AMCA Membership fees to increase to $40 in July

[D.A.Bagin]

Just got back from a ride on one of my old junkers after a hard day and figured I would check this topic. Funny how a thread that was started on the increase of dues turned into another discussion in another area. Here JWL made an extremely generous offer to personally make up the difference on a senior's dues and someone finds fault with it. Amazing. I am going to bring this topic up to our Bear Mountain meeting this Sunday. We have NO MONEY. NONE. If the members vote against sponsoring someone TRULY in need to maintain their membership I will personally sponsor any 10 in need members as JWL said to keep them in the club. Find fault in this. John, PM me on this please.

[shelbyinparadise]

Shelby, can you expand on what you mean by "input"? Surely members of the Board listen to what people tell them and take it into account in making whatever decisions they make. But, you must mean something different than this(?).

Before I try to give you a real example Please allow me to thank exeric for his thoughtful response, there are a lot of good people in this Club that really want to make it better even though out of context it may seem posts are negative.

Allow me to use a real example of the Move from Eustis by Sunshine Chapter. I was and still am a member in good standing of the Chapter and long time vendor there, 20 years.

By P&P rules for Swap meets, the schedule is fixed for the year at the Sunshine Meet in March by the National Board. Eustis Fairgrounds was approved again after 15 years at that location, and the Chapter advised the Vendors their spots were safe for another year.

Fast forward to Wauseon National Board Meeting that summer, and two Sunshine Board members asked the Board for a non emergency permission to move the event to a new location that had a lot of disagreement as to the wisdom of the move by half the Florida board members, not only with the mid year change but the suitability of the location.

The National Board approved the move, without anyone thinking of how this would affect the vendors, losing their favorite spots where their customers we used to finding them. The thought of moving under emergency conditions, most vendors would do what was best for the event. But to be required to move to a new location on short notice was unacceptable to most, even those that did it for the good of the event.

No input reached the National Board about the traffic study done by two Board members of the Chapter who just happened to be experts, working for the Florida DOT as traffic engineers, or input by another Board member that noted that comparing aerial views that the new location was just the size of the Eustis Parking lot, and would seriously restrict the Event size in future years. Another Board member visiting the site questioned the suitability of the dirt floor and improper drainage.

Once the decision to move was approved by National Board Both Vendors and Members questioned the Wisdom of the decision and the Chapter became quite split as to how good an idea it was. They had little to no knowledge of the facts so most played follow the leader blindly. The last 4 years have now proved the problems to be true enough to have Keith look into it.

There is a large paper trail of emails to and from the dissenting Board members and Chapter members but in the end we were stuck with a good ole boy decision to just allow a chapter to violate the National Policies just because they asked.

Just in case you heard the rumor they spread around that the Eustis fairgrounds was closing, I have proved that false by renting it for the 5th year, and if I had not rented it several Florida Board members were planning to do it also out of their pocket.

I know this bores the hell out of most folks but you ask a specific question and I did my best to show how many people were effected by a simple National Board Decision without detailed information.

Davenport could be another example, if the national Board had not lost the $17,000 in vendor fees paid to national. Would we still need to raise the membership fees. Please note they do not get any fees from regional events which are becoming more popular due to high travel costs. Shelby

[shelbyinparadise]

Just got back from a ride on one of my old junkers after a hard day and figured I would check this topic. Funny how a thread that was started on the increase of dues turned into another discussion in another area. Here JWL made an extremely generous offer to personally make up the difference on a senior's dues and someone finds fault with it. Amazing. I am going to bring this topic up to our Bear Mountain meeting this Sunday. We have NO MONEY. NONE. If the members vote against sponsoring someone TRULY in need to maintain their membership I will personally sponsor any 10 in need members as JWL said to keep them in the club. Find fault in this. John, PM me on this please.

