AMCA Verification of Member Data??????

[grollock]

The AMCA website states that the information verification conducted by our "trusted" partner
Publishing Concepts is of no cost to club. Remember: you don't get nothin for nothin.
Gary #7334

[WILEY]

Question:

Went to the AMCA website a few minutes ago, made sure my info was up to date and accurate, then checked the boxes excluding my name and phone number from any list.

Does this now automatically exclude my name and info being used in this 3rd party offering or do I need to do something else to insure my privacy?

Thanks in advance

[Rollo]

I brought this whole roster idea up for the last 3 years at the meetings at Denton, Oley and Wauseon and was told "we're working on it". Well this is not what I had in mind. What we had was fine and that is what we should be doing again. We used to do it every couple of years so that new members were included. Just look at the responses here and that should be obvious. I specifically brought up the point that Rich did about having it with me when traveling so I would have potential contacts as I travelled. I don't need a year book for that. I was going to call today but have decided to take a wait and see approach now. JMHO

Tom (Rollo) Hardy
AMCA#12766

[gww]

thinking this was on the level i sat thru it till the sales pitch. then the only two payments of 184.00 something. WHAT? then how bout without the travel bag $???.00 . WHAT?. then how bout $??.00 for sum other bs.. BUT WAIT.. C L I C K..... think n this was handled wrong if it is on the up n up.. gary

[Skirted]

I had experience with PC in the car club I am in about 8 years ago. They are good at marketing and choose words carefully. They use the club name to make people think they are acting as an integral part of, or on behalf of the club itself. Bottom line is they have one objective and that's to make a profit off club members. We had good number of members being hounded (including me) on the phone because they didn't respond to the request via mailing. It created a whole lot of PO'd members, some started dropping out of club, and the project was shutdown within a month after being launched. It was a disaster in this clubs case.

With privacy problems being such a big concern these days, people just aren't comfortable giving any info to a 3rd party. Who knows what PCI's security is on their servers. There is no guarantee it won't be hacked from an external source of even internal to PCI

I understand the intentions were good and there may seem to be a benefit for club on the surface, but the cost/risk of involving a 3rd party is too great in my opinion. PCI should state the high cost of the directory right up front. They don't because if they did the cat would be out of bag and few would send their info.
Hate to be a negative nanny on this one but my personal experience with them has not been good.

[RichO]

Close to $100 for a club roster of members. Oh, I forgot you get pictures and stories of said members. We get that in the club magazine every other month. What a crock!

[gharper]

I for one have benefited greatly from the use of the previous club rosters and find them to be a valuable resource. The rosters have been a great way for me to chase down leads on old bikes and parts, from all over the world! IMHO a simple roster of the current dues paying AMCA members is all we need. I liked the pattern of printing one issue indexed alphabetically by name and then the next issue listed by states, it was a good way to search for a contact, either by name or state. For that reason, I've been looking forward to an updated roster.

It is my understanding that the information in past rosters was confidential, and was available only to AMCA members and is not to be used for commercial purposes, sold or shared with anyone else. What has changed here, why and at what cost?

Kieth, I get the need to update member's information and your task of growing the membership. Those appear to be two separate tasks however and by combining those tasks it appears to be a big sales pitch of our personal information which I predict will go over with our members just about as well as a floating turd in the punch bowl at the church social!. Updating the information of members is done with renewal of membership, correct? That is the ONLY info that should go into a club roster and members can opt out of sharing that info at that time if they choose, or go in later and change that on the AMCA web site. You mentioned that the list provided to your "Trusted Friend" contains 30,000 or so contacts, including many past members and the need to follow up on them. Remember, many members left the AMCA in disgust over financial issues, club management policies etc. and they sure as hell aren't going to respond to a request for their updated information! Many members have passed away too, so dead ends there as well. So unless your "Trusted Friends" can sell something, and lots of it, they will loose their ass! I can't believe they aren't aware of this, so, what's the rub here??!! Now, with that said, if current members also opt out of the sharing of their contact information, as many are clearly doing, that makes the roster incomplete. So why in hell would I buy an incomplete roster from the AMCA, or their "Trusted Friend" at an inflated cost that only contains the contact information of those few remaining members that do not opt out, either intentionally, or by accident? If you want to chase down the other 20,000 contacts and try to get them back in then do that separately. However, it seems like a colossal waste of your "Trusted Friends'" time and another perceived intrusion into the personal information of the existing membership. It seems pretty cloudy as to exactly what info will be shared with whom and in what format, so the reaction by most members will be to opt out.

