[Fot] Important - News on sponsoring new members

[yellow04]

We are winding up the cleanup of the inactive email addresses, and the 
tally is impressive. Look for the final numbers soon. As we worked 
through the process, we gave a lot of thought on how to keep better 
track of the membership. We realized we need to do an annual roll call 
and clarify the process we use to add new members.

While the "we don’t have any rules" thing has worked well for 25 years, 
we are tweaking the process we use to add members. This is pretty much 
how our self-policing group has been doing it, we just never put words 
to the process because we didn’t need to.  And for the record, we are 
calling this a "guideline", not a rule!

As opposed to the nomination process we have been using, we will use a 
"sponsorship" process going forward.

First, we have the designations. All FOT members now fall into one of 
two categories. Drivers or Crew. Drivers are active and former drivers 
who turn (or have turned) the steering wheel in sanctioned competition 
in a Triumph or Triumph powered race car. Anyone not falling into that 
category will now be referred to as Crew.

Only Drivers can sponsor new members. If the new member is an active or 
former driver, it's a done deal, we have a new FOT member. No seconds 
needed, we are counting on our existing Driver members to vet the new 
folks they sponsor. If a Driver wants to sponsor someone who is not 
another driver, i.e. become part of the FOT Crew, or someone who is 
actively on the path to becoming a driver in a Triumph they should 
submit that request to our membership committee through me.

We think this clarification makes sense to keep our membership on point 
and strong. The FOT is proudly keeping Triumphs on track and relevant!

Henry Frye
yellow04 at tr4racer.com
keeper of the website and membership roster