MAG National Chairman Neil Liversidge explains the strategy to strengthen MAG in the coming year. Read what MAG will be doing nationally to promote your local group's events and to boost the fighting fund.

You people out there running MAG events are the reason why MAG still exists. Membership subscription income alone is not enough to run the group and never has been. That is why so much effort has been put into doing deals that will benefit the membership. The benefits of such deals are both direct and indirect. Direct benefits show up in terms of the discounts that you as MAG members can get on many goods and services. The new Book Club deal on Haynes manuals that Henry has negotiated is a classic example. I have a bookshelf full of Haynes manuals relating to the cars and bikes I have owned over the years. I wish MAG's deal had been done years ago, I would have saved a fortune. In future though that deal will be saving me money on every Haynes manual I buy. The same goes for you too if you use the facility on offer. Geoff Duke videos are included too so make the most of it.

By 'indirect' benefits I refer to the commission that MAG is able to earn from some of the deals. The MBNA MAG Mastercard (credit card) is a classic example. It costs nothing to have a MAG Mastercard but MAG earns money on every card issued. The MAG Mastercard now brings in as much money to MAG each year as one of our major rallies. As such it provides a major, regular and much needed boost to our fighting fund. If you've not got one yet, please think about it!

Why are we so concerned to boost the fighting fund? Read on and find out – if you dare!

The Threat

In the immediate future we bikers have a lot coming our way from the Government in Westminster and the parasites who run the European Union. None of it is good. Look at just some of the proposals floated recently –

• Regular re-testing of all licence holders at fixed intervals. Do you want to re-sit your test every five years? Could you risk losing your job or business if you happened to fail and could not get a re-test for months? You could end up homeless and bankrupt, all thanks to some do-gooder control-freak Brussels bureaucrat and his bright ideas.
• Telematics – the revenge of the nerds. This one's a real bastard. Some pointy-head at Leeds University has come up with a system that allows the speed of motor vehicles to be radio-controlled by roadside beacons. Got that? Some insipid little bureaucrat sitting in an office flicks a switch and bingo, your speed is cut to 30mph or whatever HE decides. If they get away with this one, we might as well all take the bus.
• Backdoor taxation by speed cameras. Moves are being made to allow police forces to keep the revenue raised from speed cameras. No wonder some top cops are calling for zero tolerance on speeding. The more bikers they nick, the more money they'll have to spend on posh police stations and state-of-the-art equipment. Nothing but the best from the taxpayers money. Coming soon on a street near you – traffic cops in Ferraris! How would you feel about being fined £50 for doing 1mph over the limit? Meanwhile of course, there's no comparable zero tolerance of real criminals. Bike thieves still get a slap on the wrist from the courts.

Fighting Back – Building A Mass Movement

With stuff like this coming our way, MAG has to be fighting fit. We have to wake bikers up to what is happening. Most bikers have never heard of telematics and if we don't get the message over, they'll ride around in blissful ignorance until the safety-nazis finally get the necessary legislation in place. By then it will be too late. If we are going to win - and to win means to survive, to keep biking alive – we need to build a mass movement pronto.

It Pays To Advertise

MAG's current membership is nowhere near enough if we are to succeed. We need a million organised bikers in MAG to make the government sit up and take notice. The only way we can realistically aspire to a mass membership is by large-scale advertising in the entire bike press to get MAG's message over. Advertising works and the right kind of consistent, week-in week-out, month-in month-out advertising works best of all. It costs money though, and that's one reason why we need to build up MAG's fighting fund.

Boosting Your Events And Raising The Funds MAG Needs

Deals of various kinds are a valuable source of income but what MAG does best of all is to run events. For my money MAG events, large and small, are the best in biking. We probably run more than a hundred events around the country every year. Here are some calculations that you might find interesting. If we could get an average of 100 more people to every MAG event, and if the groups running those events could earn just £6 from each from each person out of a combination of the entry ticket price and profits on beer, food etc., then MAG's income would increase by £60,000 per year!

It Really Is Possible

I don't need to tell you that this would utterly transform our finances. Obviously every local rally that attracts say 100 or 150 people now is not going to put on another hundred. If we attract another 100 per event on average though – local events like Viva Cas Vegas getting another 20 or 30 say, and events like Stormin' and the Farmyard getting another thousand, we can hit that target.