PHEWW!!!! I feel better already, sorry for my rant, but what was wrong with what we had, that worked just fine and the information came directly from the data base used for mailing!

I would like to request that the board reconsider the wisdom of this endeavor. Oh wait, we can't really solicit our board members can we......sorry, another topic.....

[hennigan62]

do you folks have anything better to bitch about ? did mine last night on phone. lady very nice, asked her questions and i answered. told her i was not interested and that was it. roster a good idea. if they are selling them at wauseon i will buy one. kieth just doing job he was hired to do. see you at wauseon. i will be on the red and white 62 fl.

[T. Cotten]

do you folks have anything better to bitch about ?

Well,.. since you asked...

Strange how the format dismisses vendors' company names, often struggling industries that are so critical to not only the AMCA, but the future of vintage motorcycling as well.

An on-line, editable roster would have made infinitely more sense, although much harder to charge big bucks for!
No doubt this hardcopy roster will be 'collectible', as it certainly seems to doom itself to rarity.

Never trust a sub-contractor (or a committee) to get it right the first time.

Thanks for asking.....

....Cotten

[Robert Luland]

do you folks have anything better to bitch about ? did mine last night on phone. lady very nice, asked her questions and i answered. told her i was not interested and that was it. roster a good idea. if they are selling them at Wauseon i will buy one. Kieth just doing job he was hired to do. see you at Wauseon. i will be on the red and white 62 fl.

No! They have nothing else to do but bitch. They do the same thing again and again. Retirement sucks, The wife sucks, the club suck, E-bay sucks, I can't get it up sucks. Everything sucks as I hide behind anonymity with my phony name! This thing just gives these Ding-Dongs a outlet to vent. Soon as mine shows up I'm going to fill it out.

[rbenash]

Retired for almost 3 years.

The directory I have is way old.

Planning to do a "personal cannonball" next year with my brother - he's going to be 67 poor b'tard. He retired this year, I beat him to it and retired at '62 :-)

Figured a directory would be good to have on hand in case I run into some trouble. I will have a set of serious spares on a shelf at American Cycle Fab
for overnight ship is I really need something serious. But the directory would hopefully give me some contacts to trust along the way if I need to know
about a good shop, etc.

Friendly person on the phone, my choice to buy or not. Just simply asked how much for just the book. So asked questions buy what I want there was no
arm twisting.

No hard sell.

So - bought one, just the directory - how much would it cost for me to drive to Chespeake meet or to Waseon and pay the same price there?
At my age will probably be the last one I buy.

All good for me. Don't want it? Don't buy it. Figure it's good for the club regardless.

Nothing sucks - I love retirement! Everyone should try it. I have no reason to btch since I stopped working for "the man" :-)
I feel blessed that I could actually do it. Every day is great.

[JoJo357]

Quit Bitchin' Robert--hahaha. Signed: GUY LOMBARDO. A no brainer, i filled it out.

[RichO]

Mr. Luland, The name's Richard Ostrander or Rich O. and yes I've had the moniker Dr. Sprocket for over twenty-five years and I don't hide behind it (given to me by an old friend). You need not get personal. I answered their questions, then the pitch, said no thanks. I thought the price way to high for something that should fill our current need for a simple updated roster. You can call it bitching if you wish I call it stating my opinion which I'm still able to due. Gene Harper's statement says all I wish to have said far better than I. Thanks Gene. I've read many of your own stylish remarks on this forum over the last few years Mr. Luland so I wouldn't throw stones.

[Keith Kizer]

Wiley, that keeps your information from showing up in the directory.

[Keith Kizer]

Rich, To be perfectly transparent, I too called the number today. Even though my names on the card, the operator never caught on to that. He was very polite (clueless about motorcycles) He asked me what kind of bike I owned. I told him an Indian. He said, "is that a Harley-Davidson?" I just kept listening to his pitch. I said I am not interested in merchandise, how much for the directory. After he said $115 with shipping, I said, "That too much money, I only paid $15 for a roster a few years ago." He said there had not been an AMCA directory in 19 years. He is correct, but he knows nothing about our Roster. At the end he was polite knowing I did not want to purchase one. He asked if he could send me an email with the details and politely thanked me for my time.