To all members of 1/87 Vehicle Club:

Effective 5/10/2005, the club will no longer accept membership dues.

The 1/87 Vehicle Club has always been a 100% volunteer organization. Because of real-world work and family commitments, some of our staff will not be able to continue to produce the club newsletter at this time.

The website will stay active to communicate with the members and non-members and to inform all of the club's progress and activities.

To all Club members and website visitors:

We are making some big changes in leadership and focus for the 1/87 Vehicle Club while we go to a different membership program.

What will be different about membership? Well, first and foremost, it will be free. We'll simply ask you to complete an easy, no-obligation sign-up process. Under development are certain "members only" sections of the website, but all that will be required to access these areas will be signing up to join.

What will be different about the website? A couple of things. First, the newsletter and other features will be found in the "members-only" area. This will allow us to be free of financial constraints and get the news out in a more timely manner than our previous printed version. We have developed an unmatched team of contributors and we intend to keep them busy. It will also allow us to go to color, something we have wanted to do for a long time.

Second, for the first time, we are going to solicit advertising. Our website receives over 50,000 hits per month, which is quite a volume and something we have never put to work for the Club and its members.

So, if all this is going to be free, why are we going to ask you to sign up? The main reason is statistics. It has always been one of the Club's primary purposes to promote the hobby, not only to participants, but to manufacturers, distributors and retailers. In the registration, we will ask questions about your interests and collect just enough personal information to be able to communicate with you. The information we obtain about your interests, but not about you, will be used to make recommendations and to solicit advertising. From time to time, we may conduct a survey and ask members to participate.

Finally, there has been a change in leadership. Bob Johnson and I will be taking over the reins for a while to deliver content. We want to thank Dan Goins for his years of leadership and commitment to the Club and Joe D'Elia, Keith Raikes, all the officers and contributors who have been instrumental in maintaining the club.

We think this is the best method to keep the 1/87 Vehicle Club viable and make the web site even better than ever. Stay tuned, folks! [posted 05/10/2005]

Bill Cawthon & Bob Johnson