MAG Ireland's new web site

carsQhere

Posting the following on behalf MAG Ireland;

MAG Ireland, The Irish Motorcycle Action Group, is pleased to announce the relaunch of our web site at http://www.magireland.org

As a voluntary riders rights organisation, MAG Ireland works to promote and protect motorcycling in Ireland, however we have had something of a communications defecit in the recent past. This new site is the first in a series of steps we are taking to address that.

MAG Ireland values your input as riders, so please feel free to use the site's contact form in this regard.

Just to add, if anyone has any difficulties using the site like broken links or the like, please e-mail webmaster@magireland.org so the web developer can fix them.

Interceptor

Forty quid for a card and a wallet? I have seen no MAG Ireland activity on boards.ie or anywhere else in years - whats going to change now? The new website has the same stuff that the old site did and they STILL don't have a discussion forum. No lists of supporting dealers, no contact details for bike related companies (insurance companies, breakdown assist, specialist legal advice), no galleries of pictures from MAG activities over the years.

Thanks OP and all that but...Pfft.

'cptr

hobochris

I have to agree with Interceptor, I am fairly new to biking(only a few years on bikes), I haven't had a reason to join MAG nor has one emerged to date.


I would recommend a "Why join MAG?" section, detailing reasons to join and a list of benefit's.

cantdecide

hobochris wrote: »

I have to agree with Interceptor, I am fairly new to biking(only a few years on bikes), I haven't had a reason to join MAG nor has one emerged to date.


I would recommend a "Why join MAG?" section, detailing reasons to join and a list of benefit's.

Ditto.

I remember hearing about them years ago when my brother had bikes and I hadnt. TBH, I have little or no awareness of them at the moment.

carsQhere

Interceptor wrote: »

Forty quid for a card and a wallet? I have seen no MAG Ireland activity on boards.ie or anywhere else in years - whats going to change now?

Very little unless more people get involved. 5 or 6 part-timers can only ever scratch the surface like. The biggest change should be MAG actually communicating what is (and is not) happening.

Interceptor wrote: »

The new website has the same stuff that the old site did and they STILL don't have a discussion forum.

The reason there is no discussion forum is because it would need someone to moderate it. Again, more bodies needed. I do a bit for MAG now and again but I've no intention of burning my evenings & weekends modding a MAG forum, and I doubt anyone else in MAG has either. That said I'd like to see one, I just don't see how it could happen.

Interceptor wrote: »

No lists of supporting dealers, no contact details for bike related companies (insurance companies, breakdown assist, specialist legal advice), no galleries of pictures from MAG activities over the years.

MAG is about riders rights first and foremost & the content is intended to reflect that. The lad that did the site did it (& is still doing it) in his own time. I wrote some bits and pieces for it & for Road Runner (MAG newsletter). I know there are some galleries in the works, but you could be waiting a while for the dealer directory. If you want to contribute a list of breakdown assist people or insurance specialists yourself that would be welcomed too.

Interceptor wrote: »

Thanks OP and all that but...Pfft.

'cptr

Ah no bother, I can easily understand why people get frustrated with it and I do myself sometimes. So I just do my wee bit, and I don't get too hung up on the rest of it to be honest.

Thanks for the feedback, it's good to know the way people see it.

Interceptor

carsQhere wrote: »

Very little unless more people get involved.

Thats the chicken-and-egg of it unfortunately. We need a voice for bikers in Ireland and the majority of us see MAG as a toothless dog. I'd happily pay €50 a year if I thought the organisation delivered ANY value - the website is essentially unchanged in the last five years. No-one from MAG has said a word in here since this brief discussion started - if I was involved I'd check the half dozen Irish bike forums daily and make relevant comments.

My point about the web forum needs careful consideration - at the moment people get their advice from traders and from other websites. MAG is ideally placed to provide consistent, up to date advice to bikers and would-be bikers but falls short. Two hours spent copying suitable links from a couple of other bike websites would increase the value of the MAG site by an order of magnitude - its not rocket science, but then again we're not rocket scientists.

Shiny side up now!

'c

carsQhere

Interceptor wrote: »

I'd happily pay €50 a year if I thought the organisation delivered ANY value

That's a very good point actually.

Here's an example - The third driving license directive is coming, and the RSA wanted to have it so that riders do the same bike test up to 3 times over as they move from category to category. MAG got in there a couple of years back and managed to convince the RSA, eventually, that this was a dumb plan. Now riders only have to sit the one test, and moving from category to category will involve a bit of training and an assessment type situation, not a full on re-test. So now the Irish situation is held up as the model situation for other EU states. The EU's not-so-secret plan to effectively legislate bikes off the road by making new riders take 3 tests has failed.

Now the problem here is nobody in MAG bothered to tell the world that this was what happened, and so nobody outside MAG saw this as MAG delivering the goods in terms of preventing stupid legislation getting to the statute books.

That stuff is still not on the MAG web site. What we have here is - for the most part -a failure to communicate. The big issue with the old site is nobody bothered to update it, and riders like yourself saw no value there.

Going back to the point I made earlier, the biggest change should be MAG telling us as riders what's happening and what is not happening.

carsQhere

hobochris wrote: »

I would recommend a "Why join MAG?" section, detailing reasons to join and a list of benefit's.

There are two kinds of organisations in the non-profit world. The first is dedicated to serving it's members individual needs, the "what's in it for me?" approach.