No reasonable person would find any Fault in what you wrote. As Membership Director of the Cherokee Chapter I am required to contact members that are behind in National or local dues once a year by Fred Davis the National Director of Chapters. I will not remove someone for being tardy from our mailing list or refuse them notice of local events. We make every effort that no votes are cast by non members but we welcome their input to make our Chapter better. Being open and friendly gains us a steady line of people joining, we signed up over 30 at the Pate Swap meet and had quite a sum donated by people who enjoyed our 135 antique Motorcycles on display for the public . We had gone from 36 paid members to now 250 in just over two years. Lead By Example. "Only the lead cow breathes fresh air" Shelby

[rwm]

Lucky me, Folks,...

I deduct my dues as a business expense.
But with no Meet in my region, and little personal interest in the magazine, its come down to annoying some on this forum that makes my membership worthwhile!


.....Cotten

i can give you luland's email and you'll save the $40.00

[T. Cotten]

i can give you luland's email and you'll save the $40.00

Bobby's always entertaining!

But don't forget my vendetta against the judging system.

....Cotten

[fillibuster]

Without researching the "rules" on honorary members I'll ask:
Are those revered members who were granted honorary membership (I think that's the term) paying any dues to national or chapters?
and, is there something very wrong with a chapter welcoming "prospects" to attend events with them? They wouldn't be getting a magazine, and meet hosts (at national events) would be required to charge them a gate fee, right? Maybe these prospects are on the edge of an annual 2-300 dollar leap with limited funds, but couldn't we "nurture" them at the chapter level? I presume they would need rides to the national meets, maybe some young muscle in the wrenching field, or a keen eye with paint, maybe just the enthusiasm from peers, ... it might be cheap to attend a chapter event or meetings, but to play on the national level is another several hundred bucks, we must all know that.
How about the "associate member" category? Could this be broadened to accommodate those who keenly discriminate between necessity and choice?

John, Shelby, D.A., however noble and generous your offers may be, I don't think the average fella wants charity, but rather he prefers dignity. I think the chapter level should be afforded an avenue to work with that.

In reflection of my peers, we who read the magazine cover to cover may be as scarce as the percentage who visit the web site and or forum. .. Enigma?

[D.A.Bagin]

Fillibuster, If you want to call it charity that's fine. Whatever definition anyone calls it as you said it was an offer to any person in need.

Our Bear Mountain Chapter welcomes ANYONE to our rides, meetings, or other activities, member or not. Old, young,male, female or other. LOL They cannot vote however we welcome anyone.

[BoschZEV]

By P&P rules for Swap meets, the schedule is fixed for the year at the Sunshine Meet in March by the National Board. Eustis Fairgrounds was approved again after 15 years at that location, and the Chapter advised the Vendors their spots were safe for another year.

Fast forward to Wauseon National Board Meeting that summer, and two Sunshine Board members asked the Board for a non emergency permission to move the event to a new location that had a lot of disagreement as to the wisdom of the move by half the Florida board members, not only with the mid year change but the suitability of the location.

...The National Board approved the move,
... The last 4 years have now proved the problems to be true enough to have Keith look into it.

... in the end we were stuck with a good ole boy decision to just allow a chapter to violate the National Policies just because they asked.

As a complete outsider to all of this it took me some time to find additional information. The AMCA Manual is 59 pages long so I could have missed it, but as far as I can tell the National Board sets the schedule but doesn't dictate precise locations. If this is the case, moving the location (but not the date) of the swap meet didn't violate National Policies.

The Sunshine web page forces the viewer to wait for 13 MB to download each time they visit before they can click on anything else so a friendly suggestion is they might want to redesign their website to make it more visitor friendly. But, I see that there are 7 Board members (none by that description, but counting the Trustees, Pres. Treas., etc.). Since they are elected they have to count as "input." From what I infer from your post not all 7 agreed on this move of venue, but I have no way of knowing if it was 5 to 2 against the move (with the 2 being the ones who spoke to the National Board misrepresenting themselves as speaking for the majority) or 6 to 1 for it. But, either way, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that the National Board would assume those 2 spoke for the majority of the Chapter Board when asking for the venue to be moved. Or, since I can't find the venue mentioned in the AMCA Manual, were these two simply informing the National Board of the move as a matter of courtesy, not seeking their permission?

