As a former Cleveland Fieros member, I am interested in a club to join.
One problem we've got here is that it can be up to 3 hours from one end of the state to a central meeting point (like Columbus). I think that's why the local city clubs used to do better. Maybe with today's technology we could have net meetings, or some sort of live webchat? Its not going to compare to a meeting in person, but at least far away members could listen.
My advice on a newsletter is send it out via email. We wasted a ton of postage with ours and I'd personally prefer to read it online anyway. For those that want to read it in print, get a printer. A ton of our dues went to mailing our newsletters around the Cleveland area.
Another unsolicited piece of advice is that if you do have meetings, make sure there is some draw. Have tech sessions, or after the meeting, dismantle a parts car or something. When I joined the Cleveland club, we had informational tidbits at the meetings. By the end, it was simply a list of upcoming car shows. People stopped coming because they can look up where the car shows are online, there was nothing to draw people in.
As with any club, there will be people with pristine low mile cars who still take them to the dealer for oil changes, and other people with radically modified custom cars who don't trust anybody near their cars, and show up for meetings still with grease on their fingers. You can try to appeal to everyone, but my advice is to stay true to whatever it is you like to do. If you work on your Fiero a lot, have meetings centered around what you are doing. If people show up and show interest let them share what they do to their car. Yes, it may drive a few people away, but if you try to appeal to everyone, in general, you'll drive everyone away. At least, that's my $0.02 worth.
Tom
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1988 Fiero GT
Custom Corvette / MR2 electro-hydraulic power steering
17" rims covering up 11.25" rotors with Cadillac Calipers & drop spindles
