No you don't have to come along to meetings if you don't want to. Many of our members are shift workers, and some of them we only see at the Nationals each year. We probably only see 10-15% of our members at each monthly meeting.
You are not obliged to participate at all if you so choose - you can just accept the benefits we have to offer with no obligation. However Club Veedub puts on many VW activities for the VW enthusiast, and the more things you come along to, the more you will get out of you club membership. There are three ways to join if you can't make it to meetings:
1. Go to
http://www.clubvw.org.au/join%20club_veedub.htm and download the 'online payments' form. Fill it out with yiour details and email it to
sales@clubvw.org.au. You will be sent a Paypal invoice so you can pay by credit card or bank transfer. There is a small surcharge for this method.
2. OR - Download the normal membership form (PDF) from the same page. Print it off, fill it out and post it to the club's PO box with a cheque or money order for $45.
3. OR - Download some back issues of our magazine from
http://vwwatercooled.com/mag/mag/history.html. Each issue has a membership form in it - print it, fill it in and send it in with a cheque for $45.
I'm not sure what you mean by a 'specialised club' for your local area. Tiny 'one suburb' VW clubs like that are not viable - they can't have the resources to put on events and shows, publish magazines and webpages, affiliate with CAMS and run motorsport events, buy equipment and library materiel, public liability insurance, etc etc etc that a large club like ours does. Sure half a dozen VW guys can get together to have an informal cruise, for example, but that's not a 'club' in the proper sense. And what happens if something goes wrong and there's an accident - if the police find out you're on a 'run' you are in big trouble without public liability insurance.
Another factor is that the air-cooled VW 'scene' is shrinking each year as the number of cars gradually decreases - the last air-cooled Beetle was sold here in 1976, 33 years ago. There will be a trend for small regional clubs to either join together to survive, or fold.
