I dropped off a Massey Colt at a local shop in western, WI for some work a couple weeks ago. Yesterday I got a call from a 74 year old Gentleman that collects Massey-Harris who saw it there and knew the shop owner and wanted to Talk Massey-Harris. We had a nice talk and I asked him if he ever heard of the Massey Collectors Association and he said no. He never uses the internet and apparently has no contact with any local Massey-Harris organizations. He also never heard of the MHF LEGACY Magazine or any other Massey-Harris Collector Association.  Needles to Say I will drop off some info for him next time I am over his way. (A MHF LEGACY Magizine will make his day!)  The real question is how many Massey-Harris Collectors like this gentleman are missing from MCA? 

G in M,

There are indeed many people like this who MCA are not catching in one way or another around the world.

I have raised the mattter before of the need to facilitate non members making contributions to the web site but to no avail - it falls on sadly deaf ears I'm afraid.

John

Thanks for the suggestion John:
I am sure there may be MANY ways  gentleman like this can become involved in MCA. Considering the fact that  he never uses the internet and has no internet access he is likely of the last generation of members that will not have this access or skill. Nonetheless If somehow MCA can gain more memberrs  from   this generation it would be benefecial to all. 

John F.,

Sorry, I thought I had responded to your last inquiry about allowing non-members to post on this site.

Hopefully you will recall how badly our earlier MCA Wesite got so hacked-up by spammers, robo-posters, and the like.  In order prevent that necessitated that we password protect the site from those same spammers/hackers.  The best and safest way to do that was to restrict posting to members who are provided with a password in order to access the site.

This is not a matter of exclusion, but a matter of protecting the integrity of the website.

JB

JB, John and thank you G for starting a very important thread for the future of M-H Collecting.

I fully appreciate  your explanation JB why we are currently where we are with all the protection in place to ensure us members have an excellent resource of all aspects of Massey Collecting and a global way for us all to keep in touch with our favourite brand and the people we know.

Both G and John are correct we are not reaching out to all interested in Massey, on some threads recently we have seen viewing numbers escalate rapidly on two threads, "the 81 and 82 thread and the M-H Bicycle thread* so there must be many people or non members looking and taking in all the information and surely a percentage of those viewers may have some snippets of history to share with us all, unfortunately this is where the current system falls down.

Also from my own personal observations of collecting and being obsessive about Massey Harris for a very long time, I am now concerned that many of our own M-H collectors are NOW moving forward in years and collecting the earlier range of M-F, as the current collecting trend is more favourable to "the Classic" era of tractors and the memories that go with using those machines.

I am not against this progression of time, BUT WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE MASSEY HARRIS?, we are now a much smaller and diminishing group of ageing collectors and we need all the support from both members and non members, young and old to "KEEP THE MASSEY HARRIS NAME ALIVE.

All good food for thought and discussion at the up and coming Spring Meeting.

All The Best,
Malcolm.

The other interesting item about this 74 year old gentleman is that he wanted to keep the small  Massey-Harris collection in the family and that he already had given  a tractor to his grandson.  The question is will the Family continue interest in Massey-Harris and retain the collection well into the future?

I think that Malcolm's comments go a long way to emphasise and quantify the large number of people that we are failing to pull into our Massey Collectors world and thereby contribute to our knowledge of Massey-Harris.

I know nothing of how computers or web sites work and do not understand quite why it is not possible to somehow bring in non-MCA people if they wish to be involved.

However I think that I am right in saying that the Smokestack web site allows this and that is a far bigger and more acitive and diverse web site than MCA.  I don't know how they do it and I may be wrong in my assumptions but maybe worth looking at and considering?

I too am very concerned at the slow demise of the interest in Massey-Harris which has been highlighted this last year by the great lack of interest in the 100th anniversary of the first Massey tractors - even by AGCO who decided rather to celebrate the relative non event of the company's name change from Massey-Harris-Ferguson to Massey-Ferguson 60 years ago

All food for thought and maybe action??

John

John

Its my opinion that the antique tractor hobby in general is a dying breed, as much as I hate to admit that. I do not know many young people my age that are into this kind of thing. We are out there just few and far between. As for reaching out to non members and those who might want to join, has the MCA tried flyers or any othet promotional things before? Like at some of the events they have throughout the year, maybe someone could have more or less a "recruitment booth" or just have something to give more information about the MCA. Particularly more for those who dont have access to the internet. Just my 2 cents. Cheers, Dakota

Dear All,

 

A thought provoking discussion opening up here.

 

In my humble opinion, “the demise” can only be stopped - and preferably reversed - by embracing the opportunities that the internet presents, and creating an even more valuable online community.

 

There are lots of reasons why I think this is the case – but the main one is that it is getting increasingly difficult to get into vintage MH ownership – certainly here in UK I’d say it’s virtually impossible (if not very expensive) which are big barriers to new members even being aware of Massey Harris, let alone trying to find or import one. I recently stumbled into vintage MH ownership purely by chance – and I consider myself very lucky to have done so. As Malcolm says – it is far easier and cheaper to get into classic tractors.

 

We are also very dispersed – in reality the internet is the only means I can be part of this club. I’d love to go to one of the US expo’s but its not feasible. I empathize greatly with the few that administer and host the website, I know from experience it is a real challenge. When I mentioned an ‘even more valuable online community’, what I really mean is one that enables many more people to contribute and is a bigger resource for literature, images, videos, suppliers, contacts, tech advice, parts, specialist repairers, archives etc....

 

I’m a member of quite a few online clubs and forums, every other one is free to join – all you have to do is sign up. The funding comes from sponsors, business adverts and classifieds. I just typed in Massey Harris on google, and the Massey Collectors Association is the 11^th result on page 2. So our association doesn’t stand out at all – not even against a Massey Harris search.

 

I genuinely believe that if the association is to prosper outside of the US states where the clubs are able to get together in person, it has to be on the basis on a big, free, value adding, and easy to find website which anyone can easily contribute, to create a new type of on-line community. There are thousands of successful ones out there.

 

Just my view, but hopefully it is relevant, being a relatively new and relatively young newcomer to MCA.

 

Cheers, Jon.

Some very constructive suggestions coming forward here and very encouraging to hear positive ideas from two of our younger generation of Massey Harris Collectors in two very different areas of the world, thank you both Dakota and Jon.

I now hope this subject will be added to the agenda of the up and coming Spring Meeting in Baraboo Wisconsin, giving an opportunity for all aspects of this discussion to be heard around "the table" and look forward to hearing the Board of Directors, comments / decisions in keeping Massey Harris alive and reaching out worldwide to all who collect and have interest in all things Massey.

Keep Flying The Flag.

Malcolm.