Anyway, no venue is perfect so there will be complaints no matter where it is located. The fact that the new venue has worked well enough for four years, i.e. that the move wasn't immediately abandoned, seems to say it wasn't a disaster. It just generated different complaints than the old venue. Perhaps there are more complaints now, and perhaps the venue is demonstrably worse than the old one, in which case the majority of the Sunshine Board have it in their power to relocate it again. Since they could have done this any time during the last four years, why didn't they? Are you implying the new venue has remained in place the past four years over the objections of the majority of the Chapter Board? That doesn't seem to make sense.

No matter what, if the National Board avoided acting on input of elected Chapter representatives on any matter until they had separately solicited broad input from the members things would grind to a halt. If the majority of a Chapter Board votes to do something that turns out to be a bad decision, the members have the opportunity to vote them out. Maybe the National Board made a mistake in the example you gave, but the information you provided and that I was able to find myself doesn't convince me this was the case. That said, I would be surprised if someone couldn't cite examples where they actually did make mistakes.

The issue isn't whether mistakes were made in any particular case. The issue is whether the National Board makes too many mistakes (whatever "too many" may mean to different people) because of the way it is presently structured, and whether a different structure would result in no mistakes while still being functional.

[fillibuster]

Fillibuster, If you want to call it charity that's fine. Whatever definition anyone calls it as you said it was an offer to any person in need.

Our Bear Mountain Chapter welcomes ANYONE to our rides, meetings, or other activities, member or not. Old, young,male, female or other. LOL They cannot vote however we welcome anyone.

and I think that you are practicing the finest of recruiting tools. Kudos to you and your chapter!

It must have been about 20 yrs ago, heard rumors of a few prominent individuals who had lapsed, intentionally, on their national membership dues, trying to slide by on chapter dues only. The nationals stepped in, enforced things, got the chapter in line with the rules, humbled the offenders, .. not sure of the details because bad news details are kept on the q-t, and it's always been that way (seems). And I'm not an avid student of that 59-page manual of p&p, so I can't tell my peers what exactly keeps us in compliance or results in violation, and I especially don't know a thing about consequences. So if we have chapter meetings and rides and informal swap sessions, and play host to Joe Public as well, we are probably recruiting, but might be in violation of national lines. The fun goes on, hang the watch-word.

'Suppose the responsible thing to do is read the dam book. Maybe we'll assign that task to the guy least likely to do it, and then ignore him if he does.

[shelbyinparadise]

As a complete outsider to all of this it took me some time to find additional information. The AMCA Manual is 59 pages long so I could have missed it, but as far as I can tell the National Board sets the schedule but doesn't dictate precise locations. If this is the case, moving the location (but not the date) of the swap meet didn't violate National Policies.

Applying For a National Meet
"Any Chapter considering hosting a National Meet should give serious thought to several things before applying. First and foremost, the full support of the Chapter is needed because it takes more than a handful of people to plan and run a National Meet. You should consider a location carefully. There should be plenty of room for camping, vending, show activities and the riding of motorcycles. Ample parking is a must. There must be adequate sanitary facilities. The site should permit tight gate control. There must be adequate nearby motel/hotel accommodations and the site should be easy to get to. If your choice of sites does not meet these conditions, do not apply." Renewing for the following year still must meet the same requirements as applying for the first time, please note how many times the site is referenced as important

The Sunshine web page forces the viewer to wait for 13 MB to download each time they visit before they can click on anything else so a friendly suggestion is they might want to redesign their website to make it more visitor friendly. But, I see that there are 7 Board members (none by that description, but counting the Trustees, Pres. Treas., etc.). Since they are elected they have to count as "input." From what I infer from your post not all 7 agreed on this move of venue, but I have no way of knowing if it was 5 to 2 against the move (with the 2 being the ones who spoke to the National Board misrepresenting themselves as speaking for the majority) or 6 to 1 for it. But, either way, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that the National Board would assume those 2 spoke for the majority of the Chapter Board when asking for the venue to be moved. Or, since I can't find the venue mentioned in the AMCA Manual, were these two simply informing the National Board of the move as a matter of courtesy, not seeking their permission?

