Judging clarifications

[Tommo]

Gerry,
What you are describing is a dictatorship.
Are you sincere when you say play by our (meaning the BOD) rules or we'll kick you out?
That's a very scarey statement.

[Sargehere]

I'm sorry, Peter. You don't understand the make up of such a voluntary organization incorporated as this one is, in one of the United States (and each state might be slightly different in their legal code, varying according to the wording of the state's laws governing incorporation). And, in general, all of our fifty states recognize the rules of every other state as the binding authority on the conduct of that organization.

Very basically, the club is recognized as being made up of only the members of the board of directors. They're responsible. They are the club. (and that is also the reason that you don't see any board members down here in the mud, slugging it out on these forums. They would then open themselves to personal liability, where now, they are protected by being members of the corporation: what "limited liability" means, "L.L.C.:" vis-a-vis, "limited liability corporation," or in British, "Ltd.")

When you send in dues to a club under those rules, you are simply being granted the privilege of participation in the activities of the said club. That means membership is not a grant of say-so in the day-to-day affairs of the club, to those paying dues, in the way the club is to be run; no "rights" are conferred, just a toleration of your presence. If the club declines to grant you membership, you can go somewhere else, or go found your own organization and establish rules for it more to your liking. The only exceptions to this would be proof of violation some very specific laws barring "discrimination," based upon age, sex, race, national origin and some of a variable palette of others, which vary according to the state in question.

But being a disruptive force interfering with the peaceful conduct of the normal affairs, and inciting disruption of the affairs of the club does not need to be tolerated. The club, in the person of the BoD, can just decline to accept your membership renewal, and your membership ends when your year runs out, short and sweet. If the situation is more urgent than that, the club, the BoD, might kick you out immediately, and possibly owe you only a refund for the unused portion of your membership paid for that term.

It's not like citizenship in a country, with "rights," Peter, it's a gentleperson's agreement to participate in entirely voluntary, and optional, activities. In our case, we love antique motorcycles, but we haven't a right to make our homes here in the club. Someone brought up "autocracy" the other day. Well, yes, basically, it is. It's not a national government and we're not citizens with rights. We are here at the pleasure of the members of the board of directors.

By the way, before you ask, no, I'm not a lawyer/attorney/barrister. I just worked with and around them for almost twenty years, in the US Army "JAG," Judge Advocate General's Corps, and picked up quite a lot, besides researching this specific scenario in the 1970s while a member of this club, but on the other side of the fence. My conclusion: AMCA members have no "rights."
That is why I know it's futile to protest the otherwise legal administrative decisions of the BoD. What's past is past, the changes were made. You can continue as a member under the new rules, whether you agree with them or not, or you can drop out. It makes no difference under the laws of incorporation.
I like the AMCA, it's the premiere antique motorcycle club in the world, so I'm staying. For as long as the Board continues to accept my annual dues, at least.

[Sargehere]

I see.
We all see clearly now...

....Cotten

I think that now you may see clearly, Tom. "Tommo," Peter, finally asked me the right question.
Thank you, Peter!

[fillibuster]

Taken less seriously, this is like the Sunday morning funnies!
Happy Father's Day, everybody, life's pretty good!

[Paps]

Kinda on the outside a lookin in.....I see terrible leadership decision making. To allow the talents and skills of judges to go to waste is the poorest of decision making I have seen thus far. The small picture shows a heated few days between leadership and long term membership services at odds over club direction...what have you... A spat led to ousting of top knowledgable people. Leadership may or may have not made correct or incorrect choices but to oust such talent ?....WAS DEFINATELY A HUGE MISTAKE. Leadership should have relied on common sense and not commited the same act as what has been preached as hurt feelings coming from the ousted. A temper tantrum between individuals led to BAD decision making. Reverse the mistakes !! Settle the controvercy ! Turn the clock back to the big bang time and rethink the issues ! Paps

[2wheels]

Mr Lyons

You are so incorrect on so many things. If the entire membership feels the way you do, why are you and Eric the only 2 showing any opposition to Robin? I'm sure there are more, those that are uninformed, but not in the numbers you say. Robin is emotionally stable, but I do wonder about you.

