BMW Club Annual General Meeting

I attended the BMW Annual General Meeting last Monday (26^th July) as one of three visitors amongst 130 members. Earlier I had received a copy of their monthly magazine including their budget statement. It is interesting to draw comparisons. They have 10 times as many members – 730 versus 72.

Money matters: BMW Members Equity $151, 792 (money in the bank $119K, spare parts $19K, merchandise, etc), MSTCV about $2K. Income $102K, expenses 88K. Net surplus cash for the year $14K, MSTCV a few hundred dollars surplus.

Their annual membership fee is $35, ours is $40. How can this be I wondered? Delving deeper, their single biggest expense is the magazine – 40 pages, multiple photos, externally printed, colored front and back page, costing nearly $28K per year. Income from membership, $24.5K per year. Income from advertising: $15,486, outgoing $150! The advertising income is nearly all profit and in effect subsidises the membership fees. The magazine has a lot of advertising , but relevant, which makes it more palatable.

The running of the BM Club is much the same as ours with identical committee positions. Note: each of the committee persons gave a 10 minute speech on their role and activities throughout the past year. In addition to the committee, there is an additional 19 person support team including two magazine editors, a design and layout person, an advertising person, club photographer, mid week ride coordinator, north east ride coordinator, western ride coordinator, spare parts and red plate registrar (red plate – bikes over 25 years old), librarian, and webmaster. It would be handy to have some of those in our club.

The BM Club appears very strong, and is continuing to grow strongly. They expect the new K1200S to make a large impression in the market and to bring in even more – and different – members. The Melbourne BMW Club is the biggest BMW Club, car or bike, in Australia. It is certainly very professionally run.

From my perspective, having ridden with the Touring Club for 20 years, the BMW Club seems like a very well organised social club, with less emphasis on riding. Write-ups of their rides didn’t appear until the 24^th page of the magazine, perhaps an indication of their considered worth. Given their membership base, they have on average attendances on rides. Even so, they average 21 riders per midweek ride (once a month) and 22 per weekend ride. Interestingly, they produce a ride route map for each rider with all the food stops listed and a phone number (should one get lost I presume). Reading the ride write-ups, it was interesting to note that some of our current members ride with the BMW Club. And certainly some of our older, ex-members do.

They offer a rider training subsidy of $50 to any member who attends a rider training course. Only 4 people availed themselves off this opportunity throughout the year.

By way of contrast, their social events have excellent attendances. Hey have coffee get-togethers every Saturday in Albert Park. They average 130 people at their monthly meetings and their big overseas trips seem well attended too, for instance 39 people have booked into India/Tibet Royal Enfield 500cc organised tour – coach and support team following. Fantastic.

It was good to catch up with a few old MTCV members, some of which I had not seen for 10 years or more, including Mick Fagan, a founding BMW Club member in 1975. Hence they are coming up for their 30^th anniversary. I kinda have the temptation to go for a ride with them … when I’m older.

Ben Warden