Anyway, no venue is perfect so there will be complaints no matter where it is located. The fact that the new venue has worked well enough for four years, i.e. that the move wasn't immediately abandoned, seems to say it wasn't a disaster. It just generated different complaints than the old venue. Perhaps there are more complaints now, and perhaps the venue is demonstrably worse than the old one, in which case the majority of the Sunshine Board have it in their power to relocate it again. Since they could have done this any time during the last four years, why didn't they? Are you implying the new venue has remained in place the past four years over the objections of the majority of the Chapter Board? That doesn't seem to make sense. If there was no problem why would the Board require Joe Gimple to attend a National Meeting to discuss Problems?

"II.Sunshine Chapter Representative, Joe Gimpel: Joe Gimpel was invited to the meeting so that the Board could discuss the parking and sign problems associated with the Sunshine Chapter National
Meet at Silver Sands. Joe informed the Board that the Chapter is attempting to alleviate the problem
with several options. The Board offered to help the Sunshine Chapter with this matter and have the
Executive Director become involved." From The Minutes of the Annual Meeting
of the Board of Directors
of The Antique Motorcycle Club
of America, Inc.
October 10, 2014

No matter what, if the National Board avoided acting on input of elected Chapter representatives on any matter until they had separately solicited broad input from the members things would grind to a halt. If the majority of a Chapter Board votes to do something that turns out to be a bad decision, the members have the opportunity to vote them out. Maybe the National Board made a mistake in the example you gave, but the information you provided and that I was able to find myself doesn't convince me this was the case. That said, I would be surprised if someone couldn't cite examples where they actually did make mistakes.

The issue isn't whether mistakes were made in any particular case. The issue is whether the National Board makes too many mistakes (whatever "too many" may mean to different people) because of the way it is presently structured, and whether a different structure would result in no mistakes while still being functional.

I have quoted the Append. E in P&P above in your text in red, which defines what the National Board approves yearly, if there were no problems they would not have assigned the Executive Director the task of finding solutions behind the scenes. This is documented in one of the past board minutes published in Magazine. also see above

Before we get accused of beating a dead horse again, you asked for an example of lack of complete accurate input and I provided it. I have all the emails to back it up. One board member died the other was reduced to a non voting position of the original 9 at the time. You can not read today what was changed years ago, with all due respect.

Again I apologize for getting off topic answering a question publicly, My hat is off to all members wanting to help with offers and opening their chapters to include non voting guests.

Shelby Withrow 940 748 2555 shelbyinparadise@compuwise.net I have nothing to hide, and as a Chapter Board Member I am required to read and understand past and present policies to comply at local level.

[RichO]

