Why a new FBHVC website?

www.fbhvc.co.uk - ALL CHANGE!
Henry Lawson

The new FBHVC website was launched operationally on 1 October and will be officially launched at the forthcoming Federation AGM on 17 October.

As the most seen outward face of the FBHVC, and by extension the member clubs, museums, traders and over 250,000 UK historic vehicle enthusiasts, the Federation decided a year ago that this was a crucially important factor in our communications.

Our objectives in making the change included:

•    Enhancing our two way communications with members;
•    Providing an up to the minute central place for the general public and their parliamentary representatives to find out more about our movement;
•    Creating a service that can be used by member clubs, museums and traders to promote their activities, events and themselves to interested fellow enthusiasts.

Our former site was created some years ago and has served the Federation well. Several iterations of technology and in the use of websites have meant that we needed to change to a new version in 2009 and so with these goals in mind, the new site was developed and launched with help from many parties.

The site is a major update to our communications strategy and is supplementary to the club newsletter that will continue to be published and sent to all members six times per year. Over time, we expect that the website will become the more important tool for our member clubs as news stories will appear on it first and of course stories can be downloaded or cut and pasted into members’ own online and offline publications.

Legislation
Guarding and enhancing our rights as users of historic vehicles remains our key objective. Accordingly the new website provides two key legislative elements of vital importance to our members.

First, the front page is now structured like a newspaper with the most recent and most important articles right there, published as soon as possible, no longer dependent on a printed bi-monthly newsletter schedule. Club secretaries can now see at any time on one page the most significant developments for their members.

Second, the legislation page provides the timetable on forthcoming legislation, still at the consultation stage, that we are commenting on. That way we open up a practical forum for clubs to consult with us on the issues that are important.

We urge all members and supporters to read these pages frequently to make sure that their members’ and customers’ issues are understood and we maximise the Federation’s impact on your behalf.

Online directories
We have provided directories of member clubs, member museums and traders. These can include contact information and links to websites. For clubs we provide an online update service both for the basic information as well as for posting club events - a major development.

At present the FBHVC office will remain responsible for updating museum and trader details and in 2010 we expect to be able to offer upgraded packages to allow enhanced promotion of these businesses.

Events for all
Around half a million people attend our movement’s events each year. The major ones are well publicised and the specialist press provides good directories of those. However, smaller events have little access to promotion. The new site has been designed to allow all of our member clubs to be able to post events to the FBHVC site. Anyone can then come in and search for all member clubs’ events by date and location. Going away for a nice weekend in the Cotswolds – what is going on within 10 miles of Broadway? A Morris Minor owning friend staying for the weekend - what can we go out and do locally? Looking for a quiet evening with like-minded friends in a local pub? What events are my tiny 100 person club holding this year?

The events page answers these questions and many more. It has been designed to be a real asset to our member clubs. At the 2008 FBHVC AGM, the message that we could help each other came over loud and clear. Most clubs welcome members of other clubs to almost any event but have, until now, had no access to those fellow enthusiasts. Using the new site, member clubs can post the event and make clear the entry conditions (for example: free access; please make a small contribution to club funds; or members only) and what vehicles are expected to attend. There is a straightforward dropdown classification of the nature of the event to help navigation. The event’s web address and/or links to the member site can be added and then the event address and postcode bring up a map allowing clubs to pinpoint precisely where the event should be held  - down to the right five bar gate to access a rally field! This new facility, driven by Google maps should help all clubs get more members to more events more easily!

Over half of the FBHVC’s member clubs have insufficient resources to be able to build a website. This new facility effectively offers those clubs a website to describe themselves, provide full contact details and a complete online calendar with geo-location information. We hope it will make a real difference to all of our member clubs.

Useful information easily accessed
The key change to the new site is to move to from a bi-monthly news cycle to providing information in articles as soon as they are ready. This will bring relevance of the Federation’s content up to the minute and provide a great resource for members seeking specific information on a subject or the latest material for their own publications.

Navigation to the site’s information is provided in several ways. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are published and the top four are posted directly on the homepage. All articles are archived and accessible by date of publication and most importantly through a Google driven search box allowing direct access to all relevant stories about a subject.

Promoting traders to the community
One of the Federation’s key objectives of late has been enhancing the link between the UK’s great community of skilled traders and their customers. By promoting trade and skills we have been able to help. Now the new website provides a directory of traders with their contact details and in 2010 this will be enhanced with the options of:
•    Maps to provide geo-location
•    Classification by speciality to provide easy searching
•    The option to upgrade the prominence of the trader’s entry
•    Electronic display advertising on the site

What of the future?
By changing technology we have built a solid, modern, reliable platform for the Federation to further enhance its web presence. We have lots of plans to allow clubs the ability to update their administrative details themselves, to provide advertised links and allow new members to sign up directly on the site. We are sure that our member clubs will have further ideas and we welcome feedback in whatever form you like, telephone, Royal Mail or best of all by email to secretary@fbhvc.co.uk