The hit and miss communication between club members of years gone by has definately taken a turn for the better as more and more clubs become digitally minded. As people bitten hard by the credit crunch look for more activities that can be enjoyed within a tight budget, the classic car club is enjoying a revival as it becomes a far more popular choice, often with all the family joining in.

With the advent of Facebook groups, Blogs, Forums, Twitter and other social networks taking communication to a whole new realm, group members can not only make sure they never miss another meet, event or social activity for their favourite club or society, but they can share the photos, swap hints and tips or even post their own free classified ads within the club.

Even established clubs or classic car shows are finding the advantages (and savings) of 'going online' as website owners make full use of the new advances in website design to include advance tickets, maps, booking forms, passes, promotional material and much more, all conveniently downloadable for everyone 24/7 and when changes or more information become available it is quickly passed on in newsletters or postings to the club site. 

For new or potential members with so much information and, in many cases, the open insight into how the club operates and the banter between members, visitors quickly get a feel for the way that club works and can see whether it is what they are looking for or whether they think they could 'fit in'. Any barriers of the 'unknown' are quickly crossed and it is easy to find out who is who, what goes on and where the next get together will be with 'signing up' and actually joing the club just a few simple clicks of the buttons and a form is whizzing off to the club membership 'official'.

The only snag to all this technology is where the club does not have its very own resident 'expert', or perhaps the more computer 'savvy' amongst the membership simply do not have the time to design their own site. Luckily, the new wave of 'self build', open source software, cheap hosting and domain names (the space your website is stored on and the name you use to find it) mean there are some pretty good deals around, even for those clubs where cashflow is not so much as a flow as a gentle trickle! Some companies now offer excellent deals with web hosting from only £1.99 per month and domain names around £3.50 per year.

The better hosting packages normally include 'one click set up' of popular open source (free to use) software so, if you wish, you can build your own club site from scratch yourself and the whole site costs little more than £30 per year. 

All a bit too much work for your club? Start up web design packages are also out there, which are where the designer installs the software on your hosted webspace for you, links it to your domain, lays everything out for you then you take over and do the updates you need, and when you need them. After the initial cost of anything from just £80 to get things going, all you pay each year to keep things live is just the hosting and domain renawal (around £30 per year) - affordable for most clubs!

If you have a website promoting your classic car or bike club and wish to add it to our web links page you will need to register, then login and a weblink submission form will appear on the user menu.