FYI, I don't involve myself in the politics of the club anymore. At one time I was a National board member and have always been active in my chapter since it's founding. That includes it's National road runs and regional and National swap meet. I was on the board when Pete Gagan became our President. Since then the AMCA has had to recover from putting the magazine out to the public (a loss), the picking of a treasurer that didn't take care of business properly, (costing us our old tax system), and making us create the Foundation (a loss), buying the Torque 4 (a win?), giving away a pick-up (a loss), and probally something I can't remember. Steve Dawry wanted his wife's travel reinversed for his work traveling as the Chief Judge, As it had never been done before it was rejected. The President of the Blackhawk chapter nutts up on Spag and his chapter backs him and thus no more National at Davenport. Joe Gimpel decides to move Eutis which his chapter has the right to no matter how vendors feel about it. His chapter just provides the venue for them if they choose to take advantage of it. The national board just ok's the chapters request to hold one. Kevin resigns as Chief Judge because the board again won't pay for Markey to go with him on his duties has Chief Judge. All this a southern member feels that Spag is to blame for. He puts a sticker on his bike's windshield disrespecting Spag. When (I don't do facebook) the problem arose about Kiser and the youth coordinators program again Spag was the default setting. This is not in his defense because it appears that Spag can take care of himself and chooses to take the high road. But I as a more then thirty year member who's small chapter just so happen to win this years sign up of the most new members with as many active member as a certain southern chapter I'm just a little tired of a certain gentleman's rants concerning Spag and the board. By the way, do the math, 10,000 members at $10 equals the new Director yearly pay. At least it doesn't come out of the exsisting treasury. Peace to all and I'll see you on the road in N.H., Wisconsin, and Yosemite. What's the cost of Cycle World per year? No meets or rides, or chapters with that subcription. Rich P.S. Can't we just all get along and ride our bikes. The past is past and I know for a fact we're a lot better off today than we were since after Bob left. May he rest in peace.

[BoschZEV]

if there were no problems they would not have assigned the Executive Director the task of finding solutions behind the scenes.

If some people complained a National Board that was responsive to its membership might well ask the Executive Director to look into it even if the problems were not severe, just to accommodate the members who complained. Also, the fact the "new" venue has been used for four years implies to me that whatever problems it has are not severe enough that they required immediate change. Again, I don't know this specific situation, but the text you supplied in red doesn't indicate the Board violated its rules. It seems the National Board agreed to a change in venue requested by the elected representatives of the local Chapter. It also is apparent that change did not make everyone happy. But, that's a local chapter issue, not a national one.

You can not read today what was changed years ago, with all due respect.

I'm pretty sure I explained that I do not know the details of the situation and that all that is available for me to get a broader picture is what I can read today. But, apparently, this isn't just a dead horse, it's one that was beaten to death four years ago, so I'm happy to end this digression at this point and let the horse RIP.

[Spag]

Shelby,
Maybe I can help clarify what you said happened when the Sunshine Chapter requested National Board approval for a change in venue for its AMCA National Meet. But first let me say that the AMCA Board fully supports every AMCA Chapter that sponsors an AMCA National Meet. When one of these Chapters has a request or needs guidance, we try to help any way we can.
In the case of the Sunshine Chapter, they made a written request to change their National Meet venue from Eustis to New Symrna. The Board invited the Chapter representatives to address the Board in person. They did so, provided documentation and after a thorough discussion, the Board requested additional information before making a decision. The information requested was provided in a timely manner and the Board voted to approve the transfer.
Sometime after Board approval, you raised a number of objections to the decision including one that the Sunshine Chapter Membership never voted on the change. After the first National Meet at the new venue and at the request of the Board, the Sunshine agreed to schedule a Chapter meeting where one of the agenda items was a vote on whether to approve continuing the National Meet at the new location. As a Sunshine Chapter Member you received notice of the meeting and the above mentioned agenda item. The meeting was held. You did not attend. I have been advise that no member attending this meeting made a motion to change the meet venue back to Eustis. But a member did make a motion to continue the meet in New Symrna. I believe that motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
Those are the facts as I understand them. Perhaps there were some Chapter members who didn't want the Chapter to change venues for this meet. But they did not come to the meeting to voice their opposition and vote. If they don't take the time to come and voice their concerns, then they shouldn't continue to complain about the process that led to the change being made. Perhaps you will raise the issue of proxy voting since you live in Texas which is about 1,300 miles from from where the Chapter meeting took place in Florida. But the Sunshine Chapter has never instituted or voted for proxy voting which you will agree is the Chapter memberships' right. I hope that helps clarify the concerns you raised.
Richard

[shelbyinparadise]

Hello Richard, I welcome your well detailed response and clarification on the technical issues, in my example answering the question asked of me

"Shelby, can you expand on what you mean by "input"? Surely members of the Board listen to what people tell them and take it into account in making whatever decisions they make. But, you must mean something different than this(?).

