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Why Doesn't Australia have a GTROC?


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I'm not aware of any official skyline club in Australia. In Japan there is the "Official" GTR Owners club, with membership restricted to GTR owners only. Recently in the UK the GTROC UK was created. Aside from operating a great forum (gtr.co.uk) the club offers its members many great benefits:

  • Membership cards and packs
  • club calendar - featuring photos of members cars!
  • discounts with local tuners, garages and parts suppliers
  • group buys
  • numerous events, such as xmas party & BBQ etc
  • official club track days/dyno days etc

The UK club is open to ALL skyline enthusiasts, no matter what skyline they drive. Given the popularity of this forum and the sheer number of skylines in Australia I was just wondering why you don't have the Australian Branch of the GTROC?

unless there's already a club in existence?

Something to think about...;)

(I've just joined the British club myself and am eagerly awaiting the 2004 calendar! :P)

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Hi Dave,

Skylines Australia NSW Pty Ltd - is an officially registered club.

The club has:

Club membership cards

Club Stickers (numerous different types)

An Executive comittee (Pres, VP, Secretary. Treasurer,etc etc)

The club holds regular events (Show n Shine, Advanced Driver Training, Track & Drift days, Rallys etc)

The club has affiliations with numerous vendors for discounts etc

The club has approx. 60+ paid members

The club is CAMS affiliated

Plus other benefits

SAU-NSW is nearly 2 years old and is growing strongly each month !

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There is no GTROC in Australia...

I don't think there are enough GTRs (and owners willing to join) to warrant a GTR only club. Also taking into account the existance of SAU NSW Club, who already offers all that a GTROC Club would offer, why double up?

In any case, why discriminate against GTS-t owners? They should be allowed to join too ;)

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as a mentioned in my initial post, the GTROC UK is open to all skyline owners, even people living abroad (like me) so there is no discrimination against what kind of car you drive. I wasn't aware of the SAU NSW when I started the thread and there doesn't seem to be any direct links of the main page of the forums.

I agree there is no need to start another club when one is already in existence and doing well. :( Though perhaps a name change to GTR AU or something would be cool? ;) Forgive my ignorance, but SAU NSW (I assume NSW = New South Wales) suggests a small regional club as oppossed to the national club that the SAU NSW realy is, right? :cheers:

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Dave, I think you will find that initially, when the Execs were planning the club - a national club was and administration nightmare - thus the NSW only.

Just becuase the name is NSW - doesn't mean that members are limited to NSW residents.

I think Victoria and Qld are starting clubs too - maybe not formal ones (ie proper not-for-profit Company Names - pty ltd) Maybe they are - not sure here.

A National Club would be tops though ! More members, more benefits !

Maybe one day when all states are registered , there will be an umbrella comittee with National presence but local management ?? I dunno !

From an non-commitee members perspective (I'm a member only) - It's been a pretty hard slog just to set up Skylines Australia NSW.

I'm sure the Exec Commitee can comment more on this though !

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Agree totally - as is the case with the GTROC UK, the comittee members/admin team all work in their spare time and for free and I, as well as all the other members, are extremely grateful to them for all their hard work and effort. Without them there would be no club!

Despite studying geography at uni, I seem to have fogotten how vast Australia is compared to the UK, so I didn't appreciate what a nightmare it'd be to organise a single club on a national scale. But as you say, regional clubs are in development and hopefully in the not too distant future they'll be able to come together to form a national club.

And I totally agree, any Skyline club should be open to all Skylines! ;)

:jump:

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Dave... As Brendan said, when initially starting up the club, a national club was obviously what was had in mind, but after more research was done into federal laws governing the operation of a national club, it was deemed too much work and too big a first step to take.

I'm not sure if GTROC UK is a registered club entity, registered as a non-profit organisation, but we needed to undertake legal registration so we could join CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sport - the motorsport governing body) as a registered club and run CAMS sanctioned events like trackdays and driver training days, etc...

It would have been much easier not to register the club at all with the government and just run it as a "national club", but we weren't able to do that for the above reason with CAMS. ;)

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Good question. I dunno the answer, but on a related subject: I believe the GTROC UK is officially recognized by the orginal GTROC in Japan. Additionally, the club was able to persuade Mr. Hiroshi Tamura to become the clubs "Honory President"...

You can read more of the GTROC's meeting with Mr. Tamura (head of product planning at Nissan) on the GTROC's homepage

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SAU VIC is well underway - open to all 'committed' forum members (whether Skyline owners of not).

We too are keen to make more events 'official' - and to offer merchandise items to members. Starting small though - no CAMS affiliation at this stage.

State-by-state looks to be the best way to do things at this point in time. Baby steps :P

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Does Nissan Australia endorse Skylines Australia NSW club?

Yes.

I believe the SAU NSW Execs had to get written permission from Nissan Australia to use "Skylines" in the club name, and did so before registering the club.

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