Customer Story - SYP Historic Vehicle Club

Who Are The SYP Historic Vehicle Club?

The SYP Historic Vehicle Club, formerly the Southern Yorke Peninsula Veteran, Vintage and Classic Motorcycle Club, was founded in 1984. The club is dedicated to preserving, appreciating, and enjoying historic vehicles. While initially focused on classic motorcycles, the club has now expanded to include vintage cars. It aims to foster camaraderie among enthusiasts and promote the rich heritage of historic vehicles in the Southern Yorke Peninsula region and beyond.

In late 2023 the SYP Historic Vehicle Club signed up to use Member Jungle to help them in running their club. So, as we approach the midpoint of 2024, I caught up with Kali Germein, SYP's Secretary and Treasurer, to find out how they have been going. 

What Problems Were The SYP Historic Vehicle Club Trying To Solve?

Shortly after assuming the position of club secretary at SYP Historic Vehicle Club, Kali Germein also took on the role of club treasurer when the previous treasurer had to step down due to illness. With the additional responsibilities and workload, on top of her full-time job and other volunteer work, Kali realised they needed to find a way to streamline the club's operations if things were to continue to run smoothly. 

"I immediately went looking for a system that would help us because I was handed over all these books and things for the secretary and treasurer roles. I thought, 'I'd love to have this on a computer, so I can just search for whatever I need,' so that's why we went looking initially," Kali said. 

The club already had a lot to handle, as they were busy managing their vintage licence plate database and logbooks. This was a complex task, especially because it was done manually using spreadsheets and paper. Additionally, they needed to ensure clear communication with a membership spread across the Southern Yorke Peninsula, surrounding areas of South Australia, and even some members located across the border in Victoria.

So, Kali set out to find a system that could make life easier for her and the SYP Historic Vehicle Club. 

Why Did SYP Historic Vehicle Club Choose Member Jungle?

The SYP Historic Vehicle Club was initially attracted to Member Jungle because it is an Australian-owned and operated business with locally stored data and Australian-based support and sales teams. However, that might have attracted them in the first place, but it wasn't what made them decide to sign up. 

Here's what Kali had to say about what really stuck out to them about Member Jungle.  

"I have to give a massive shout-out to Sammy (Sales & Membership Manager), and I don't want to say it like she's sold it, but she just answered everything really genuinely, and she's great to talk to on the phone,"

"I had all the pros and cons; the transparency probably sold me a lot; you guys weren't hiding anything on the website and that really sold it for me being able to read so much on the Member Jungle website, there was no question not answered by Sammy or the website." Kali said. 

What Changed After SYP Historic Vehicle Club Implemented Member Jungle? 

One of the big positives that has happened since they implemented Member Jungle is how much easier it has become to communicate with their members, organise their events and help them stay across all of their vintage licensing requirements. 

"Our main source of getting information out there was emails, but you're not on there (your emails) 24/7 like you can be with a mobile phone. So if there were last-minute changes, some people would miss them,"

"Like I said, we're an elderly group, so not everyone has emails, so it's really only phones or even landlines. So, with Member Jungle, being able to use those push notifications and ping it straight to someone's phone like a message is just brilliant, without the charge of an SMS as well. I use it all the time," Kali said. 

While they didn't buy it when they first signed up with Member Jungle, SYP Historic Vehicle Club has recently purchased Custom Datasets to make keeping track of their vintage plates and logbooks even more convenient. 
 

How Has Member Jungle Been From A Treasurer's Perspective? 

As Kali is the Treasurer for the SYP Historic Vehicle Club, I asked her how it was using Member Jungle from that perspective. Unsurprisingly, she had a lot to say about the matter, especially when it comes to how it helped with their biggest annual event, the Bottom End Rally.  

So, instead of me rabbiting on, let's see what she had to say. 

"We held an annual rally earlier in the year, and running that event through Member Jungle was so so helpful to me because I had everything at my fingertips,"

"We put accommodation and food on, so we just set up the event with that. If someone wanted two nights of accommodation and all of the meals, Member Jungle just tallied it all up. People were able to pay via online, via bank deposit or bring the correct cash," 

"The other thing was issuing refunds. We had some people that had to pull out so you basically just pulled up their total and you just did a bank refund to them, it was just so simple."

Kali also had a lot of great insight on how it was using the Member Jungle system to examine how the rally had gone. 

"After the event, we were able to filter down the searches, and we could say Saturday night, "Was that successful for us?" We had X amount for dinner, and then I could go back to my other books and say, well, dinner cost us this much, but we made this much back. So let's keep Saturday night as it is obviously a good fundraiser for the club. And then there were other things like we might need to change accommodation costs because we're losing on it,"

"So I don't think that the rally for us as an event has been pulled apart and analysed like it was this year," 

"This year, we could identify if we needed more volunteers for one thing, or if we could do another thing ourselves, we would save money. It really was the whole shebang. If there were any questions from the committee, like "what did Tuesday night cost us?" I could just say here, this is what it cost. Straight away, I could just pull up whatever they wanted to know."

How Have The SYP Historic Vehicle Club's Members Taken To It?

The members of the SYP Historic Vehicle Club have also been really enjoying the experience. With more members coming to meetings and events, and the ability to send out notifications and maps of where events are being held proving particularly useful and popular. 

"Everyone's loving the app. There are people that I didn't expect to be on the app, and they are. We had these meetings and everyone rocked up to the meeting because they've got the notification and they know that it's on," Kali said. 

 

If you want to listen to the interview with Kali, please go to Video: The SYP Historic Vehicle Club’s Experiences With Using Member Jungle. 

Final Thoughts 

"With Member Jungle, I can put all our events on a calendar; everyone knows about them, and it's great. I just send out a push notification, and everyone knows. You don't always get that same feeling with emails because you don't know if they read them every day. Whereas with Member Jungle, just being able to send notifications straight to your phone is great; everyone's got their phone on them nowadays. " Kali Germein.