<VV> MOVING FOWARD

[kenpepke at juno.com]

It just staggers me to see how many people actually believe that a Corporation like CORSA can be successful if left to just float around somewhere in the air and relying on the dwindling membership to do what they can to direct!  Just look at your own local CORSA Chapter … see anyone that steps up to lead?  Or do meetings and events just sort of happen among the membership?  Failure to establish a viable Charter with proper leadership has kept CORSA on the border of financial disaster since the beginning.  

Can individual members cause changes?  Sure!  Travel way back in time when the only members welcome at the national convention were owners of show winning quality cars.  In those days the DACC Homecoming regularly had more participants than the National Convention!  The belief was having a show of street driven cars would dilute the quality of the Convention.  Today, you would say that is crazy … but back then I had to campaign, including registered letters, to pressure the BoD to include what turned out to be more than 90 percent of the membership.

For most of the last 25 years I have campaigned to pressure CORSA into taking an active part in promoting that organization.  I have called upon them to provide advertising for the local clubs newsletters; I have called upon them to inform us of new ideas, plans and activities generated to entice new membership!  So far I have been a miserable failure.  But, I know why … Without proper leadership there ARE NO PLANS to bring forward!   

So, does leadership really matter?  Not to those that have no idea how a Corporation like CORSA is supposed to operate.  Every day without leadership CORSA gets closet to failure.  Times are changing.  The heyday of single marque clubs such as CORSA has come … and is going.  Today the hobby has swung to all marque cruises.  If ya take your Corvair to one of these events you might very well be the ONLY one there!  Many will look, few will recognize.  That is the price of CORSA's failure to promote.

There can be no question that the 'ME' and the 'GIVE ME' generations we are raising today have little or no concern about providing support to any group as a whole.  They have no reason to see value in organizations such as CORSA.  Short sighted persons will jump right in and say they know somebody that is not like that!  Still, someday CORSA could fall from their precarious financial position.  It matters not!  Some other far more organized group will take over and the marque will be better off for it.  

At least I have tried.

Ken P
Wyandotte, MI
65 Monza 110hp 4 speed 2 door
Worry looks around; Sorry looks back, Faith looks up.

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On Mar 5, 2014, at 2:00 PM, Bryan Blackwell <bryan at skiblack.com> wrote:

> Hi Ken,
> 
> (Trimmed this a bit)
> 
> On Mar 5, 2014, at 1:03 PM, kenpepke at juno.com wrote:
> 
>> ***********************
>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Clearly they all set out to make a difference.  So what happens at the top to drive these men away?  
>>>> 
>>> I don't know,
>> 
>> The question was rhetorical ...  
>> But, has it ever occurred to you that there might be something wrong?
> 
> Sure.  I don't think it's as bad, nor does it matter as much as most people think.  This is *our* club.  There are no stockholders.  Why is the BOD such a big deal?  Yeah, we need people to set some direction and a budget and such, but other than that, why are we looking to them to solve *our* problems?
>> 
>> *******************
>> 
>>> but it doesn't really have anything to do with accomplishing something.  
>> 
>> I am not at all sure of the meaning of your response.  The members that stepped up to the job did so with the express idea of changing things!  They failed to accomplish anything!
> 
> There's a difference between doing something new and changing something existing.  In either case, you have to get at least six other people to agree with you.  I've seen a lot of Directors show up with a 'my way or the highway' attitude.  Doesn't work very well.  And I disagree that they all didn't accomplish anything.  Maybe they didn't get everything they wanted, but that's not the same thing.  It could be that part of the problem is they think they're going to get their way, not have to work at it from a political perspective, and that these changes might take time and determination.
>> 
>> *********************
>> 
>>> Many of the things I can think of - the Corvair Basics book comes to mind - occurred with essentially zero support from the board.
>> 
>> 
>> Is there any part of you that even considers that something might be wrong?  
>> I mean, why did the BoD choose to give ZERO support?!?  
> 
> Because they didn't want to risk limited resources on something they didn't think would work.  That, to some extent, is their job.  The believers had to convince them.  Hank did a nice job spearheading it, and he's justifiably proud of that.
>> 
>> ***********************
> 
> I don't see the strength of the organization as the leaders.  It's the members.  If the members want something, they should look for ways to do it, rather than a central group to tell them what to do.  The BOD should guide these things - make sure the numbers work, make sure we don't get stuck with a white elephant, make sure it's legal.  All that sort of stuff.  But there's no reason at all that some member couldn't, for example, come along and do some project on the web site that they want to make happen.  Now, I'll meet you halfway and say that the Directors could seek those people out and give them some guidance.  That would be very helpful.  But saying the strength of an organization is the leadership is quite inaccurate, IMHO, and lets people off the hook of effecting things themselves.
> 
> As for numbers, well, the easy answer is how many Corvairs are on the road compared to 20 years ago?  The real question should be, how are we doing as a percentage?  I'll bet the *percentage* of owners who are CORSA members is higher now than in the 1980's.
> 
> Me, I couldn't find a CORSA brochure, so I'm going to make one for my club that's easy for other clubs to use and e-mail it to anyone who wants one.  I really don't care what the BOD thinks of it, but if they like it, great.  James Rice is working on a contact form.  Maybe it'll be official, maybe not, but he's going to do it first and then see if they like it.  That's the way you get things done, not wait six months for the BOD to have a vote.
> 
> --Bryan