REGAL RAPTOR

[orbinrangle]

Sounds like it's self defeating. They're welcome to join but won't get much for their money.
Still a fudge. I'm happy to welcome them if that's the official line and even if it's not, but if we do should we not be doing it properly?

[Eamonn]

quote:
...They're welcome to join but won't get much for their money....


That's true for many club members - myself included.

I currently don't have an AJS nor a Matchless, consequently there's no benefit to me of a spares discount nor access to the help line. What do I get for my money? Well in physical terms, a monthly magazine and access to up to date adverts on the club website - that's it.... And that's the same for anyone else who joins up looking for a bike of the marque.

Club membership is not limited to only those with an AJS or Matchless - it's open to anyone with an interest in the bikes. What they get out of it is a very personal thing and something that only the individual can put a value to.

[Janet]

quote: Why shouldn't we have an area on this website to cover the modern variations? I don't disagree, but unfortunately there are very few of us who know anything about them to be able to help.

Regarding welcoming people into the club who don't have an AMC bike, my first encounter was on my way home from a very wet wekend in the lake district not long after I'd passed my test. Glyn and I were looking for a campsite near Masham ( I wasn't up to doing 140 miles in one hit yet ) but we couldn't find it. We say a number of old bikes going down the road we were heading for and saw one of them stopped at a junction. We asked the chappie if he'd seen this site anywhere and he told us just to follow behind the bies and go to their rally. So we did. We were welcomed with a bin liner, stand boards, badges, and a nights camping, all for a small fee.

This was the Yorkshire Jampot in 1995(?). I didn't know these bikes and I had no idea why their rally was called the Jampot. After wandering amongst the bikes for a couple of hours, I wanted one. Within six months I'd joined the club and by the next Jampot at Mersea Island I owned a Matchless.

If those friendly folk hadn't shown kindness to two wet, bedraggled, Honda-riding strangers, we probably would never have become members of this club. therefore I feel that I personally should be prepared to offer the same black-fingernailed, oily-palmed, skinned-knuckled hand of friendship to other waifs and strays who could venture along the same route to get here. However, I would be very wary of the club being changed to bring in other people if it ended up not being the AJS&MOC any longer, and just like any other modern club.

[Eric]

Janet I have absolutely no problem with Club members who have no motorcycle or any motorcycle other than an AJS or Matchless one, and the rules allow for this, in fact it is probably a good thing because membership would drop considerably if this was the case.

It is sometimes this way in other clubs whose rules are no bike of the marquee and you can’t play.

Perhaps I have not made it clear, my main objection is that the website for ajsmotorcycles.co.uk says the owners club is us and the link on their site directs you to our website. I see no way that a Club whose main purpose is to promote Classic motorcycles in particular AJS & Matchless ones, can be the nominated owners club for these modern Chinese bikes, and believe that ajsmotorcycles.co.uk are misleading potential purchasers and implicating our Club. But still the management committee have not expressed an official view. This either means they don’t know what to do because of other more subtle hidden agendas (more than probable) or they have never found the need to form an opinion. That’s why I am now asking for their views.

The second objection has nothing to do with the Club but its the misleading way that ajsmotorcycles.co.uk presents itself as being the marquee created 100 years ago and now celebrating its 100th anniversary, even including pictures from the archives of AJS. The name certainly is but the bikes are not. Its being tried elsewhere with MG but unless the product can be as good or better than the competition it wont fool the public at large for very long.

By the way Pately Bridge was my first Jampot rally if that’s the one you mean. I seem to have forgotten the rain I only remember riding out to reservoirs that were virtually empty.

[orbinrangle]

What you say is so Eamonn, but you knew that when you joined. If I was a young man and I bought a modern AJS and joined the club as per the link on their website I'd feel a tadge ripped off after paying the fee and finding there's very little there for me.
It'd make me decidedly unfriendly towards us old farts. Hardly the welcome we intend, is it?

[Malleon]

quote:
What they get out of it is a very personal thing and something that only the individual can put a value to.


Very true, Eamonn, and if these embryo enthusiasts are encouraged to put something into the Club,they will surely get more out of it !!

[itma]

what really seems to have come out of all this is that actually there are not hundreds of Chinese AJS riders clamouring to join this club?

Not only therefore a storm in a teacup but an example of how dangerously divisive the issue could be?

[G15 Roy]

quote: But still the management committee have not expressed an official view. This either means they don’t know what to do because of other more subtle hidden agendas (more than probable) or they have never found the need to form an opinion. That’s why I am now asking for their views. As i stated (The new AJS owners have been accepted into the club for over 5yrs. It was decided by the committee at the time that although accepted into the club we would not cater for any spares or tech help as this is readily available through Nick Brown). Further more the link was approved. This is the Official response you are asking for.....

[Janet]

quote: By the way Pately Bridge was my first Jampot rally if that’s the one you mean. I seem to have forgotten the rain I only remember riding out to reservoirs that were virtually empty.

Yes,Pateley Bridge is the one I mean. Regarding the rain, you may have forgotten that Pateley Bridge was in Yorkshire, not the Lake District, where we'd come from. It was extremely wet there after a dry summer.

[DWS]

Purely as a matter of interest...

Who owns the Matchless name?