Our club

[Triumph948]

As you are all aware the Tssc made a big loss in 2015 and the Council of management have been working very hard to try and turn this around .

Last year 2016 we managed to bring the figures in at a five thousand pound profit , after speaking to the Accountants we reduced our stock figure by seven thousand pounds to a realistic level,

This took the years figures into a two thousand pound loss a huge turn around from the previous year.

The Com are voted in by the membership to run the club in a correct fashion and to make the right decisions to make sure the Tssc is in a good a financial place as it can be.

In February 2017 the Com felt that we needed to put the club into a consultation period to look at in detail all the outgoings and incomings of the Tssc.

The staff where told of this in the correct manner to adhere to these delicate processes.

In the 1990s the club had 15,000 members now twenty years later the club has a steady 5,500 members but with the same overheads of the halcyon days .

This cannot continue if we all want the club to survive into the future.

Com have made the decisions and enforced the actions that we have cut the hours of one sub contractor and lost the other one entirely ,the club shop is no longer viable to have a full time shop manager this position has now been made redundant , our shop manager has been offered a part time hours position which has been declined.

The club shop will be run by the rest of the team for a six month period whilst we look at ways of improving our on line capabilities as well as what is sold in the shop.

All of these decisions have taken many hours of consultation with no knee jerk reactions.

Should any one want to discuss this with me please in the first instance email at chairman@tssc.org.uk ,

 

The timing of the release of this news was first spoken about at the Agm last Sunday , we are now putting it up on the Forum as the official point of contact with the membership as well as it being in a future Courier.

As you will all be aware this is a very sensitive issue to all the people that it affects and has only been done to protect the future of our great club .

 

Yours sincerely on behalf of the council of management

 

Chris Gunby

[Colin Lindsay]

Chris - thanks for the heads up. I'm sure it wasn't easy.

[dave.vitesse]

Chris, I second Colin's comments and thanks for a well constructed response.   

[Sue Franklin]

Appreciate the changes being made are not easy for anyone, but members can be assured that the management team on COM are working hard to ensure that the Club remains viable and relevant in the coming years. We are members of a great club and community and owe a big debt of thanks to HQ staff.

[Pete Lewis]

Thanks Chris , thats good to read ,

 

upward and onwards

 

Pete

[DerekS]

Thankyou Chris and Sue for the clarification; Colin hit the nail right on the head with his comment: "I'm sure it wasn't easy".

Again, thankyou.

[JohnD]

Thank you Chris, for all your hard work and that of the CoM members, and also for using this message board for what it is best at - communicating with members, rapidly.

 

JOhn

[Adrian]

I realise that tough decisions have to be made to ensure the longevity of the club and as a new member it has been a great source of information and advice. I understand that changes are a common factor in ensuring that businesses / clubs are efficient and at least break even, so well done in making such decisions, lets hope you achieve your targets.

 

Nevertheless, I for one am saddened that the shop manager will no longer be present, as with the rest of the forum Garth has been a great source of information and helped me a great deal in my on-going restoration and heading off errors in parts buying.

 

Regards

 

Adrian

[Pete Lewis]

if you increase subs to keep a resource you  can loose members 

if you loose a resource thats  useful to members you  can loose members 

 

 

there's no easy way of balancing the books and meeting expectation its the same with all public services etc  ..till things get cut so severely nothing works anymore..now  there's a general election looming  

[brian GT6.]

Would an option be for the Triumph clubs to look at merging??

[AidanT]

I can see a hornets nest brewing!

 

(Is that a mixed metaphor?)

 

Aidan

[JohnD]

Ha! Ha-ha!!  Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I've been advocating this, at least at the level of joint Annual Shows, sharing a show ground, for years!

Because the old Show, on a County showground, was 'interesting' at best, and boring at worst, and some driving action was required.

TSSC has gone the other way, and Triumfest is a great improvement.   Well done.

 

But unlike, say, MG, that is so united they can afford SILVERSTONE for their Annual shindig, there are so many (as many as MG, I'm sure) Triumph clubs that are just disunited.

Pity.

 

John

[brian GT6.]

Market forces will drive this one way or another over time as the number of potential members and cars reduce. Why not embrace it?

[Jezza]

As you are all aware the Tssc made a big loss in 2015 and the Council of management have been working very hard to try and turn this around .

Last year 2016 we managed to bring the figures in at a five thousand pound profit , after speaking to the Accountants we reduced our stock figure by seven thousand pounds to a realistic level,

This took the years figures into a two thousand pound loss a huge turn around from the previous year.

The Com are voted in by the membership to run the club in a correct fashion and to make the right decisions to make sure the Tssc is in a good a financial place as it can be.

In February 2017 the Com felt that we needed to put the club into a consultation period to look at in detail all the outgoings and incomings of the Tssc.

The staff where told of this in the correct manner to adhere to these delicate processes.

In the 1990s the club had 15,000 members now twenty years later the club has a steady 5,500 members but with the same overheads of the halcyon days .

This cannot continue if we all want the club to survive into the future.

Com have made the decisions and enforced the actions that we have cut the hours of one sub contractor and lost the other one entirely ,the club shop is no longer viable to have a full time shop manager this position has now been made redundant , our shop manager has been offered a part time hours position which has been declined.

