I thank you for your perceptions and feedback. What I need to know is have YOU
ever submitted
materials to the editor for publication in an effort to turn this thing around?
NAMGBR members
Officers and Coordinators are all voluntaries who recieve nothing in the way of
payment for the
many hours they donate to MG community. We pay our own way to and from events
and also pay all
entry fees to shows we attend. Heck, I just sent in my dues, we get nothing for
free. It is
unrealistic to ask us to travel many hundreds and in some cases a few thounsand
miles to
represent the organization. The way I see it is, if you are there and you are a
member of
NAMGBR, YOU ARE a representive of the club. As Membership Coordinator I gladly
send information
literature / membership forms to clubs requesting them for use as registration
envelope stuffers
at events. I'll even send Free One Year Membership Certificates for use as door
prizes. There's
one catch....you have to ask me for them. We work hard to make the NAMGBR the
best it can be.
GOOD NEWS: Starting in the next MGB Driver there will be a new feature series
starting. In each
issue two Affilated Local Club Chapters will be featured. We will be notifying
the chapters
several months prior to the deadline of the issue we wish to feature them in
and at that point
to ball will be in their court. I personally have spearheaded this feature and
am real excited
to have MG Car Club - Long Island Centre as one of the first two clubs in this
series. The
other, you'll be happy to learn, will be a California based club.
Bottomline: You want to see more about west of Rockies happenings...make some
noise and we'll
listen and respond. MGB Driver is only as good as the materials it's membership
provides. Help
us make this organization what you want it to be.
Thanks again and Safety Fast, David Deutsch
On 11/08/99 12:49:28 you wrote:
>
> As one of the California members of NAMGBR, I must add my $.02 worth.
>There may be 50+ members in Texas and 150 in California, but I that doesn't
>mean that the club represents us well. Member recommmended shops come from a
>member survey... not from a NAMGBR inspection, so that is spurious to the
>argument about services provided... and how much effort does it take to
>insert a line about an event into a newsletter?
>I do like the club, the magazine, etc... BUT. in our perception out here,
>they are very east coast /midwest oriented. (I would however question the
>comment that they are "top heavy".. it takes a lot of folks to run a big club)
> As a club president, it's very difficult for me to encourage folks to be
>NAMGBR members when there doesn't seem to be any presence out here...Why
>should they join??
> In their (9?) years they have had only 2 (or maybe 3?) national meets out
>here that I'm aware of, and one of those was in Canada. On the other hand, if
>you look at the national meets and annual meetings they've had, and have
>scheduled for the future, the rest are within about a 250 mile radius of
>Nashville. (except for a couple of annual meeting/junkets to Vegas)
> There is only one "west coaster" in leadership, Ron Tugwell, and he
>hasn't seemed to have too much sucess getting the Midwest Clique, as I call
>it, to recognize that there is life west of the Rockies. To my club members,
>NAMGBR is completely irrelevant, as they are completely invisible to most out
>here. The only club officer I've ever met or even seen is Ron
>(except for one most forgettable encounter with a very drunk Robin
>Weatherall.)
>
> Major car meets on the West Coast don't get any NAMGBR representation at
>all. Even the huge Palo Alto event, (with way over 100 MGs present among the
>800 cars there) had never had a NAMGBR official present, until Ron took it
>upon himself to run an information booth there last year... on his own as far
>as I know...) A line item listing in the MGB driver isn't what I call club
>support. NAMGBR reps, info packages, and publicity stuff needs to be much
>more apparent at every car meet of modest size possible... there is one
>MGs-only and 4 multi-marque meets each year within a 3 hour radius of San
>Francisco, the smallest of them always draws 60+ MGs, and NO Namgbr support
>or even presence! Oh yes, and the Publicity Coordinator doesn't even have an
>EMail address!
>
> I have never been called upon by anyone except Ron to give any feedback
>RE how the West Coast could be better served by the club.. Ron was nice
>enough to solicit my input but I unfortunately get the feeling he's a lonely
>voice crying in a wilderness of midwestern bias. Perhaps they're waiting for
>us to cry out for them from Egypt or something, but frankly, if they wish to
>grow their club, they're going to have to get some presence out here and EARN
>some respect. With a nearly 12-month driving season and arguably more LBCs
>registered here than in the rest of the US combined, it's very short-sighted
>of them to be so bloody provincial.
>
>In my mind, the club needs to be broken up into a few regional centers, with
>annual events of equal importance in each one. (see GOF for example) This
>would draw folks together, give some sense of identification, belonging..
>None of this is intended as a slight on the individuals involved, but just a
>reality flash. There's lots of closely connected people and clubs in the
>midwest and east, and they have themselves a nice club.
> At this point, the rest of us are just magazine subscribers.
>
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