<CORSA Chapters> Membership, dues and such

Mon Jul 14 22:51:17 EDT 2008

Crimony

The Scholarship fund is a dedicated fund that neither the CPF nor CORSA may 
use for any other purpose than awarding scholarship.  period. The 
Scholarship fund is currently under CPF,  not CORSA.  The two are ac

It has been stated,  repeated to the membership, from me and the board, 
that the Scholarship was creaetd initially and will continue to be based on 
Merit,  like many other scholarships awarded by many other institutions 
including but not limited to Universities and Colleges.

The board re-affirmed this at the 2007 Annual CPF board meeting -- see the 
minutes in the Communique.  A majority of the scholarship committee has also 
affirmed this opinion.  Most do not want to know the specifics of a members 
financial condition.  And when the Scholarship program allows 
grandchildren -- how many 1040s are you going to examine?  both sets of 
grandparents?  step-grandparents?  parents and in-laws?

Merit  works just fine.   $500 today buys 1 semester worth of books,  if you 
are lucky.

When I went to College -- I would have not earned a Merit Scholarship 
because I lacked teh required community and school involvement roles -- i 
worked nights to buy my own clothes, movies, car , car insurance etc -- my 
parents could not afford to give me a free ride -- for a car nor college --  
Yet i was not eligible for most, if not all, the financial scholarships 
either --both my parents worked, putting us above the arbitrary floor.   So 
I worked my way through college -- by going to work full time, and school 
part time.  I didn't have any extra money,  but still managed to buy a car 
and house <better than rent>    I would have surely appreciated a 
scholarship to help pay for the books I had to buy,  but I survived 
nonetheless.

In short,  I respectfully disagree.  There are numerous merit  and numerous 
need scholarships.  I don't believe the Scholarship fund that exists today 
needs to be any different than it is,  merit based.

tim mahler

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Schug" <bwschug at charter.net>
To: "Ned Madsen" <AeroNed at aol.com>; "CORSA chapters" <chapters at corvair.org>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: <CORSA Chapters> Membership, dues and such