How MAG UK Can Help Your Group

Don't get the idea that I sit in some ivory tower dreaming up stuff for you to do, because I don't. I appreciate your efforts but I don't expect you to fly to the moon. There is no way that we are going to increase our attendances in the fashion outlined above without a concerted national effort. You cannot be expected to do it on your own and I don't expect you to. I've racked my brains for months trying to figure out how we can do better out of events. The ideas that resulted were talked over with my NC colleagues at the last meeting. We think we've got a plan together now that is going to help us get that extra £60,000 – and maybe a lot more besides if we play it right.

Step 1 – Get More Affiliated Clubs

Step 1 is already under way. At the end of last year we put together a much-improved scheme for clubs wanting to affiliate to MAG. Affiliations bring in fees and also create a pool of people who can be targeted with publicity for MAG events. Step 1 therefore involves getting more affiliated clubs. That is something we are working to achieve at a national level. Obviously, anything you can do locally to persuade clubs to affiliate will be deeply appreciated. Debbie Jones, MAG's National Clubs Officer is the key person on the NC who can offer you help and advice with club recruiting. You are also free to contact me direct for advice as you need it.

Step 2 – Give Affiliated Clubs An Attendance Incentive

Step 2 means making the most of our mailing list. Once clubs are affiliated they need to be persuaded to turn up to MAG events en masse. The block booking scheme operated for affiliated clubs should help. If you are running a rally, please consider 'converting' it into a MAG Premier Event by adopting the following pricing structure for pre-booked tickets:

Cheapest – Full Individual MAG Members.

Next cheapest – Affiliated Club Members. (11 tickets for the price of 10)

Dearest - Those who are not members of either class.

Step 3 – Publicise MAG Events To Affiliated Clubs

Step 3 involves targeted mailings from MAG Central to every club every month. We aim to draw attention to MAG events and to the ticket deals on offer, hopefully with the result that more clubs will attend the events you run.

Step 4 – Publicise MAG Events More Widely Still

Step 4 involves advertising in the bike press. We plan to buy full pages in certain magazines on a regular basis to establish 'the MAG page' as the regular place to look for news on what's happening. These pages will carry brief 'newsflash' type announcements to alert bikers to hot political issues, membership application forms and publicity for MAG fundraising events and rallies that directly contribute to the fighting fund (no more pet food, toy or Easter egg runs please!) The aim is that even relatively small MAG events catering for say a hundred people on a one-nighter in a pub should be able to get some coverage. In this way you will get free national advertising for your events in the major magazines, paid for by MAG UK. People out there are gonna see just how much activity goes on in MAG and what a great organisation it is to be a member of. We are gonna get these people to our rallies, we are gonna get their clubs to affiliated and we are gonna get the members we need.

Making It Work

I'm going to try my best to make all of this work. So is the rest of the NC. We need every Local Rep' to play his or her part too. This means planning in advance. Once we get these regular pages up and running we are going to need to fill them. That means submitting copy on time and early. It's no good telling us about a rally the day before the magazine carrying the page goes to print. Regional Reps will therefore be responsible for submitting the relevant information to ????????? so that the page can be put together. You, the people running local events, are responsible for getting the copy to your Regional Rep in time. Attached is a mock-up of what we expect one of these pages to look like, so you can see what we are at.

Over To You

So that's what we're planning to do. It's not cast in concrete though so if you've got any ideas as to how we can make this work better, I'm all ears. Whatever you think I would appreciate some feedback. When we all pull on the same end of the rope we can do anything. MAG's past achievements prove that. The politicians and bureaucrats aren't letting up any. We can't afford to either. The difference is that their resources are drawn from our taxes and as such are pretty much unlimited. Our fighting funds are harder to come by, but we can do it if we try.

Thanks for taking the trouble to read this. My phone number, address and email details are below.

Neil F. Liversidge
National Chairman

190 Leeds Road
Allerton Bywater
Near Castleford
West Yorkshire
WF10 2HU

Telephone / fax 0113 286 9332

Email: nfl@mag4.demon.co.uk