the online library is all - and put what I have together into a coherent document.

Hudsonly,
Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

So Aaron, does this mean we can at last lower the membership rate of our poor international members, to allow them the option of receiving the electronic version of the WTN instead of paying for delivery of the paper one? I'd think this might increase our overseas membership. Of course, if people wanted a paper WTN (I myself prefer it) they could pay full rate.

Jon, interesting that you should ask as I have had some discussions about this. First of all, we are not there yet. We have less than 10% of our membership online right now. I expect that eventually we will grow that number. In order to think about offering a electronic only membership version we have to incorporate the cost per member of printing less. There are fixed costs that Standard Printing is able to spread across the larger print volume. Lower volume doesn't always result in proportionate drop in costs. Sounds backwards I know, but we are a ways away from any kind of significant group desiring only electronic. So you can't just take the mailing cost out and come up with an electronic membership cost since it doesn't account for the increase in printing cost for printing less. In effect we would need to accurately spread the cost of producing the magazine combined with the cost of printing at a lower volume. You also would need a projection of how many electronic memberships you would have to get the pricing right.

I also thought I would address the timing of the posting of the WTN. We are posting them around 30 days after the printing date which puts them there about the same time as the second class mail customers. If we find out this is too long we can always move it up. Right now, I have no way of distinguishing between 1st Class Mail customers and Regular Mail customers in how I deliver the electronic WTNs. Again back to the less than 10% of the membership online right now, there is an expectation that folks pay First Class so they get their WTN first. Regular mail also costs the club more due to the cost when Regular mail customers don't get their WTNs and we have to send one out and we send that one 1st Class mail. USPS will cover 1st Class Mail losses. If we have folks renewing using Regular mail versus 1st Class because they get it faster online, in the end it will cost the Club more. I did check Hemmings Motor News and they don't send the electronic version out until the print subscribers get theirs in the mail, that is basically what we are doing here.

On a related topic, I have asked the BOD to consider getting rid of Canadian Regular Mail and International Surface due to the costs incurred by losses from the poor mailing service. Since the Canadian Postal strike we have seen a sever decrease in the quality of these services. As always I would be interested in feedback on this topic.

I do understand that, the fewer the WTN's we print, the more each one will cost (should a lot of people switch to receiving the electronic ones instead). I also understand why it's important to hold the electronic version until folks have their mail copies.

And, it's a good idea to do financial projections before proceeding down any path.

But speaking in terms of international subscribers only, isn't most of their membership dollar spent in postage alone -- not Club expenses or the cost of printing their WTN?

A membership using regular U.S. mail is $33. Regular international surface mail is $47. Printing costs for either: the same. Is there not some way to offer an "electronic international membership" for $33, and giving them a special password that allows them to view the WTN on line? Naturally, they'd have to wait until everyone's gotten their paper WTN's in the U.S., to make things fair, but it would still be an improvement over the present situation in terms of delivery time and cost.

Their $33, in fact, would "chip in" towards the cost of printing the WTN, because they wouldn't even be receiving a paper copy. They'd be sharing, however, in the Club expenses. Only thing they wouldn't be paying would be the expensive postage. So, no harm done to the H-E-T coffers; in fact, some additional benefit for the Club is realized.

This might increase H-E-T membership by increasing the number of international members, since their price goes down and their delivery time decreases. That's a plus for the Club.

As to offering an electronic alternative to U.S. members, that could wait until the Club has analyzed how well the "international experiment" went. As I recall, we experimented with credit card use for our international members first, then (when it proved feasible) we opened this to all members.

Anyway, this is just a thought and there may be arguments against it, but I wanted to spell out my ideas completely.

Jon, your points are well taken. We will get there. Right now there are not a lot of sophisticated Joomla extensions out there for free (emphasis on free) or even paid that can handle this type of delivery. As a note, we have been able to stand up this website using only free software, with the exception of the Library software which cost $35 and a website hosting plan of $6 per month. We don't have the delivery capability on the site that you are suggesting, it is a very basic program. It would require more sophisticated access levels, lots of manual intervention and to be quite honest, very time consuming to set up right now. I agree with your thoughts around international members, and what could be done with costs. I will soliciting ideas from the BOD in the next couple of months. I am going to try to host a session at the National regarding the Web site so folks who arent online can understand it. As always thanks for your ideas.