> Ned and others: I wrote this some time ago and never finished the
> second one, as referenced in this e-mail. Since that one might not
> ever get finished, I'll send this now. - Bruce
>
>
>
> On Mar 15, 2008, at 8:58 AM, AeroNed at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Bruce,
>>
>> In my opinion, CORSA doesn't have $0.02 to spend "willy nilly" or
>> any other
>> way. The dropping revenues through dues and merchandise sale are
>> making it
>> extremely tough to come up with a balanced budget.
>>
>> Ned
>>
>>
>> In a message dated 3/14/2008 3:44:12 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
>> bwschug at charter.net writes:
>>
>> Does  CORSA have, perhaps, two or three-thousand dollars to spend
>> "willy  nilly"?
>>
>
> Ned,
>
> If money is so tight in the CORSA budget, I have to wonder then, why
> the BOD continues to award scholarships to applicants who haven't
> demonstrated that they need the money. To me, this is simply spending
> CORSA money "willy nilly" (thanks to Tim for using the phrase "willy
> nilly" to describe this careless spending. It sounds much better than
> the phrase that comes to my mind, "pissing it away".) In 2007 $2,500
> was awarded in this manner.
>
> Now I know that the scholarship money doesn't come out of the CORSA
> budget. Or does it? Quoting from the Operating Procedure of the
> scholarship (which may have been changed), "Scholarships will be
> funded by donations to the CPF Scholarship Fund and from CORSA's
> General Fund. Scholarships will be in denominations of either $500 or
> $1000 with the total amount not to exceed $2000 per year.
> Determination of the number and amount will be made by March 1. If
> CORSA has retained earnings of at least $5000, CORSA will fund one
> $500 Scholarship by depositing the difference between that amount and
> the amount in the CPF Scholarship fund. In addition, CORSA will
> deposit into the CPF Scholarship Fund 10 percent of the retained
> earnings in excess of $5000 to a maximum of $2000 total."
>
> I presume CORSA doesn't have retained earnings of $5,000 so this isn't
> being done. But I question the wisdom of putting this statement in the
> procedure in the first place. This means that we have dues at a level
> that we are losing members, and we still don't have enough money, but
> we would still give some of this dues money away to students with no
> demonstrated need if we had enough of it. Is this what the policy
> really should be?
>
> In actuality, I believe the scholarship money is donated or raised
> specifically for that purpose. But I'll bet that if the scholarship
> program didn't exist, most of it would come to CORSA anyway, either to
> the CORSA budget or the CPF budget. I'll also bet that if those who
> make the donations understood how their donations were being awarded,
> most of them wouldn't make the donation.
>
> Two years after I wrote my letter (available to anyone who e-mails me
> asking for a copy) to point out the problems with the scholarship
> program, and exactly how to solve them, I am still dumbfounded,
> flabbergasted, and in shock with the reception of my recommendation. I
> told the BOD and scholarship committee more than they ever thought of
> regarding awarding scholarships, what was wrong with the way it was
> being done and answered every question as to how it should be done. I
> gave them a turn-key solution to a problem that none of them knew they
> had. Still, they fail to understand or at least own up to what's wrong
> with what they're doing.
>
> You probably saw the nice letter in the October Communique, from the
> fellow who was awarded a $500 scholarship last year, thanking CORSA
> for the award. I would like to point out that this fellow, who lives
> in Texas, 1. Has been to six conventions, including the one in
> "Detroit". 2. Owns a '65 Monza that he leaves at home while away at
> school. 3. Has a Mini Cooper, presumably which he has at school. 4.
> Indicates that he is a CORSA member.
>
> While I'm sure this is a nice young man, as evidenced by his taking
> time to thank CORSA for his scholarship, to me, this is not someone
> that CORSA should be giving $500 to, no matter where the $500 comes
> from. The students that we award scholarships to at our church are not
> at all like this young man. Typically, they are from a single-parent
> family or a family that is basically part of the large "working poor"
> class in our country. I assure you, they haven't been all over the
> country to six collector car conventions. They don't own two cars, one
> being a collector car that they leave home while at school and one
> being a cool little Mini Coper. They also don't themselves belong to
> $38-a-year club. Heck, this e-mail list has been full of messages from
> people lately telling of how their own club members can't afford $38
> for CORSA dues! Now here's a guy who can afford it and we're giving
> him $500! The fact that this "picture" is all wrong to me but
> perfectly fine to the scholarship committee and the BOD is very
> troublesome to me and those CORSA members who share my views.
>
> This reminds me of a former BOD member who apparently came from more
> wealth than did most of us. His family had a scholarship fund set up
> which his children received scholarships from. But now that his
> children are out of school, he shows his appreciation for these
> scholarships by sending a check to the scholarship fund. Maybe I'm
> reading too much into his remarks, but he seems to be suggesting that
> the way to keep CORSA members is to give them each, perhaps, a
> thousand-dollars. They, in turn, will be so appreciative that they
> will continue to send their dues checks in. Now if we only had the
> funds to give all 5,000 CORSA members a thousand dollars, we could see
> if this theory works. Maybe that's not what he really meant.
>
> I have seen references to the scholarship lately as a merit
> scholarship, which is exactly what it is. I have also seen it
> mentioned that no financial information is required, which I think is
> correct. I only point this out because I don't think the committee
> knew the difference between a need-based scholarship and a merit
> scholarship until I pointed it out to them. Now, I don't fault them
> for that and am glad that some of them are referring to the
> scholarship as a merit scholarship. But when this was being discussed
> a year ago, the then-scholarship-chair wrote in his comments to the
> Operating Procedure, "I believe the matter of need, if it is an issue
> at all, should be up to the judge to read into the application.
> Charlie West does this well." With all due respect to Charlie West,
> there's no way he could read anything like this into an application,
> when there's no financial information there!!! And if this is a merit
> scholarship, there's no need to read anything about need into the
> application!!!
>
> Further, two directors told me they supported my recommendation, one
> even telling me they were going to try and get me on the scholarship
> committee. That was the last I ever heard of that. Even after it was
> discussed and voted down by the BOD, no one reported back to me to
> tell me the results of the discussion. I wonder how many BOD members
> understand what their responsibilities are to their constituents. As
> my representatives, I don't expect my board members to automatically
> agree with me, but I do feel they're responsible to report back to me
> with the results of a BOD decision about an issue I raised.
>
> But the scholarship issue is only the tip of the iceberg. I don't
> really know any board members personally, and have only met a few of
> them. Most of them are people with recognizable names because of their
> involvement with CORSA over the years. I'm sure most of them are nice
> people too. But that doesn't mean they have the ability to make good
> decisions regarding issues that come before them when they sit in a
> board meeting. If the way this scholarship issue was handled is any
> indication of the kind of decisions the board makes then I have no
> confidence that they can make good decisions with the other issues
> that come before them and solve the financial problems that CORSA has.
>
> I will write another post and comment on Tim's original question.
> Because of my friend Chuck Armer's suggestion, I am airing my views on
> this here instead of in VirtualVairs. I agree with Chuck that's it's
> not necessary to put all of this out to the general membership as well
> as potential CORSA members, at least not at this time.
>
> So, am I going to drop out of CORSA because of this? Am I going to
> boycott CORSA and urge my club to not donate money to CORSA like we do
> most years? Am I going to change my position that anyone interested in
> organized Corvairing should join CORSA? Not at all. I firmly believe
> that there is some waste in every system (How many of you have seen
> letters-to-the editors in your papers from disgruntled taxpayers
> saying they will not vote for a tax increase for the local schools
> because someone in the school system is wasting some money? So, they
> propose punishing the whole system.) I simply want to identify this
> waste to those on this list with the hopes that the situation will
> someday be corrected. I think you leave yourself open to criticism
> when you allow this kind of waste and then come to your members and
> tell them about being in such bad financial shape.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Bruce
>
> Bruce W. Schug
> Treasurer, CORSA South Carolina
> Greenville, SC
> Stock Corvair Group
> Performance Corvair Group
> bwschug at charter.net
>
> CORSA member since 1980
>
> '67 Monza. "67AC140"
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chapters mailing list
> Chapters at corvair.org
> http://www.vv.corvair.org/mailman/listinfo/chapters
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
> Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.4.10/1552 - Release Date: 7/14/2008 
> 6:28 PM
>
> 