There are more and more MINIs in my area (Northwest Arkansas), at least 15-20, I think. We don't have a dealership here (closest is Baron MINI in Kansas City, which is where I bought mine), so I'm having trouble figuring out how to go about starting a MINI club here. I only know a couple of other owners personally (and they're acquaintances at best).

Anybody have any ideas for going about this? I've got a domain name registered and am working on the basics of a site (I'm a web developer), so that should help some to get the ball rolling. I'm just interested in how to get the word out in the first place without having a dealer in the area.

Thanks!

Steven

 

This looks like the way to get the word out. It takes time for some people to get back to NAM so you may want to give this a bump each day or so.

Good luck

Earl

 

I am trying to start a club in Korea...I will keep ya posted on the progress

 

A few ideas for ya:

1. Start a regular monthly social meeting, like a dinner. Pick an easy to remember occurence (e.g., "1st Monday of every month") and get the known people to join you. List it on your site and NAM.
2. Make up (& laminate) some flyers you can drop under windshields when you spot one.
3. See if Baron MINI will let you leave some flyers when Ark people come in for service or to purchase.

 

Regularly and irregularly scheduled events gives more pp the chance to join in. As compared to flyers, we do business cards, easier to carry, easy to drop on a windshield, cheap to reproduce.

Your regular e-communications are critical - - - outbound based on info you collect, inbound such as your NEW "Ozark Chapter" Forum right here in NAM will help too.

Good luck. Collect dues, use them to give stuff back that pp otherwise woul d not get.

Thanks,

JPS
President@MINI5280.org

 

Ah yes, business cards -- great idea. We only recently started doing that. We continue to tag with flyers, but add the cards too (like a signature of who tagged them). We decided to keep the flyers since it would allow us to broadcast the upcoming events and the regular meet.

 

Rick Gonzales, Membership@MINI5280.org ( Pauhana here in NAM ) who does both our e-communications and our cards. He can tell you what we do, and why. He can also explain our dues structure, use of PayPal, etc.

JPS

 

We started PSMINI just over a year ago and have over 75 paid members and over 220 forum users on our website. www.psmini.org

1. You want to create a catch line to get people excited. We use 'Come Join Us For Driving Adventures'.
2. You want hold monthly events. We just did our own Pulley Party / Tech Session yesterday.
3. Let people know about the group. We have 'You were spotted cards' each member get a supply from the group and when they see a parked MINI the place a card on it. We have gotten more members this way.
4. Let you dealer know, even though they are abit away have them have flyers on the parts counter and have the MA give them to people that pick up cars that live in your area.
5. Call vendors and try to get a club discount, this means you need to provide them with a membership list but that is part of the deal.

There is alot more so if you have questions just drop me an email @ psmini.org@comcast.net

BTW - we just created an association with the local classic rock station in Seattle as they purchased a MINI and are now members of our group. They are going to advertise for us and help us on events. Our group is having it 1st Annual All MINI Car Show in August.

 

i would try to get the dealership involved - is it legal for them to give out at least email addresses of people in your area? i'm not sure how our club president got it all started but the club i'm in just got up and running in december 2004 so we're still learning.

 

they should do everything they can to protect their customer list, as should you. That being said, there is no reason they cannot email club activities, etc. to their list for you. There is a commonality here.

Try running events at, thru and from the dealership to give them additional exposure. That way, the small amt of work they do sending an email every month has potential for some return. You may also wish to name one of their MA's as ' club rep ' and let that person assist in communications. Our dealer, Ralph Schomp MINI in Denver (see, shameless but appropriate plug) allows us to use their meeting / conference room and or MINI store for meetings, no questions asked. It works for us.

Good Luck.

JPS

 

I agree that you need to try and get the dealership involved... However while it may be legal for them to give out those e-mail addresses, it would probably annoy the heck out of lots of people if they did...

Think about it, if your dealer sold (or gave away) your e-mail address to anybody who asked for it, would you appreciate it, even if it was to help start a club? Honestly, I'd be pretty irritated if either of the two dealers I deal with on a regular basis gave out my information without my permission for any reason.

The best way for you to attract members... Post in the regional forums here on NAM, over on MINI2, on Roadfly, on the Owner's Lounge, and check gomotoring.com for any other forums that I missed. Announce your club there and see what kind of response you get.

The dealership support is a big help, but getting it when they're not local will be a big challenge...

 

Thanks for all the great advice! Using a dealer is probably not going to help significantly, since our closest dealer is about 4 hours away (and 4 more are 5-6 hours away), but I'm going to contact all the ones in range (and who I've seen on local MINIs).

I'm going to try a few homegrown organizing ideas, too.

A list of suggestions that have been posted here AND that have been PMed to me and that I've come up with on my own:

1. put flyers/cards on MINIs I see
2. put a sign on MY MINI, for other MINI owners to see
3. post here and on other MINI-related forums
4. Get listed in local newspapers' clubs/organizations list
5. advertise (I have an "in" with one of our daily newspapers)

Keep the suggestions coming!

Thanks!

Steven