Significant Club donation

[richardw]

To all members:

I was absolutely floored on Thursday to receive an offer for a donation to The Lotus Grand Tourers Club of £500. The donor wishes to remain anonymous in public; suffice it to say that it has been made in Oliver Winterbottom’s name as it is considered to be something that ‘he would be very pleased about.’

This relieves pressure on our finances in the run up to the Classic Motor Show in November, and means that we will be able to purchase appropriate signage etc promoting the cars and the club’s image. We can also now make modest investments in the creation of club merchandise.

Longer term, it will help us move forward with the creation of a simple club website that will also link to this forum and the associated Lotus Grand Tourers Facebook page.

We (the club committee, comprising Ian, Stu, Gill and myself) would welcome any ideas members may have about how these funds could be used to support the club’s future activities.

All the best

Richard

[Lotus-e-Clan]

Great News!

It's for a worthy cause - especially in support of the Elite as Lotus' first proper GT.

I like my current Excel SE, but I still love (pine for) my black '76 Elite 501 (deceased).

[KevW]

That is a very generous gesture, I think I can guess where it came from.

[Radar]

Thank you to whomever it was. Very generous

[bash]

Wow, thats such a kind gesture to such a small group of dedicated enthusiasts. Many many thanks.

Bash

[Pete Boole]

That's fantastic and really generous! Using it towards the NEC events would be putting it to good use - best exposure for the Lotus Grand Tourers.

Pete

[DavidOliver]

Perhaps some of the money could be directed at an exhibition type flag with direct reference to Ollie and the Elite, as a lasting tribute.
It would need family approval.

Also not a bad moment for Forum members to make a donation, we would need a Paypal (for example) address.

Dave the cog.

[TrevorK]

That's extremely kind of whomever it is and puts a responsibility on the shoulders of the members to use this once-in-a-lifetime donation wisely. Could some of it be used to finance the production of something that could be sold for a profit to provide an income to the club?

[barker_001]

That is a very generous donation - thank you to our anonymous donor, it is greatly appreciated.

[Excel SA]

Very nice to get a donation like that! Thanks to the donor, I'm sure it will be put to good use!

Neil.

[MetBlue]

Like to add my thanks and appreciation to the donor.
It's great that we are raising the profile of the Lotus GT's and Ollie's work and this donation will help even more.
Tony

[Alan_M]

That’s extremely generous of the anonymous donor. I would also like to pass on my thanks.

[LotusMonkey]

As a relative newbie to the forum, I would like to add my thank you for the generous donation and what it will help achieve.

[richardw]

Thanks to all for your comments and expressions of gratitude. I’ll make sure our mystery donor sees them.

Meanwhile, I’m on holiday (in Cornwall but sans Lotus) next week which means that I should have some time to consider options for our display at the NEC. Whatever we do will need to be reusable of course. I appreciate the suggestions made so far and would ask you to keep them coming.

I’ll also try to make progress on merchandise. Gill has already generated some options for clothing, and I will look at other stuff. I think mugs are always popular, as are stickers, both of which would take the club logo pretty much as is. Again suggestions welcome - what about key fobs?

Also does anyone have experience in setting up a website from scratch? I have the domain name registered, and one or two options for hosting that I will explore. It would be great to be able to talk to someone who’s done this before - it will save a lot of time and effort. A friend has suggested SquareSpace as a good option, and Excel SA suggested another product, both of which make it easy to add content in quite a flexible manner.

Cheers, Richard

[Excel SA]

Hi Richard,

I mentioned Wix.com which is what I use for my business website - they do make it really easy to use. You can try it out for free to get an idea how it works - can keep it very easy or choose to get more complicated if you really want! The do the site hosting as well and have a helper to ensure all SEO is done. I think SquareSpace is very similar, you can probably try them both for free and compare pricing?

Wix works very well for me, and I'm a happy customer

Neil.