The second type is about fulfilling your vision of how you want the world to be.

MAG Ireland for me is as much about what you give as about what you get. Ultimately, the goal is to protect your right to ride a bike, something a lot of people feel we should have no right to do.

The benefit's of supporting MAG are mostly intangible. You have the satisfaction of knowing that you are lending your voice for the benefit of all of us who ride motorcycles, and not a lot more than that.

Like anyone else, I might disagree with the methods used, or the decisions or policy positions taken by MAG. I support MAG only because I believe that the decisions made are in the best interests of us as riders, even if I don't always agree with them, or the people who promote them.

Everyone makes their own choices for their own reasons. I do it because I ride bikes and I have a deep seated distrust of people who think I shouldn't be allowed to. Those are my reasons, and they may not suit you. Horses for courses and all that...

HellsAngel

Have to agree with most of the posters. In the early days there were some enthusiastic people invovled. Nowadays it's like a govt quango - a talking shop and waste of money.

carsQhere

HellsAngel wrote: »

Have to agree with most of the posters. In the early days there were some enthusiastic people invovled. Nowadays it's like a govt quango - a talking shop and waste of money.

Whereas what MAG should be doing is...?

AgileMyth

carsQhere wrote: »

Whereas what MAG should be doing is...?

Something to justify €40 a year

EvilMonkey

carsQhere wrote: »

Whereas what MAG should be doing is...?

Communicating better to existing members, putting a significant effort into attracting new members.
Become relevant to the biking community again.
Using the internet more to achieve this. Its 2010 and they just updated the website while other groups are using Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Email(last email i got from the MAG mailing list was years ago) to publicise them selves and spread their message. Not having time to do this doesn't cut it. A printed magazine that rarely gets delivered isn't enough any more.

More MAG events and bigger presence at other events.

Reducing the membership fee to a more realistic price.

Xios

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Communicating better to existing members, putting a significant effort into attracting new members.
Become relevant to the biking community again.
Using the internet more to achieve this. Its 2010 and they just updated the website while other groups are using Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Email(last email i got from the MAG mailing list was years ago) to publicise them selves and spread their message. Not having time to do this doesn't cut it. A printed magazine that rarely gets delivered isn't enough any more.

More MAG events and bigger presence at other events.

Reducing the membership fee to a more realistic price.

I agree, how can they be a voice for bikers when bikers don't even hear them.

carsQhere

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Communicating better to existing members,

Totally agree with you there. The new web site is a part of that.

EvilMonkey wrote: »

putting a significant effort into attracting new members.

Again, spot on. The effort at the minute is in pulling the database into shape to allow people to join or renew on the web site.

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Become relevant to the biking community again.

Riders rights are always relevant to the biking community. We have the EU proposing mandatory ABS on all bikes, and projects like Saferider proposing external control of your throttle when you enter a speed limit. Type approval regulations may yet make it illegal to modify your bike in any way whatsoever. Here at home, the RSA is mad keen to make us all wear compulsory day-glo clothing (which is basically blaming us, and not the vehicles which hit us, for bike accidents). I don't see how riders rights could be any more relevant. I want to be able to wear whatever colour jacket I like, and use whatever tyres I like, or drop a tooth on the front sproket if I like, and so on. That's relevant in my book.

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Using the internet more to achieve this. Its 2010 and they just updated the website while other groups are using Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Email(last email i got from the MAG mailing list was years ago) to publicise them selves and spread their message.

Yes, there has been a communications failure, no question. MAG has a facebook page. Twitter, I don't know. Forums we've covered already, e-mail I believe is on the web developers to-do list. But you're right, it could be better, a lot better.

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Not having time to do this doesn't cut it. A printed magazine that rarely gets delivered isn't enough any more.

Here we disagree. There's 5 or 6 part time volunteers doing 99% of the work. There physically is not enough time available to do anything more than the basics. The last newsletter had a piece calling for people to step up and volunteer their time. Unless more people do, we'll all be weraring day glo yellow and riding heavily restricted bikes a decade from now. Simple as that.

EvilMonkey wrote: »

More MAG events and bigger presence at other events.

Again, agree with you, but it needs more bodies. I do the odd show like Carlow or Lepoardstown if I can but that's as much as I can do - or even want to do. I have a life. MAG board all do likewise. I'm not into rallies, but it would be good if there was a few heads who were and could go and spread the word alright.

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Reducing the membership fee to a more realistic price.

That's up for discussion last I heard, and FWIW I agree, I think it is too high.

rock22

carsQhere wrote: »

Originally Posted by EvilMonkey
Reducing the membership fee to a more realistic price.
That's up for discussion last I heard, and FWIW I agree, I think it is too high.

Charging members increased fees based on age is counter-productive.

I am aware of many motorcyclists who havebeen riding for more than 30 years, who see the fee structure as discriminatory. And many of these would probably give up time to help any organisation which they felt really represented motorcyclists interests.

But would an organisation that discriminates against them in the matter of fees truly represent their interests?

I am not too sure it would.

carsQhere

rock22 wrote: »

Charging members increased fees based on age is counter-productive.

I see where you're coming from, but you kinda have it back to front. The stepped fees came about because younger riders, and particularly those under 25, have to pay much higher insurance premiums than riders over 25. As a result, the MAG board took a decision to make it cheaper for younger riders by discounting the MAG subscription for them. So it's positive discrimination towards younger riders rather than negative discrimination against older riders if you like.