Ok folks, I've had a look at the replies and extracted the main points.
Many thanks to the 23 people who contributed, only two being 'Website members', however one was prolific in his posts.
We have a membership of around 220 'Z Club members' and
thousands of 'Website members'. I'm trying to ascertain how many 'Website members' are active on here because many will be long gone. If we knew how many were active in the last year it would give us a 'feel' for the 'membership split' of the Club.
There was some goods points raised about issues (and praise) for the Club which will not be lost but I'm just focusing here on the membership admin bits.
Most people thought that paying was ok (and expected) and the current amount was acceptable. That's not a great surprise considering who replied - shame more 'Website members' didn't. Some people suggested that the subscription needs to cover costs and so as Steve and I have discussed before, we can lower the fee and also hopefully attract more 'full' members.
The topic of one or two tier was less easy to understand because it was generally thought that there should be one tier with full access to the Forum but that full membership should give distinctive benefits and that one way of doing this was to limit access.
What I understand from this question and the other 'access' question is that ideally there should only be one level of membership but if we have to have two then access for 'Website members' should be far more restricted that it is now.
A single date for renewal was accepted as a reasonable idea but thought impossible to implement fairly. Paypal was suggested as a way of cutting down admin work.
Data storage got little response apart from it being a good facility for a 'full' member to be able to see a car's history. Nobody had any comments about all the other data we record i.e. the confidential stuff e.g. addresses/phones/method of payment/date of payment/ etc which is currently all typed in by me.
Two people volunteered to help which was a positive.
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It has helped me understand the way the membership feels which is quite interesting and has 'relaxed' me a bit about the 'divisive' aspect I was concerned about. Some people see us as a Forum others as a Club, which is fine but perhaps if Forum members use Club facilities there should be a charge?
Admin can be streamlined a bit but not much until we get an automated system for online membership applications and renewals. Data storage should perhaps be seen as a member benefit (but typing it all in has to be automated).