If you would have actually read Robin's posts you would know that he wasn't in Daytona waiting to be asked to be Chief Judge. He did however wait at his booth in Eustis on Saturday to be told what was going on. As Robin stated in a previous post, he was told by Rocky in an email that he would be the first person he would ask to be Chief Judge if Kevin was fired. So I guess Rocky lied in his email. Rocky did give Robin till the end of bike week to give him an answer whether he would stay as Assistant Chief Judge and be under the new Chief Judge or if he felt he had to step down. Of course this was said to Robin, in Robin's trailer, and Rocky couldn't look him in the eye. Robin didn't sit around Daytona waiting to be asked to be Chief Judge, Robin has been going to bike week for many, many years. He does engine work for some of the racers. But, when he was within arm's reach of the new Chief Judge at several functions, who was to be his new boss if he took the position, Mr Dawdy couldn't even look him in the eye and shake his hand and say I hope we can work things out and work together. Why? Because he was told not to speak to Robin. Was it up to Robin to congratulate him on becoming the new chief judge, when it was done underhanded? When Robin gave this man his judging card after the Davenport judging last year and this man never judged a motorcycle in the AMCA as a card-carrying judge, now he was put in position over Robin, a man that knows more about how to judge than anyone. And why do you think neither one of them could look him in the eye, because they both knew how wrong this whole thing was. If you would have read his previous posts you'd know all this.

And when are you going to get it through your thick head that Robin is NOT running any campaign on the phone, internet and emails etc. Yes, he answers the phone and answers emails from people who contact him, there is no law against that. But he's not sitting down with a phone or email list contacting people about the corrupt members of the BoD. Why do you think there's so many people that don't even have a clue that Kevin and Robin aren't still in their positions? Yes, he did try to share the truth on this forum because he felt the members needed to know what the corrupt members of the BoD were up to. There's no law about doing that either.

There's no use trying to get you to understand. You have your mind set on how you think this all happaned. If you take the time to read the emails from the judging committee that Kevin offered you, you'll understand how they were out to get Kevin and Robin from the beginning. I got them, I read them, it's unbelievable.

You keep mentioning about the wonderful BoD and how they follow their rules and do things just right. Well, how do you feel about one of the members going against the Policies and Procedures of the club and instead of getting ousted from the board, he was rewarded and given the right to carry out his illegal committee that he started. B e c a u s e the president wanted to get rid of the judging, and he seems to have managed to get the ball rolling on that.

You mention it's what a man does after he makes a mistake that shows what type of man he is. Robin didn't make a mistake. He was robbed of his position by a corrupt president, one that's not doing what he should be for the members. If there are actually people stupid enough to question Robin's stability, maybe they should look in the mirror. Maybe you should look in the mirror and ask if you're doing the right thing to drag Robin's name through the mud. Or, will you hang your head and not be able to look at yourself because of what you're doing, the same way the president and the new Chief Judge couldn't look at Robin.

You seem to have a lot of information about what the board is going to do, so either you've got a contact on the board or you have a great imagination.

Maturity....was it mature of Rocky to ask Kevin to step outside so they could fight?

In years to come, all the board's dirty laundry will be out there for all to see. They should be more careful. The current board's legacy is on a downhill slide. They should admit their mistakes, but that would take a mature, emotional stable and honest man. I guess they took those two out of office. I sure hope they make some wise decisions in September.

I guess you're just uninformed. Maybe you should talk to someone that wants to tell you the truth instead of what they want you to hear. There's a lot of people that don't want to send in their dues next year. We can't let some of the members of the board ruin our club. You should be more worried about the board's activites and about the guys they ousted with no reason, than you are with how those honest guys are "handling the situation". Did those board members really think they'd run and hide under a rug. Did they really think that Robin would pick up a clipboard and be back judging after they treated him like dirt? They should have realized they need to be accountable for their actions. You reap what you sow.....unless corruptness gets in your way.

[Sargehere]

Mr. Anonymous 2wheels, you should read Paps', Paul's, post that preceded yours. He takes no sides, and his only side trip from reality is his calling for the turning back of the clock. I don't think that's possible; so, call me a realist.

You, Mr. Anonymous, along with Robin, are stuck in the past, is all I can call it, and quite imprecise expressing yourself. For instance, I have read, and even footnoted in one of my own posts, above, Markey's post that you accuse me of never reading: Robin's two-part post where he laid out his week in Daytona following the Eustis meet, which you, once again on his behalf, apparently thought it necessary to recount in detail...
(your literary style almost suggests to me, Mr. Anonymous, that you really are Robin, just come back under another screen name after promising me to hold your tongue). I would lay easy money that you are an Indian guy, but only one still bitterly loyal to the ex-Assistant Chief Judge. You and others who've "taken sides" with Robin seem to think that someone's simply reading the old judging committee deliberations emails creates an irresistable sympathy for the way the flim-flam was carried out. It might have been despicable, but it is a fact, it's done, and the members have no say in what occurred or what comes next. So, as many others, I join the chorus: "give it a rest!"

I have even come to think that, perhaps, the club may have turned a corner, when real world business people, obviously among those experienced in such organizational maneuvering (call it a corporate takeover, if you wish), and I've known many, may have descended with fangs bared upon what appeared to them to be a nest of innocent babes, and they had them for lunch. We will just have to wait-and-see about that, what shakes out, but demanding a return to Camelot at this time is not going to go anywhere.

