Club Membership Details - Including Trader & Hobbyist Membership Rules

Club Membership

There is a yearly club membership fee of £10 for all members. This will entitle you to post in all public forums of the club, including the For Sale & Wanted forums and the Members Only forums, and will also make you eligible for any current club discounts and promotions. Members are also entitled to a free membership pack and are allowed to attend club events. Please note membership packs are not currently available but will be re-introduced as part of the club membership entitlement in the future

New members will have up to twenty-five initial posts before they will have to pay the membership fee. Once they reach the initial post limit their account will be disabled until payment is received. This gives new members sufficient time to find the community useful and to realise its value. If a non-member keeps re-registering to avoid the membership fee then they will be barred completely.

New members are NOT allowed to post in the For Sale & Wanted forums until they have paid for their membership. This is to stop people appearing on the forum just to sell things. The club also has strict rules on trade selling. Please see the section of traders below for more details.

Club Payments

It is currently only possible to pay any membership fee using PayPal.

If you have any problems with your membership then please contact SPG for assistance.

Group Buys

Group buys are the process by which a member will purchase items in bulk on the behalf of many members in order to secure a cheaper price for everyone. The club both supports and encourages group buys, but because of previous issues all group buys have to be authorised by a moderators first, and there are certain conditions that have to be met before authorisation will be given.

Anyone wanting to organise a group buy must have been a paid up club member for at least 6 months. They will be required to disclose full details of the group buy to a moderator prior to authorisation being given, including details of the supplying company, delivery times and the number of orders required to get the parts at the discounted prices. Limited details of the group buy will then be presented to the current traders who will have the opportunity to honour the group buy prices themselves if they wish. If one of the traders decides to honour the lower prices then the original group buy organiser will be asked to continue organising the group buy but to use the club recognised trader to source the stock instead. If they refuse then the trader will be asked to take over organising the group buy. If they are unable to do so due to time restraints on their part then they will be required to honour the lower prices for club members regardless of the numbers involved and for a minimum duration of 1 month. This should prevent any traders trying to block a group buy just for the sake of it, and although the club has no actual way of forcing a trader to honour the lower prices failure to do so may result in their trader membership being revoke or their next trader membership renewal being refused.

If you are interested in organising a group buy then please contact a moderator for more details.

Traders

Traders are companies or individuals who wish to sell or advertise non-private items or services through the forum - this includes people acting as third party agents even if they are not making any profit. Traders have to pay for a traders membership to become recognised as an official trader within the club, although it should be noted that traders are effectively only buying advertising space on the forum and are in no way linked or sponsors of it.

Before anyone can become a trader a vote is put before the club members and it is up to them whether or not the trader application is accepted. This process is also repeated every year when the trader membership comes up for renewal.

We only accept requests for trader membership applications from people who have been a paid up club member for at least 3 months. During this time the trader is not be allowed to advertise on the forum. This time is used to give the members a chance to get to know the trader before considering their membership application, and will allow both the members and the moderators to determine if the traders presence on the forum is acceptable. We also consider 3 months to be a small duration for the trader to wait if they are serious about trading here, so if any are put off by this delay then they will be no real loss to the club anyway.

Trader applications are discussion by the club members for 1 week to give the members a chance to discuss the application and share their experiences of the trader before deciding whether to allow them to join or not. The trader applying will be able to respond to the discussion thread if they wish, and anonymous comments can still be left by PM'ing a moderator. At the end of the discussions a vote is cast by the members as to whether the application should be accepted or not.

New traders will join on a 3 month trial basis, at the end of which a survey will be conducted to see if they are performing as required. Their trader membership will be revoked if they are not keeping the club members happy, or if their presence on the forum is considered to be having a negative affect on the club or its members.

If a traders application is accepted then they will be given a sticky thread in the Traders Section forum in which they can specify contact information and advertise their day to day products and services. Each trader can also post a couple of specials every month in the Traders Section forum, with special exceptions being made if required.

If a trader wants more selling power than that offered by a sticky thread then they have the option of upgrading their trader membership to include having a section of their own on the forum. Traders are given limited moderating power over their sections and they are effectively an on-line version on their shops. For this reason you should not be surprised if a trader removes any unfavourable threads from their sections. Although this is seen as unfair given that only good comment are left, this is much the same situation you get with any other form of business whether on-line or in the real world. A good analogy would be sticking a poster on a shop window expressing your dissatisfaction of their goods or services - you wouldn't expect the shop owner to just leave it there for all the other customers to see! If you have a complaint about a trader then please contact them directly.

If you are interested in applying for a traders membership then please contact Josh42, but first please read the full Trader Terms and Conditions as you will have to agree to these before your application or renewal will be accepted.

Hobbyists

A hobbyist membership gives the member a limited right to trade on the forum for free. The hobbyist membership is only available to people who have been paid up club members for at least 6 months. A hobbyist membership has the same application process as used for the normal trader memberships, whereby a discussion thread is created followed by a vote 1 week later. A hobbyist membership will only last 6 months, at the end of which a survey will be conducted to determine if the member is still entitled to the free hobbyist membership or whether their level of trading on the forum has gone beyond that considered acceptable as a hobbyist. We do not have any fixed limits on what is acceptable for the hobbyist membership - we leave that decision to the members so that each individual circumstance can be taken into consideration at the time. However, as a guideline we cite the Wikipedia definition of a hobby; Hobbies are practised for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward.

If you are interested in applying for a hobbyists membership then please contact Josh42.

Banner Adverts

The only type of advertisements supported by the club are the banner adds at the top of the forum. These adverts will appear on all normal forum pages (which excludes temporary templates like Festive and Halloween) and will be seen by everyone visiting the site.

If you are interested in applying for a banner then please contact Josh42, but first please read the full Trader Terms and Conditions as you will have to agree to these before your application or renewal will be accepted.

Please be advised that we are in the process of changing addresses for the club due to post going missing to our current PO Box. Please do not send anything to our PO Box above. I will post up details of our new address once it has been set-up.