I have just added David Brenions DVD's to both websites, the cost is £25 each but with a special offer to club members of either £45 if picked up at a Care & Share day or with free shiping via the site, the shipping cost will be refunded via PayPal when ordered.

Just to keep everyone up to date with things, I'm hoping to see Lord G who does my DVD editing on Thursday/Friday to see if he can get the recording of the David Brenion lecture that is on my memory cards over onto a DVD. If all works out then I will need to send this off for duplication so would hope to have sorted by the end of the month and ready for the Bristol day for collection for those who will be attending and I will post the others out.

At the Banstead day Jay decided to join the group so we are now up to 20 members and I did get a phone call saying two more people may be joining pretty soon as well, so things are looking good for a club that is just two weeks old.

Graham Lee, 001
Thelma Levett, 002
Danny The Idiot, 003
Natalie, 004
Roger, 005
Neil, 006
Dan, 007
Jason, 008
Ali, 009
Tony, 010
David Tan, 011
Darren, 012
Dave, 013
Frank Sweeney, 014
Amanda Smith, 015
Julie Hayward, 16
Olivia Post, 17
Ozzy D, 18
Russell Wells, 19
Jay, 020

Could all club members please send me their address, phone number and full name for when I have to post out the DVD's.

Just back from seeing Lord G, he has taken the memory cards and will put onto a DVD master next week.
I have had a couple of people ask about joining so that they can get the 3 DVD's of the star lecture days but they do not want to attend any of the days in person.
I was thinking about charging £70 for this, has anyone got any thoughts about this?

Graham,

Personally I feel £70 for three DVDs is too cheap. If you look at the amount of balloon designs and ideas given away by David in his first lecture you are really undervaluing the content. I feel the club should be 'exclusive' for full members who should be encouraged to arrive at a few lectures as surely the main idea is to network and share ideas.

Just my thoughts...

Sorry I thought the idea of creating and joining the club was to give an option of going to the care and share days or not and receiving the DVD of the day whether or not you attend.. am I wrong in this thinking?

Personally I think the price is well worth just the DVD's (I know you have not had my money to join yet!!) but I dont see the need for a discount if you decide you are not going to any of the days, I cant attend many of them

If you paid the discounted rate and then found you could or wanted to attend one of the days, would you then not have to pay the full priceof attending? and that would then take you back to the membership price.. would membership then be upgraded because then if you decided to go to another day you woul dbe paying more than the rate if you paid to go again..

Understand those outside the country, I also understand those that work fulltime elsewherehaving to book holidays to attend the days . But those of us who are self employed and earn our living from balloons also have to take time off from our business to attend. Its far simpler for you to manage if you have just one price suits all, than complecate things with a range of prices for different benefits surely.

Sorry accountant in me talking my twopenneth, but it could get complicated, off to work now

Pam
xx

My thoughts are that to join the club its £99. Its a very reasonable amount. If you cannot make the days for whatever reasons then you will get the three DVD's per year - which as Pam has said already is good value for three DVD's that will teach you usable stuff to impress clients. I don't think there should be a reduction, except if a couple joins and only one set of DVD's/postage is saved.

There are additional benefits emerging for being a club member like the discount on David Brenion's DVDs that Graham has offered. Perhaps there will be more of these!

Personally having paid the money its now an incentive to try and get to as many days as possible bearing in mind work comittments and travel costs. Even the basics day last week, I learnt some excellent usable models in the real world (thank you No's 1 & 2.)


Those are my thoughts!

Danny  

I agree - I think the price should stay at £99. It is a reasonable price

I am in discussions with someone to do some work on the forum, the www button and portfolio/gallery button underneath every post so you can click on every members details quickly without going into the profile page.
Also better security so we can put the auto join back onto the site which will hopefully get the membership rising a bit quicker.
Another couple of ideas bouncing around are to have only one section of the forum, probably balloon chit chat available to non members, then they would need to join to see the rest of the forum. The search facility to also be made that you have to be a member to use it. All thoughts appreciated and if anyone has some ideas of what to add to make the site better please let me know.
I will just mention that I'm not keen on the suggestion of having a Balloon Artistes Guild only section on the forum as this may lead to a them and us situation which I would not feel comfortable about and also the idea of only having one section available on the forum to non members is so we get more members joining which then would get more people actively involved with the site, it is not the first step of putting a charge onto the site to view. The forum will always be free to view.

Sounds good to me... agree with all you say Graham..

I think you will find that those that join the guild will be more active members of the forum also and if they want to talk private will go to the Club zone section you already have available.

also naggged him to send you money

Pam
xx

Thanks for all the input on the club and reduced rates for people not attending, I agree that with over 12 hours of instructions on the three DVD's this is an excellent price, I was being swayed to offer the £70 reduced price but have decided the club is more than just three DVD's, it's also for social networking and the ideas shared for promoting and advertising yourself at the days and a way to promote our balloon art in a positive way to joe public.
We then have the added bonus of club discounts, the offer at the moment is for the two David Breninn DVD's, you can either have for £45 at the days, saving £5 or I will send with free shipping at the full price of £50.
The next club offer is free shipping in the UK for the McPump one stroke floor pump, which is a saving of £12, at this rate I reckon if anyone takes up all the offers over the year then membership could work out to be free.

Just to respond to a point Pam made. Just because you have paid for the guild (as I have), doesn't mean you automatically have access to the club zone (as I haven't). I don't get a lot of time on the forum and so haven't yet got the 50 posts which allow me access (although nearly there)

just want to make sure that people don't think that paying for the guild gives you access to the club zone automatically.

We have a new member for the club, Ian Smiggles  

Graham Lee, 001
Thelma Levett, 002
Danny The Idiot, 003
Natalie, 004
Roger, 005
Neil, 006
Dan, 007
Jason, 008
Ali, 009
Tony, 010
David Tan, 011
Darren, 012
Dave, 013
Frank Sweeney, 014
Amanda Smith, 015
Julie Hayward, 016
Olivia Post, 017
Ozzy D, 018
Russell Wells, 019
Jay, 020
Ian, 021

Just an update on the DVD to be sent out after the David Brenion lecture. I will be picking up the master copy this afternoon and then this needs to be sent off to get the copies for the members, hoping to post out at the end of the month.

Just picked up the master copy and Jimmy has done a mock up for the club DVD.