[JONAT] Payment System NOT Ready

Tue Feb 17 04:50:02 2004

Mark,

Unless you are the Earl of Goodwood and you have your own circuit, every run
that every club does in most countries are on public roads. If a club levies
a fee to participate in a run, it is for a sound reason and usually to
defray costs associated with that run. If any club member of ours is
insensitive enough to try and join the run and participate in the planned
fellowship without paying, there's nothing to stop him/her doing that, he
just doesn't get access to any of the organised activities and if his/her
faux pas is repeated, that person will be quietly asked not to renew his/her
membership. I must say it has never, ever happened in our club and everyone
is excruciatingly careful to 'do the right thing'. Must be an Aussie thing,
I guess.

I doubt if anyone and least of all JONAT considers charging participants
just for the hell of it! In our case, our biggest expense so far (apart from
man-hours) has been the web site and we consider it fair that all
participants contribute towards the cost. Badges, caps, whatever are
incidental expenses but considered usual in any sort of organised event such
as JONAT. Of course we can dispense with them, and maybe we will, but that
will be our decision and it will be advised to everyone very shortly.

Lastly, I regret if the additional expenses that your members are projected
to incur makes them unable to pay the JONAT fee, whatever it finally is. (by
the way, you have asked them?) So, by all means let them drive on the public
roads and accompany those that did pay. They will just not be official JONAT
participants.

Fazal Cader
Executive Committee, ISC - Australia
Jaguar Owner's North American Tour - www.jonat.org
April 15, 2004 - July 4, 2004

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Stephenson" <marks@jaguarot.com>
To: <jonat@autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 3:44 PM
Subject: RE: [JONAT] Payment System NOT Ready

Fazal,

You aren't a member of JCNA where it's the rare concours that nearly
everyone doesn't go home with a trophy. :-) These things multiply and take
over every square inch of spare shelf space until you finally decide to
start boxing them and putting them in storage. I currently have on display
twenty car trophies, fifteen dash plaques, five license plates, five bonnet
badges, and three buttons from various British Car events. And my cars are
not by any means pristine.

I think we should order some nice memorabilia and make it available for
sale, but not include it in the registration fee. The only thing I can think
of that has a proper place in the tour is a special binder that folds back
on itself for the route maps. That's the one practical thing that people
aren't going to have. It would be a somewhat unusual design to work properly
and I don't know if such a thing even exists.

Speaking of the registration fee, right before the time the web site went
down, I proposed a donation rather than a fee. I was considering four check
boxes -- $10, $25, $50, and Other. Did that make it to the list? Either it
did and everyone voted nay by their silence or it didn't  make it. We could
make some of the goodies a premium for larger donations. For example, if
they donate $10, they get nothing; if they donate $25, they get a handsome
binder for the route maps and directions; if they donate $50, they get the
binder and a beautifully crafted cloisonné bonnet badge. That way, those of
us who are already too kludged up with trinkets won't be paying for
something we're just going to put into a box.

As I mentioned in an earlier e-mail, I'm doing this as much for my local
club as I am JONAT, so I'm going to give AZ sector participants from the
Phoenix and Tucson JCNA clubs the option of being part of JONAT or doing it
as a club activity. As it stands right now, it's $44 for the Rt. 66 Fun Run
and $20/car ($10/person) to get into the Grand Canyon. There's a charge a
Mesa Verde if people start from the beginning. Along Rt. 66 there are lots
of other places to stop and many of them have entry fees, too. They are more
optional, but my point is that there's no shortage of places to spend money
on the route and I'm not going to have the $45 JONAT fee to be a deterrent
to my local club members who are participating in the sector I've mapped
out.

As someone said earlier, I can't see people getting excited about paying to
drive across their own roads in their own state. I mentioned our local
British Euro Auto Tour (BEAT) as an example a while back. Their first year
(five or six years ago) it cost $35 which included a license plate, a dash
plaque, a continental breakfast, lunch, an afternoon ice cream social, and a
trailing pickup truck with trailer and tools to help the broken. Dinner,
lodging, and breakfast the next morning came out of our pockets. The BEAT
offered logo golf shirts, magnetic door signs and some other goodies for an
additional charge. The BEAT is now $60, but still includes all the
amenities. The reason I join 175 other cars making the BEAT every year is
not because of the license plate or the dash plaque -- they're collecting
dust in my closet. It's not because of the route, which doesn't change much,
year to year. It's because  of the camaraderie and the value.

If JONAT people are like the ones from the BEAT, memorabilia will mean
nothing if we don't put together a good tour. OTOH, if we put together a
good tour, people will be eagerly anticipating the next JONAT whether they
have memorabilia or not.

My 2˘.

Mark - AZ

________________________________

From: jonat-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:jonat-admin@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Fazal Cader
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 5:51 PM
To: jonat@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [JONAT] Payment System NOT Ready

Greg, with all due respect, not everyone wins or gets as many plaques or
prizes/mementos that relate to their Jaguar ownership. I am sure that many
of those for whom JONAT may be the only organised Jaguar activity that they
participate in, a memento would be appreciated.
Further, we are endeavouring to make JONAT more than just a flash-in-the-pan
adventure and we need constant reminders of it out in the 23 months or so
before the next one. From a marketing point of view, we need the
paraphernalia of an organised event. Otherwise, we might as well just put
the whole thing on the web, email everybody once and wash our hands of it.

Fazal Cader
Executive Committee, ISC - Australia
Jaguar Owner's North American Tour - www.jonat.org
April 15, 2004 - July 4, 2004

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