How To Run Your Classic Car Club Better

You love your classic cars, and you love running your classic car club. The only thing you love more is bagging out those who love the wrong classic cars. 

Yes, we know that you probably don't call them classic cars, maybe you call them vintage cars, historic cars or permit cars. No matter what you call your cars, if you run a club featuring pre-Y2K cars then this article is for you. 

You should be spending your time enjoying your cars. Going on track days, admiring the amazing cars around you, going on long coastal cruises and long coastal breakdowns. You shouldn’t be spending your time organising spreadsheets and keeping track of a mindbogglingly complicated number plate database. 

So why are you? 

We have already helped over 50 car clubs just like yours organise better and get back doing what they love most. In fact, our CEO and founder and a few other members of the team here at Member Jungle are in car clubs, so we have first hand experience when it comes to this. 

So let us help you organise your car club better. In the following article we will discuss:

• Managing Vintage Plates
• What Is A Classic Car Registration Database?
• How Does A Car Database work?
• How Do Renewals Work With A Car Database?
• What Else Can A Membership Management System Do?
• Where To From Here?

Managing Vintage Plates 

As you know, anyone in Australia who wants to get historical plates on their car needs to be a member of an official historic vehicle club. 

You can see your state's historical plate requirements here: 

• NSW 
• VIC
• QLD
• ACT
• SA
• WA 
• NT 
• TAS 

 

Meaning your car club is always going to have new people signing up, and that’s great. 

More members mean, more of the cars you love and a better turnout for your club events. It also means you have an ever-increasing number of vehicle plates to keep track of. 

This is a very important part of your club’s functions, your members are relying on you to keep track of all their cars’ information. Now, an excel spreadsheet is a way to keep track of all of this information, but is it the best way? Well, no, it’s not. It can be all too easy to lose a member's details in an ever-finicky spreadsheet, or simply enter them wrong in the first place. 

So what is the best way? 

Well, like seemingly everything nowadays, it’s digital.  

I’m talking about a digital car database. This is a simple online place where you can record and store all of your members’ car information. So it is secure and easily accessible when you need it.

What Is A Classic Car Registration Database?

A car registration database is where you can collect and store all information you need about your members’ cars. New members can do this at sign-up, and you and all existing members can update it when you allow them to. So you won’t be surprised by a member suddenly changing all their car details out of the blue.

This allows you to collect and store important information on your members and their cars in one place. No more jumping between different lists and spreadsheets trying to work out whose Alfa needs another inspection. 

The best feature of a car database like this is that all the information is entered by your members. You no longer need to spend forever manually entering all that information into your spreadsheet. 

At Member Jungle we offer our car database as an extension of our membership management system. Which comes with a custom website and app as part of our all-in-one system. Though, we can talk about all that later. 

How Does A Car Database work?

The car database we offer at Member Jungle is simple and easy to use. 

Below are some of the features our database offers:

• Collect and store all information on your members and their cars in one place
• Customise what information you need to collect including images and files
• Set car limits based on what level a particular member is
• View car data quickly and easily
• Sort cars by particular information, like inspection and registration expiry date
• Check which cars are up for renewal this month
• Export all car data to CSV
• Data reporting to gain a better understanding of which subgroups of cars are in your club
• Choose what information members can see and what information is only for admins
• Can choose if and when your members can update their car details, so you will never be surprised with new car details mid-year

Below you can see a blank car registration form where you as an admin can customise what car information you need from your members. 

 

Once you’ve customised this, you can set it and forget it. Your members enter their details themselves. You will no longer have to manually enter all that information yourself. 

Below you can see what this would look like to a member who is registering a car with your club. 

Just substitute the new BT50 for something more appropriate. Maybe an MG Midget?  

Your members will always have access to their registered cars if they need to alter any details. You can decide when and if your members will be able to change their details. They can quickly and easily access this through the My Garage section of the website or app, as seen below. You can also customise the name of the My Garage tab, and make it whatever works best for you; My Classic Cars, My MG’s etc.

For more about how Member Jungles car database works, check out Using Custom Datasets for Your Car Club. 

How You Can Help Members Manage Their Car Registrations

 

Easier and quicker.  

Okay, so you want more information than that, I can’t really blame you.

You can filter the cars in your club by how soon they are up for renewal and send out a quick email to the appropriate member. Alerting them of their upcoming renewal. Member information is always stored with their car information so you always know exactly whose car it is that is up for renewal. All car and member data is exportable and will be ready for your local vehicle registration office if they request a report at anytime.

 

In short, a car database takes away a lot of the tedious manual aspects of storing, organising and renewing historical car plates. Less work and more play is always good. 

 

 

What Else Can A Membership Management System Do

As you know by now a digital car database is an incredibly useful tool that will save your classic car club a lot of time. By now, you will have realised that we offer a lot more than just car databases, so let’s briefly cover what we do.  

Member Jungle is an all-in-one membership management system that does everything your club needs. We offer a simple way to run and organise your club that will save you time and energy. Member Jungle has already done this for over 50 car clubs.

Some of the time-saving things we can offer:

• Car database
• Member database
• Custom website
• Integrated app
• Automated membership renewals
• Custom notifications and emails
• Easy Accounting
• All data is securely stored
• All data can be exported into any other software

 

A Member Jungle Car Club System also includes..

 

If you would like to know more, check out What is Membership Management Software or go to our website.

Turn the ignition and connect your club

Where To From Here?

Well, you now understand how a car database can help you run your classic car club better and save you a lot of time and effort. You probably know a bit more about membership management systems too. 

If you want to learn about either, check out Databases for Car Clubs and What is Member Jungle?

Other than that, get out there, and go enjoy your car, whatever else you’re doing today can wait.