From: z-car@Dixie.COM
Message-Id:
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 19:08 EDT
Sender: postmaster@Dixie.COM
Reply-To: z-car@Dixie.COM
Subject: Internet Z-Car Club proposal
As some of you may know and something I learned at the Convention, there is no
National Z-car club in the US. The Z-car club of America was not
a whole lot more than a front for ZAP. Both are gone now. We worked hard
at the convention to set up an organization but I'm not sure how successful
we were.
Another thing came to light. There are not many regional clubs in existence.
The Texas club, probably one of the largest in the US, knows of about 24.
A couple of more representatives of clubs showed up at the convention.
None of the clubs has many members. The texas club has perhaps 300.
The Texas club puts out a monthly newsletter of about 20 pages.
Membership in a club offers a couple of very large benefits. Sharing
information and fellowship is one. Probably the largest is that many
Z speciality companies and Z dealerships offer significant discounts
to club members, sometimes as much as 30%. The ads I've seen usually
say that proof of membership is required.
"John", I sez to myself, "There is an opportunity staring you in the eyes."
Our list is floating along at about 200 members, down considerably because
of the summer break. That makes us one of the larger "clubs" in existance.
We're surely the largest geographically, considering we have members from
all continents except maybe China and South America. WE also move a lot
more information each month than any paper newsletter could.
I've decided to formalize things. By my command :-), the Internet
Z-car Club now exists. (Other name suggestions are welcome.) It even
has its own Internet address, z-club@dixie.com. The club is hosted by
my magazine _Performance Engineering Magazine (TM)_ which gives it
a fixed contact point and address. Membership is free. To join, simply
send mail to z-club@dixie.com. Include the following:
Name
Mailing address
City, State, Zip
phone
Email address (no I won't pull it from the headers. Bounce-city)
List of Z's owned
Whether you want your name and address on the public roster.
Whether you want your phone number on the public roster.
The public roster will be provided to any vendor or other entity who
asks for it and who signs my privacy contract. This contract says
that the list will be used ONLY for the purpose of soliciting business
for that company, that no one who has declined the priviledge
will be contacted by phone and no information from the list will be
disclosed to others. The list will most frequently be used to send
out free catalogs (big benefit.)
You will receive an acknowledgement and a membership number. You will
also receive a free sample of my magazine when they're ready (slick,
eh?) Please be sure to include your membership number correspondence
regarding the club, in any correspondence with vendors and in
your .sig line :-)
For $3 (my cost including postage), you may order a full color laminated
membership card. This card is good indefinitely and replacements can
be ordered at the same price. To order, send payment to the address
given below.
If you deal with a vendor who does not offer Z clubbers discounts,
you may send me the company name, a contact name, the address and phone number
and I'll contact them to attempt to negotiate discount terms. I will
periodically distribute a list of companies that give discounts. Or you
can have the vendor contact me directly.
Clubs not electronically connected may affiliate with the Internet
Z-Car Club by simply electronically sending the above listed
information on each member to me (email or disk-in-snail-mail, comma or
space delimited.) at the address below. A list containing each member
and his/her membership number will be returned via the same method as
received. The benefit to doing this is the larger we are, the better
the discounts and other goodies we'll get from vendors.
The contact info is:
The Internet Z-Car Club c/o
Performance Engineering Magazine (TM)
PO Box 669728
1631 Whitlock Road (no mail here, please)
Marietta, GA 30066
(404) 578 9547 (noon til 9:00pm EST)
(404) 578 9725 (FAX)
jgd@dixie.com
Note that nothing regarding this list has changed. There will be no
traffic on the z-club@dixie.com list other than acknowledgements and
the periodic posting of companies offering discounts. All Z-car discussion
should continue to be sent to this list. Comments regarding the club
CAN be sent to z-club@dixie.com.
My angle on this is, of course, that I get added publicity and names to
send sample issues to. Your angle is you get something for practically
nothing. What could be better?
PS: Any graphic artists out there? I'm working on logo for the club
but since I'm certainly not an artist, I could use some help.
Mail to jgd@dixie.com
PPS: The membership cards will not be printed until I get a significant
number of members. Full color printing is expensive so I want to make
sure of the interest.
John
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
John De Armond, WD4OQC |Interested in high performance mobility?
Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) |
Marietta, Ga |Interested in high tech and computers?
jgd@dixie.com |Write me about PE Magazine
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta? Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
From: z-car@Dixie.COM
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 03:05 EDT
Sender: postmaster@Dixie.COM
Reply-To: z-car@Dixie.COM
Subject: Z-car club
I've not had time to process the responses I've received to my proposal
last week to set up an Internet Z-car club. So far I've received about
25 applications which is very much less than I expected. Probably
not worth the effort to do much with it at this point. I was going
to write a script to automatically assign numbers but I'll just do it
by hand as time permits. Certainly not worth the effort to have membership
cards printed.
So why is no one interested in something for free? I thought a discount
on Z parts would be something everyone would be interested in.
John
Z Car List Instructions