<VV> CORSA IS DYING - OH REALLY?

[Corvair Underground]

Good Lord people - How long does this have to go on?

A car didn't get the classification someone thought it should and that 
is "proof" of why Corsa is dying.. Some people are so upset about it (so 
they say) they'll even drop their membership.

It really makes me wonder if Corsa's future really depends on the 
membership of people that think that way.

Would you like to know how long the "Corsa is dying" mantra has been 
going on? Well coincidentally ever since the internet became popular. 
Every time someone had a complaint (legitimate or otherwise) or got 
their feelings hurt (usually at a National convention)  the wise sages 
all opine -" this is what's killing Corsa.".

Every time a new sparkplug joined the board and didn't get his/her own 
way - well, "That's what killing Corsa". The fact that without consensus 
you can't get what you want no matter how right you think you are.  Rule 
#1 in politics is you have to know how to count. "They" are killing 
Corsa because "they" want to keep doing things the same old way?  Who 
exactly are "they"? I spent 3 years on the board myself and I didn't see 
anything any different than with any other internal political body.  
"They" are your fellow Corvair owners who may or may not agree with what 
you want to do.

Well, it turns out to be a very slow death., apparently, as Corsa is 
still around, still has numerous successful conventions (including the 
Nationals) and, despite the internet age hasn't lost a giant part of 
their membership.

But Lon, membership has been steadily declining - for the past 20 years. 
Yup - a sign of the modern age where the internet tells us the big lie 
that everything should be free. It's why swap meets, conventions and 
more traditional means of "getting together" are slowly dying. The 
internet age has killed magazine advertising and a lot of the printed 
word.  Let's also not forget the average age of our membership - are we 
supposed to believe that, if we just did the job right,  there's a whole 
massive number of young Corvair lovers out there that we could get to join?

In the 90's my company had a customer list of over 80,000 yet Corsa's 
membership was under 7,000. This was in a time when there was no other 
competition for Corvair owners - The fact is most people are not club 
joiners. That's radically more true today.

The honest truth is Corsa has been doing an amazing job maintaining it's 
membership as well as it has. I understand Harry and Mike are retiring. 
To all those who believe that getting rid of them is the answer, well , 
we'll see now won't we.

But I'm a realist. The people who use every little personal 
inconvenience or slight as an excuse to "prove" "that's why Corsa is 
dying" are not going to away.  The internet gives every person a giant 
megaphone to use or misuse however they want. Ain't it just great?

So I'll ask - are you going to help prolong Corsa's life by supporting 
it - or take the easy "internet" way and just snipe at it until it 
really is dead?

Lon Wall