<VV> All this CORSA Membership Stuff

[Tim Verthein]

Holy cripes, I get away from VV for a few months and come back to this!
 Allow me to spew a ton of good ol' Northern Minnesota wisdom.  Very
randomly here are some thoughts I haven't seen:  (excuse the
typos....on the laptop...on my lap....and can't see what I'm doing)

Why should someone belong to CORSA.  If you're gonna go to a
convention, you gotta belong. If you like the magazine, you gotta
belong. If you're going to participate in a regional/local/national
event that requires insurance, you gotta belong. Or, at least, clubs
should run events that have CORSA insurance, and in that case
membership in CORSA should be required so you're covered.  $38 for a
million bucks worth of insurance so you can tear around at an autocross
is a good deal.  The magazine is nice.  I don't want an online version.
I sit in front of the computer all the time. It's nice to be able to
read someplace else. And I have every intention of saving them all and
making a fortune selling them on ebay in 40 years.  But...if you don't
care about the magazine, are a local kinda guy who is never going to go
to a convention, don't give a crap about the cars history, and just
wants to drive and enjoy it, you don't really need CORSA.  

CORSA membership being required to join a local chapter is lunacy. 
We're begging people to drive, fix, enjoy the cars. Begging them to
participate in a local event, and now you want to demand they join a
national club when it may not be applicable to their interests?  if I
didn't enjoy the magazine, I'd only renew in years when the convention
was going to be someplace where I might actually go. Next time for us
is gonna in 2010.  If you like to hang out with your local guys, fix
your car, drive and enjoy, more power to you.  If you want to
participate in an event, join CORSA for the insurance, etc. Or join to
support the cause. Don't join because you're forced. You'll wind up
netting a few guys who get forced to join, a large percentage of whom
will become those you bitch about because they don't "participate"

As for affording it.  It's nice to know that there are so many of you
who can decide who can afford it.  The "if you can own, drive, fix" the
car, you can afford membership is silly. I use my Corvair as regular
transportation.  It's a hell of a lot cheaper to license, insure,
repair and maintain than any modern car I've ever had, except one still
under warranty.  $38 for a membership in something that may not apply
to you is a waste of money. "Oh but, saving the club, the car,
etc...applies to us ALL" I hear you cry. Try telling someone on a
budget that! If you also join the local chapter, you can be looking at
$50 bucks or more total, and if your renewal happens to come when money
is tight for whatever reason, that's a luxury that goes out the window.
 And don't go whining about all those old farts on a "fixed income"
that can't afford it.  There are plenty of others that aren't "old"
that can't afford it, and plenty old people who can.  I wrote quite the
editorial about the Senior Discount" scams a few years ago. Age does
not make you poor. Fixed income does not make you poor.   There are
plenty of poor people who are under 65, or 55, or 50.  Those senior
discounts exist because banks, resturants, retail in general, has
learned that these people have MONEY and this is a great way to get
some of it.  My folks are in their 80's. They're on a fixed income.
They also own a house in Arizona, a house in Minnesota, a lake cabin,
property in Florida, and have boxfulls of stocks and bonds. Same with
my wife's folks. I'm gonna hit 50 in a couple weeks.  I'm gonna be so
poor suddenly that McDonalds is gonna give me discounts on my coffee,
my bank will give me free checking, and the grocery store will give me
10% off on Tuesdays. What's up with that?  I've got more disposable
income than I've had in my entire life! Suddenly, due to my old
age....I get discounts!  Haahaahaahaahaa.  They *should* have discounts
for people like Ryan..just starting out with a tight budget, a wife to
be in school, and a baby on the way. (OK, I know, this is where some
smarty pants says it's his own fault he's on a tight
budget...sure....same with hundreds of thousands of others just like
him...many of whom we want to recruit).  If you want to read the
editorial, go here:
http://www.edselmotors.com/pissedoff.html
Keep in mind, i wrote it 10 years ago....

No matter WHAT club or group you're involved in, they ALL have the same
problems. Declining memberships.  That's because there are lots of
other things to do these days, and most information you want for any
interest is available faster and easier and cheaper on the internet.
Discussion groups like this are uncountable.   Forums are uncountable.
the info is out there and easy to find. Getting the Corvair on the road
doesn't take a membership to accomplish.  I'm a member of the EAA,
Experimental Aircraft Association. memberships are down. They're going
nuts trying to recruit younger people.  I'm a ham radio operator. The
local and national organization has drastically declining memberships.
They all whine they need members, blah blah.  It's largely because
online groups are taking over the disemmination of information. The
clubs exist only for events and pancakes.  So, since memberships drop,
rates go up to make up the loss, and the membership drops more due to
costs. I've seen this happen in nearlly all the events I'm involved
with.