Aaron, I'm with you on avoiding time-consuming manual intervention! You put forth a TON of that already and don't need more, plus there are a number of people in the Club who also do way more than their share.

However, you seem to be speaking in terms of some sort of "delivery" of the newsletter to "e-subscribers". But, in return for a lesser membership rate, could we not ask people to go to the website and read / download the e-version themselves? Once the Club posts the current newsletter for all members to see, it matters not at what membership rate you belong. Those getting their WTN's first class, have an equal right to read the latest issue online as those with a $33 membership, or e-subscription only. Right?,

I don't mean to be arguing this point with you -- as usual you have carefully thought out the situation and presented logical arguments. I just need to clarify why we couldn't simply make the latest issue available for downloading (as a PDF?) at the password protected website (after everyone stateside has had a chance to get their paper copies mailed) and just leave it at that? The fancy e-delivery stuff could come later, if ever.

Jon, I appreciate the counter points. I think we are on the same path, and I agree that we can certainly implement an electronic-only membership. I like how you have explained it out below using our existing library software, that is the same way I envisioned it. In fact that is the only way it could work right now. Once it is on, it is viewable by all memberships. If I sound cautious, it not because I don't think it is a great idea, but rather because this is all very new, especially from a management perspective. I had a scare on Oct 16th with getting locked out of the site (user error, and I learned from it) but before I tie a membership to electronic copies, want to make sure we give it some time. Other than getting BOD approval to changing membership status's (we will be discussing in Nov), one of the big behind the scenes issue is that our hosting company has required that we clean up our emails before we send out any more bulk emails. All the email addresses from the old system need to be opted in. For an online membership, I think you would need the ability to let folks know it has been posted. We risk getting our email capability shut down if we don't accomplish the scrub first. This is probably too much detail but I need to get some website admin volunteers to help administrate before I start expanding capabilities especially when it is tied to a paid membership. Hope this helps and thanks for all that you do for the club.

Aaron

I understand your wish to check out everything and get our ducks lined up in order, before we move ahead. And, possibly, when you present this to the BOD they'll have some additional ideas we never considered.

But it's exciting to think we may be on the verge of yet another innovation which will prove to be a great advance for the Club!

I agree. One cool thing we are working on is online registration and online registrant management for the National Meet. We are waiting for the chapter to decide whether they want to do it. I know the French Lick folks are on- board with it. It is not as smooth as I would like it but it will work.

I know that this can be a complex issue, as well as a sensitive one -

My input would be to make the 'online' version of the WTN available to all registered members at the same time the WTN is mailed, regardless of how it is mailed (1st Class, 2nd Class, international, etc..). As we have indicated, many, many times - there is no difference in membership, the only difference in the dues is in how the WTN is mailed (or delivered/provided to the individual member).

[b]Keep it on an 'even keel'[/b] - Don't treat the release of the publication differently because of the way the mail is delivered.

I get my WTN '1ST CLASS', and would would want to continue to get a 'hard copy' of the magazine/newsletter - although I might let it 'slip' to 2nd Class if the online version was to be offered on a timely basis.

I don't see an issue with this - although many members may not be 'online', that is their option/lifestyle, and we must progress with the times. We are not excluding them (i.e., the WTN is published and mailed).

AND - This may give our members added emphasis to 'get online', get registered on our club website, if for no other reason than to see the latest issue of the WTN at the same time as those of us that are 'online addicts' do...

Thanks for the comments Rick. Sorry for taking so long to reply as well. So I do think there is a different with mailing options. If 95% of the club was online, we would be talking differently. But less than 10% of our members are online (or at least login) and we really don't want members moving to 2nd Class mail service. 2nd Class has a much worse deliver success record and every time the Post Office loses one, we send a replacement out 1st Class. If a 1st Class mailing gets lost, they cover the cost. So there are hidden costs to the Club if there is a shift in favor of 2nd Class. Members, in the majority of the cases, get 1st Class so they can get the Classifieds first. That is not a bad thing, but there is a balance that we have to maintain. I also have to say as a techie myself, that I do like having the glossy magazine to hand to someone or sit and look at in addition to pulling it up on my iPad, but right now we are in the extreme minority. So electronic delivery needs to conform to our current culture until we see a swing away from the printed version by the members of the club. Just my two cents worth.