How do you coordinate to get all the TVR enthusiasts in one place? and keep them happy!

The TVR Car Club is the club for everyone interested in the TVR marque world-wide. With over 7000 members it is run only through the enthusiasm of those same members, so when the Scottish contingent of the TVR Car Club decided to hold their 2007 annual gathering in Scotland the question that was immediately posed was “How do you coordinate to get all the TVR enthusiasts in one place?”
Organising the event, known at the “TVR Celtic Gathering 2007”, starts with who is coming, but quickly moves to the style of accommodation they desire, single room or double room, do they want a seaview or a four poster bed and do they have any special requirements. There are also breakout events, as part of the whole event, that need to be managed such as “go-karting”. All of the requirements have to be offered, collected, and confirmed on strictly a first come first served basis simultaneously throughout the membership.
During the summer of 2006, the TVR Club Celtic Gathering 2007 organising committee were lamenting the task ahead of them, in the knowledge that any mistakes or problems really should be avoided as the members, who are based all over the country, really look forward to this annual event. A review of how technology and the internet could help the club with this task faltered, as in many cases the cost was prohibitive for the club and there were concerns that although many members could detail the inner workings of the TVR engine there was unfortunately not extensive knowledge in the membership on how to build on-line booking systems.
“Trying to organise a weekend away, on a first come first served basis, for a subset of the TVR Car Club’s membership” stated Adrian Milne, Organising Committee, TVR Celtic Gathering 2007, “was more than a little daunting”.
The Organising Committee for the TVR Celtic Gathering 2007 signed up for a free trial of an ibooka online booking system and asked the ibooka company to configure the system for them, help set up the available accommodation and events and as the system is hosted by ibooka, there was no need to worry about writing webpages, backups or buying any new computers or software. A link was added to the main TVR Car Club website and members were informed that booking for the Celtic Gathering 2007 was open. “it was amazing, it did not cost us anything and simply took away all the booking problems” said Mr Milne.
Since the TVR Car Club Celtic Gathering 2007 ibooka system went live members have been able to use the system to check the availability of accommodation, book their required rooms, request special requirements and decide if they want to sign up for special events like “go karting”, they have done this online from wherever they are in world, 24 hours a day/7 days a week and it is only costing the TVR Car Club 25p per booking (which is less than the cost of all of the telephone calls that used to go to and from people to arrange the bookings on past events). Mr Milne continued “it was so easy, I went from wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew with organising the event to having a robust simple and easy way for the members to organise themselves. I receive an email whenever a member makes a booking (as they do) and the whole thing is working like clockwork.”

Businesses, Clubs and associations, large and small, are now benefiting from the unique ibooka “pennies per booking” pricing scheme that means the only costs are a few pennies for each actual booking with no other costs. The lack of monthly fees, software licenses, maintenance and support fees, etc means that at the TVR Car Clubs annual gathering in Scotland next year the conversation will be mainly about TVR cars and not about the problems they had in getting the weekend organised.

Mr Milne concluded with “I would certainly recommend ibooka to anyone organising an event of any kind. Ibooka made it so very easy for me and it is nice, if unusual, these days to find a company and system that do exactly what they promise to do for you without any fuss or problems”. Further information about ibooka may be found at www.ibooka.com or ibooka can be contacted at ibooka@ibooka.com
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ibooka, Garden House, Lumley Thicks, Mr. Adian Milne
Chester-le-Street, Durham, DH3 4HF, United Kingdom TVR Car Club Celtic Gathering 2007,
Tel +44 (0)191 385 7400 Organising Committee
Email: ibooka@ibooka.com email : Adrianmilne@yahoo.com
Web site: www.ibooka.com Web site : http://www.tvr-car-club.co.uk