See? I really have no favorites in this fight. Just like most people who are aware of it, I just want the constant whining and useless plotting in the face of the reality of it to end. It will really make no difference: whining and crying further about the unfairness of it all. It's done(!) and only the club BoD, answerable to no one, can cause the book to be shut on this episode, or even the page to be turned. As I've also said before, we're all looking forward to learning the outcome, the news of which we will likely receive on the ground at Davenport, where I've heard such news many times before.

You are obviously, tho, not among those who have privately expressed their own disgust at Robin's revealing, childish conduct since Eustis, but who won't post to this board, as Robin seems to be given much credit for being able to exert such sway in Indian circles that they fear for their own reputations if they say what they what is really on their minds. Oh, yes, they are real, Mr. Anonymous: your fellow Indian guys who also want to see this whole episode end, and aren't holding out for (an impossible) turning back of the clock to February, but who wish for the club to just get back to business, with or without Robin Markey's services.

Robin Markey has childishly refused to quit, apparently not knowing when he's been hornswoggled, and has done everything he can to foment dissent and drive a wedge through the middle of the best antique motorcycle club in the world. That is his sin, to me. I love this club. Not for the personalities; I have no deep loyalties to anyone but my wife and family, but the idea of the club. I have been here since it was always referred to as the "AMC," like, the "Antique M.C.," before the "A" seems to have been tacked on in the '70s, to make it sound a little more acceptable in genteel company.

You are, obviously, at least one of those that he got to, and he's convinced you to now carry his torch, recanting for him for the umpteenth time, how wronged he was. All that is already available in "See posts by Robin," accessible by clicking on his underlined name in this forum. It can be read in there, over, and over, and over, and now under your own nom de plume, once again; the same, sad, story... over.

All those knock-down, drag out details are, as I said before, immaterial, Mr. Anonymous. "Justice" will not be meted out, however much Robin deserved better treatment than he got. This isn't the People's Court, Mr. Anonymous, it's a membership club, and you and I have no say in it.
The people currently making up the BoD will do what The BoD always has, in my long experience here: they will put an end to the boat rocking by the mal-contents, and carry on. It doesn't take a crystal ball, or any special access to the BoD (which, as I've stated, none of whom I even know in passing, let alone personally). I simply know how the system works from long experience.
We may be training new judges, and cultivating new marque experts with special knowledge of particular marques and models this year, and maybe the next, but as a result, all those persisting in their alleged "strike" against AMCA Judging will only find, soon, that their jobs have been 'filled,' and their services are no longer in demand.

You keep mentioning about the wonderful BoD and how they follow their rules and do things just right.

Not true, either. The way the change of Judging leadership was conducted stank. But it's over. You and I have no more right to demand satisfaction from the BoD for these past indiscretions than the man on the moon. We're just annual members. Did you ever wonder why the club does not offer multi-year memberships (it never has, you know)? There are only annual, board membership (making someone a responsible member of the corporation) or Honorary (a form of "Life" membership, even post-mortem). That is, in part, so that they can simply decline to accept a troublemaker's renewal check, and be done with him quickly.
It's done quietly (normally) and it is effective. The exiled can apply for reinstatement, and some have been readmitted to membership. But some are not.

[junkyarddog]

Geery
FYI if you look on page 76 of the summer 2010 mag you will see that a 3 year membership is available with a plastic membership card.
Jim

[Sargehere]

Geery
FYI if you look on page 76 of the summer 2010 mag you will see that a 3 year membership is available with a plastic membership card.
Jim

Thanks, Jim. Changes, eh?

[2wheels]

I'm not Robin. But I've known him for a long time. I'm not just an Indian guy. But this is the Antique motorcycle club and without the past there is no future. Robin said he's not going to even look at these judging threads anymore.

My reason for posting was to try to stifle your vicious personal attacks towards Mr Markey. When you stop those, I will be glad to "give it a rest".

[Sargehere]

I'm not Robin... I will be glad to "give it a rest".

Providing we aren't treated to a virtual parade of proxies carrying on for others on this subject between now and Labor Day, it rests, as far as I'm concerned.
No one will be gladder than me when the club can come back to its collective senses, and return to being an amicable and fun undertaking dedicated only to our love of old motorcycles.

[junkyarddog]

AMEN for the Brotherhood
Jim

[Britluv]

Man o' man! If some of you guys spent as much time in the shop as you do writing this stuff, we'd have a lot more completed bikes to judge!

[bmh]

Man o' man! If some of you guys spent as much time in the shop as you do writing this stuff, we'd have a lot more completed bikes to judge!

Some just type faster

[jwl]

Yes, some sure can type and talk fast. I may talk too much too but I am still reminded of a quote by George Clooney: " You never really learn much from hearing yourself talk." If everyone took that to heart this would be a pretty dull forum. lol. John Lindemann