[ozpacman]

Hi Silver XR. Being a member of a good vehicle club can be a very worthwhile experience. As a past President of both an American Car Club and a Motorcycle Restorers Club however, may I just offer these thoughts to you.

The enjoyment and benefit you can gain from being a club member is directly proportionate to the efforts you put in as a member. Being active and supporting club events has the advantage of becoming known a lot of good people, and getting to enjoy your vehicle in the company of like-minded enthusiasts. This in turn will invariably give you access to a considerable amount of knowledge and expertise that lots of unassuming club members are generally more than happy to share and assist you with.

Make this your primary motivation to join a car club, and consider the club permit scheme as an added bonus!

What you need to remember is that the club committee perform all their duties in a voluntary role and seek no reward, other than to see the club prosper and for the members to enjoy club activities and so on. As a committee member, there is nothing more frustrating than the feeling of being 'used' by a person who is only seeking membership of a club in order to get the benefit of reduced registration costs and then contribute nothing once they're membership is approved.

In my time as Club President we had a rule that new members held membership for one year and attended a minimum three events, either monthly meetings of runs etc, in order to qualify for concessional rego approval. I used to field quite a few phone calls from people looking to join, as you would expect. The one's that really annoyed me were those that began their conversation with something like, "Yeah mate have you's got that cheap rego?" No greeting or identifying who they were - just straight to it! When I mentioned that we did, and then outlined the above qualifying criteria, I could almost guarantee that would be the end of the call. Some of these would also tell me where I could stick my f*#%in' car club and abruptly hang up. I guess they were the prospective members we didn't want so there was an upside!

Sorry for the longish waffle! In summary though, join for the right reasons and you'll have a ball and make great friendships. Enjoy!