The club shop will be run by the rest of the team for a six month period whilst we look at ways of improving our on line capabilities as well as what is sold in the shop.

All of these decisions have taken many hours of consultation with no knee jerk reactions.

Should any one want to discuss this with me please in the first instance email at chairman@tssc.org.uk ,

 

The timing of the release of this news was first spoken about at the Agm last Sunday , we are now putting it up on the Forum as the official point of contact with the membership as well as it being in a future Courier.

As you will all be aware this is a very sensitive issue to all the people that it affects and has only been done to protect the future of our great club .

 

Yours sincerely on behalf of the council of management

 

Chris Gunby

 

My understanding is that (i) the club shop is one of the larger sources of revenue for the club, and (ii) the performance of the club shop was one of the main factors leading to the club almost breaking even from a sizable loss the previous year.

 

If these are true, can I ask two questions:

 

* why it was the shop manager position that needed to be made redundant? and

* if undertaking a review of what the club shop sells and how it markets its products wouldn't it be useful, possibly fundamental, to the success of that review to have the person who understands the club shop back-to-front to be part of that review?

[Pete Lewis]

 good to see thoughts on this ,  but i think you would be best to  ask that directly of the COM rather than on forum  

[Jezza]

 good to see thoughts on this ,  but i think you would be best to  ask that directly of the COM rather than on forum  

 

Possibly. I'm not trying to make this personal - far from it. But it would be good to hear the thought process behind the decision. Chris has been good enough to explain the decision above, which I respect. My question goes to how we move forward - if, as Chris suggests, there will need to be a review of the club shop activities it would be good to know how that will work.

 

Also, I would expect these questions would be ones that would be permissible at the AGM or other club meeting. I wasn't able to attend and I'm sure there are others too who weren't.

[Pete Lewis]

maybe a decent editorial in the courier with the  shop  pro's and con's, plans    and where/how  from here 

 

if members write to the gen sec then they are obliged to reply ,, no such luck over the years with a forum response 

 

Ive worked for hours with Garth  when on and off Com to get the shop  operations  out of the doldrums and into its current state 

it certainly need a shake up back in 2012   and seemed to have turned the corner  

hey ho! 

 

 

Pete

[Adrian]

I'd just like to add as a newish member. This forum for knowledge exchange and the club shop are the most significant aspect of my joining in the first place. My only exposure to the club to date has been via these conduits, please don't erode these benefits.

[Adrian]

Sorry, just to follow on from Peter comment. Surely the com should be monitoring the forum to assess the membership and their opinions. If I recall correctly the forum was one of the biggest areas that members used!

[Pete Lewis]

And when the website crashed due to lack of understanding by the then com and a new site was purchased the then com did not want a forum, it was in the proposed costing but never appeared until Members made a serious agm concern to develope one

 

In the past com stuck to announcements in courier as the only way, there were a couple of old forum events desperate for a com response which was pulling teeth, the forum was branded as a load of moaners and windgers, how wrong that was

 

Thankfully things have changed and Chris posts when needed on here , not everyone is facebook crazy

[Clive]

I get the feeling the TSSC is not alone with the hierarchy not paying much attention to forums etc.  I have seen it many other places, not just cars either.

Also worth noting that the CoM have at least listened, and the forum has survived and has been opened to non-members, This causes some confusion, as people assume that being a forum member is the same as a club member, it really is not! But it can be a way to bring new club members in, once they get a view on what goes on.

 

Long term I can see forums disappearing and being replaced by facebook. It is just the nature of our world. So the same questions will come up time after time, only to be buried after a short time. Not what I want, but the next generation are used to that form of communication.

 

It is a shame about the club shop, Garth was a real asset and I don't see people being able to fill the void left with the same level of experience, but there we go.

[AndyTV8]

interesting point about forum/Facebook..... at the moment i think the they will coexist (along with twitter/pinterest etc.) for car-club related stuff, but the footprints will undoubtedly change.

decent semantic data search engines will eventually make relevant info available to discover without needing to be aware of where it actually resides.

...... Andy

[dougbgt6]

Pardon? I am a retired computer network engineer, I have no idea what you have just said.   But I do know that Facebook is not to be trusted  

[Clive]

Doug, like me you are too old. Or grumpy. Or something.

But as we fade away, the fb generation will take over. They have started, and I have got drawn in a bit (I do post occasionally on my fb page, but mainly to do with my running group, where everything is out on fb. It works brilliantly for that, but hopeless if you want to see what happened 2 weeks ago)

 

I think my kids (crikey one is 22 now ) do trust fb. In much the same way we all (mostly) trust that credit cards are secure. It is just a natural progression. 

[dougbgt6]

Clive, my eldest is 33 and has just had her 4th child!  My brother took a photo of the new sprog and was asked not post publicly on facebook. which he went ahead and did.   When asked why, he said he didn't now how to make it private and what was the difference anyway? With that low level of understanding it's certain to end badly. In the words of Uncle Pete, "We're all doomed!!"

 

And as for credit cards, read my thread a couple of days ago, "Scammed"