I used the example of Eustis because it was a subject I had direct involvement with you on, providing you with a deferent perspective from the presentation your National Board received from the two Florida Board Members. I spoke with you many times trying to convey that the vendors and members were left totally out of the discussion to move. You acknowledge this and yes there was a meeting called and attended by 17 people a year later. You fail to mention I already had the fairgrounds at Eustis rented for the second year so returning to Eustis was a mute point. You told me you would not approve of a private corporation control an AMCA event. You make it seem that there was no objections at all from other Board Members, which is a false impression, it was a 4 to 4 tie with the chapter judge not being allowed to vote for the first time as a board member.

At this point I was just a concerned member and vendor of 16 years at Eustis, where anyone that knows anything about Swap meets, vendors try for years to get the best possible spots in their opinion, pay in advance to keep or improve their spots, and make it as easy for their customers to find them. Several people (Vendors) at Wauseon, after hearing from two Florida Board members in attendance about the decision who were opposed to the move, all agreed to stay in touch to see what could be done to reverse this decision and reach out to you to reconsider the move. By Oct 1, when the Sunshine Chapters deadline to rent passed we stepped up.

My point here is there was 200 vendors that were not notified till near the end of the year they would not be returning to their spots but the Sunshine Chapter had assigned them new spaces at the new venue in Volusia County. Roughly half the members of the chapter dropped out or became disillusioned with how they were ignored in the process.

It is not a question of can chapter officers make decisions for the chapter, or if following proper protocol the National Board has the power to Approve the move. The question was did the right thing occur for the Club and Chapter? Could it have been handled better by more input from Chapter members. Did the National Board make an exception to the schedule without the best "do diligence" it could have made. Could more information been collected by those at risk of being effected.

If this venue was brought to the Board today, knowing of the lack of parking, size, poor drainage, traffic problems on the immediate vicinity of the Cabbage Patch, non-compliance with the Handicap accessible, and suitability of a dirt floor area for National Judging, loss of support from VJMC and now a two day meet, would you have second thoughts about it meeting the criteria set out in the P&P manual?

Having The experience of vending for 38 straight years in Florida, 4 years of running the Eustis Swap meet, and now working on the Second year of the Cherokee Chapter Concourse De Pate at the Texas Motor Speedway and Chairman of Pate Committee, I feel I understand how important it is to work with people for a better product or service by getting the best possible information and be flexible in decision making process while you can. By being the Membership and Event Director for a very active chapter, I strive to better serve my membership, our Board works well together, voting by emails, and we have a one member one vote policy for the membership.

Thank you for your response it was good to hear from you, with all due respect, Shelby

[Spag]

Shelby and BoschZEV,
The AMCA Board relies on local Chapters to choose a venue for an AMCA National Meet. The Chapter Officers and Members know their geographical area better then the AMCA Board. The current Board has never dictated where a Chapter must hold a National Meet and we never will. However, the Board does review all chosen venues but does not substitute its own judgment when it comes to a Chapter's decision on a venue.

Regarding the parking issue at the New Smyrna location, with the increase in popularity of this meet, attendee parking has increased. The Chapter and the Board addressed the problem associated with increased parking needs and space limitations within the venue. The problem was addressed to the extent possible. The Board will continue to offer suggestions to the Sunshine Chapter on all matters related to this venue. But there are no problems with this venue that would require the Board to review its original decision to approve the New Symrna location. If the Sunshine Chapter wanted to relocate, the Officers would simply apply to the Board for a change in venue.

As BoschZEV stated, there will always be problems and disagreement with any venue chosen by a local Chapter. And Shelby you and I know as well as anyone who has ever attended an AMCA National Meet in Florida, when it rains in Florida, no venue is immune from the ravages rain can inflict on any motorcycle swap meet.

Shelby, thanks for the ongoing positive discussion.
Richard