Someone will say" But CORSA supports the mailing list, group, forum, or
whatever" Sure, but it takes about 15 minutes to set up another one,
and people will flock to it.  Lookk at the Corvair Center Phorum. 
Great place to hang out, not supported by CORSA.  Anyone can set up
something like that, and a very minimal cost.  I subscribe to several
mailing lists like this that are on yahoo...it's FREE, and I have no
problem working within their program.  I bvet I belong to over 50 yahoo
groups. many io have to go visit to read the posts because i don't want
to read 'em every d ay, some I get the digest, some I get every
individual message. you don't HAVE to have servers, clubs, and money to
organize a group of people with like interests. And young people KNOW
this, so to get them to drop $38 bucks to get a magazine with ads in it
that are 6 weeks old (by the time an ad is submitted, printed, and
mailed, it can be easily 6 weeks)  Todays younger people don't want to
wait, printed matter isw considered old news (look at the declines in
newspaper and magazine subscriptions).  

The radio station i work for has sponsored a Bed RAce for 25 years,
part of a local festival.  We finally quit after last year as we can't
get people to do it anymore. Keep in mind this is something that's
basically free to do, we could even provide the racing beds, everyone
got free t shirts, pop and cash prizes.  We finally gave up since no
one wanted to do it. Last time around we had to take the ONE team that
signed up, split them in half, and had them race against each other! 
this happens all over the place.

I don't know what the answer is.  Trying to sell the CORSA magazine on
news stands would never work. They already can't hardly afford to print
what they do....any clue how many won't sell, and wind up in the trash
when you try to go with newsstands?  An online magazine is nice,
because it's fast and you eliminate printing and postage costs, but
then I'd be looking for a huge reduction in dues, since the magazine
would be cheap and physically non-existant. Our local club gives people
a choice of standard dues, or discount dues..the discounted people get
the newsletter emailed.   And we post the newsletter monthly (and
archive all the old issues) as pdf's on our website.  We don't care if
youre reading them and not a member. It's good for the cause.   Someone
might actually learn something, fix a car, or show up at a car show,
and it cost us nothing to put it out there.

Oh, btw..I'm always amazed how people talk about the cost of, or waste
of, "internet bandwidth"  'cmon guys, get with it.  I maintain my own
web site, and that of my employer, a radio station. We use over 100
megs of storage per WEEK...and never REMOVE any.  If you shop around
you can find GREAT deals.  Like $80 a YEAR with UNLIMITED storage
space.  WE archive EVERY morning show on the web....30 megs a DAY,
thousands of photos, tons of audio, we have hundreds of podcast
subscribers downloading daily, all for a few bucks a month. AND  I host
our clubs page on my site at no cost to them.  If you're worried about
web space, bandwidth, etc.. you're not shopping smart. the station
website right now has over 50 GIGS of stuff on the server. Bandwidth
for visitors is so generous we've never hit the limit.

Start forcing people to join CORSA and you'll just accelerate CORSA and
chapter membership decline. Make CORSA worth joining to more people,
then you've got something.  But if you're not a convention goer, racer,
historian, etc.. and just a guy who likes to drive a corvair, there's
really not much reason. They inquired about CORSA merchandise on that
survey. There's not really much on there a young person would want to
buy, and nothing you would buy over and over again. Print a yearly
calendar. (you can print on demand at Cafe Press, they look GREAT, and
there's NO INVESTMENT UP FRONT (our club does this for t shirts, etc)
CORSA could make up a yearly calendar with photos from the convention
for example, sell 'em for $17.95 or whatever, make a couple bucks on
each one, have NO investment other than someone taking decent pictures
during the event, and one guy  spending an afternoon uploading the
graphics. I have 6 Cafe Press stores runing, and once the stuff is up
there, you do nothing. it costs nothing to set up, no fees, no bs.
build it, put it out there, any any sales are GRAVY.  

What CORSA needs is people who don't think like old timers who will
just DO this stuff.  You can have a whole array of merchandise
available with NO investment on Cafe Press.  I've had tremendous
success, the products are quality, and there's no bs. Our local club
store doesn't sell much, but it cost NOTHING and we have a huge variety
of things available:
http://www.cafepress.com/hlcastore

OK, enough ranting.

Tim in Bovey
(out of lurk mode)




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