<VV> RE:declining membership in CORSA

[Roger Gault]

Aw Contrary!
As of this last Feb, my VV age survey showed:
===============
Thanks to those that answered.

Total responding = 97

Age
Group    Number
10-19      1    *
20-29      3    ***
30-39    18    ******************
40-49    17    *****************
50-59    30    ******************************
60-69    21    *********************
70-79      6    ******
80-89      0
90-99      1    *

Mean = 51.56
Median = 53
Youngest = 18
Oldest = 93

So, as I suspected, we're a little older than Corvair Center (Mean = about
47).
===============
Roger (somewhere in the middle at 59 chronological, 15 mental)

OK, I was going to stay out of this round of this subject, but I am a weak
person...
In my not very humble, but usually accurate, opinion ;-), the problems with
CORSA as a car magazine are pretty clear.
Through no fault of the magazine staff, it's just plain boring.  Oh, not to
everybody, just to the folks we're trying to recruit.

If you've been active in the hobby for a long time, and gone to a lot of
events, and made friends with fellow Corvair nuts all over the country, then
it's not too bad.  All the social stuff is about friends and acquaintances
and therefore interesting.  Or, if you're a VV member, you can at least look
through the event results and see if any of your fellow geeks are listed.

And, then, there's the entertainment factor of trying to decipher Charlie's
adds - worth at least a part of the price.

Or, if you don't live in Texas, you can look for cars for sale in your area
that you probably wouldn't buy anyway - but it's fun to dream.

But, if you're new to the community, it's usually pretty dull.  If you cut
the social stuff, and the columns from the BOD members (about stuff that you
usually don't care about since you're not deeply involved), you're not left
with much.  There's not enough car stuff.  We need more tech articles, more
history of the car, more "man, look at this really cool Corvair", more "how
to fix that rusty rocker panel", maybe even a few "Smitty's trip across the
country" horror stories (or Daniel M's trip he published on VV last year).
In short, more stuff that will help and inspire the average car guy.

And where, you ask, are we going to get this material?  Why, by begging our
current subscribers (and maybe the VV guys) to get off our dead butts and
write something up.  There's plenty of stuff out there, we see hints on VV
all the time.  But, I, for one, don't feel any pull from the mag to write
something up.  For example, I mounted VDO gauges in my Corsa convert. dash
last year, and had to solve a problem with glare, since all I could see in
the flat gauge faces was sky.  If I gathered up some pictures and wrote a
"construction" article about it, I don't see any sign in the present mag
that it would get published.  So, the pics just sit on my hard drive.

I buy the mag and pay the dues out of a sense of duty to the hobby - and
I'll continue to.  The yearly dues won't buy a good restaurant meal for my
family in Austin, it's not like it's a huge sacrifice.  What do I get out of
it?  Well, somebody had to coordinate the two conventions I went to - the
local clubs need a national focus.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "grant young" <gyoungwolf at earthlink.net>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 3:47 PM
Subject: <VV> RE:declining membership in CORSA


> Bob wrote...
> <If membership is declining it would seem there are others who feel the
> same way>
>
> Or.,,,,,since the average age of a Corvair owner is over 70 and the
average
> age for men dying is about 77....
> hhhhmmmmm????
>
> The Carbmeister
>
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