Club-306 Membership Fees
Membership to Club-306 costs just £6 a year. Thats less than 3 pints, one bottle of wine or a small pizza for a whole year of Club-306 membership benefits. As a paid member you will have full access to the forum area , including the extensive help and information boards as well as the ever popular Club-306 life boards. You will also benefit from the offers made available to full members in the discount directory .
All forum members are required to have a Club-306 membership subscription in place before you can use the forum boards. Existing members can check their subscription status and upgrade by going to the forum and visiting the "My Controls" section and then selecting "Purchase Paid Subscriptions" from the menu on the left hand side.
Why Are You Charging, it Used to be Free?
When Club-306 launched in 2006 it was free to join and free to use. Over the last two years the number of users has increased so much that it was costing us a lot of money out of our own pockets just to keep the site hosted. By April 2007 it was a case of charging membership fees or plastering the forum with banner ads and popups. I think we made the right decision.
Membership fees have been in place since 1st May 2007 and the forum board was completely locked down to non-paid members on 1st January 2008. Without membership fees Club-306 would have closed in mid 2007 and we would not be able to offer all of what we do today.
Where Does The Money Go?
All Club-306 membership fees go in to club funds. For every £6 membership PayPal or NoChex take around 40 pence, and the remaining money is directly re-invested in to the club. Club funds pay for among other things domain registration costs, software licenses, hosting, advertising and club assets (banners/flags etc).
What Did You Spend Club Funds On In 2007?
In 2007 we used club funds to:
- Renew existing domain names (club-306.co.uk and club-306.com) and buy some new domain names .
- We bought new forum software Invision Power Board to improve the forum area of the site.
- We moved from shared hosting to a virtual private server based in the UK . This has made huge improvements in reliability and loading times.
- We bought two 200cm by 50cm vinyl banners for use at shows, events and meets.
- We purchased a 3m by 3m gazeebo for use at shows and events.
- We ordered 5000 colour flyers to promote Club-306. These are available free to members on request.
