<VV> Corvair Museum

Thu Jun 12 13:15:34 EDT 2008

James,

I appreciate your thoughts, wisdom and insight on this topic. One thing I am
concern about is that if enough people say "it can't be done because..."
then people will start believing it (not that that is what you were saying).
I believe a dedicated Corvair museum can be had. If it is in cooperation
with the YHM, that's fine. If it happens to be next door to the YHM, and
administered by the YHM/CPF organization, that's an added draw (visit 2 car
museums in one afternoon!). I think the Lottery ticket approach is just
foolishness. It's a great way to loose what money CPF has.

A dedicated CPF museum won't come about this year, next year, or
possibly even in my lifetime, but it can happen. Yes, there are a lot of
costs involved, as you pointed out, and as you hinted, the current CPF/CORSA
BoD combined arrangement won't help this to come about. No offense to the
BoD members, but you have to admit that being on both boards divides your
loyalties, and if it doesn't, you're not serving BOTH organizations as you
should.
The Tidewater Corvair Club has been working on a fund raiser to benefit CPF,
and has raised in excess of $10K towards this goal. Yeah, $10K is a drop in
the bucket, but it's a start. If one or two clubs each year could repeat
this effort, in 10 year, we could have a serious start. Maybe an
unsolicitied request from CPF to Jay Leno and Tim Allen (the only two well
known Corvair owners I know with deep enough pockets, and who may need a tax
write off) for possible donations is in order. Maybe they will buy the
naming rights? "The Jay Leno/Tim Allen Corvair Preservation Museum" has a
nice ring to it.

On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:20 PM, james rice <ricebugg at mtco.com> wrote:

> All:  A lot of the discussion about the museum is well intentioned, by not
> well informed and/or realistic.
>
> Clark's observations are well worth each of us burning them into our
> memory.
> Let me add my own thoughts and another burn into your memory truth, down at
> the bottom, which may be inflammatory.
>
> I came on the CORSA/CPF combined BoD's the summer after the Corvair Museum
> in Richmond VA closed in early 1999.  Richmond closed because the
> building's
> half owner had to sell it and the business contained therein as part of a
> divorce settlement with the other half owner.  I was the CPF Liaison the
> entire 3 years I was on the combined BoD's, beginning at Tahoe.
>
> At the combined BoD meeting at Daytona in '00, we had a presentation from
> some folks in NC (I think) of a building at a CORSA member's racecar
> fabrication compound.  As I remember it, parking, minimum office space,
> staffing and parking were issues, not to mention funding of operations.
> There was also the possibility the owner would need the space in the future
> if/when his business out grew the buildings he was using.  I talked
> privately with the owner, and almost took a detour to see the building on
> our way home to central Illinois.  As I remember it, the combined boards
> sense was "We don't think so..." and it never came up for a vote.  We had a
> couple other buildings offered in various locations, all needing money &
> work, all with location, staffing and daily operations issues.  We got
> several other "we would like to..." kind of semi-offers for a new location,
> but nothing which appeared viable in any reasonable length of time.  They
> were "hope to do" and "would like to do", but no "can do" proposals.  NO
> ONE
> HAD MONEY, just big dreams and/or good intentions.
>
> At the Chicago convention in '01, we decided to take a hard look at the
> Ypsilanti Heritage Museum.  Bill Pierson, then CPF president, Harry Jensen
> and I visited Ypsilanti Heritage Museum in September '01 and talked to Jack
> Miller and the leadership in their organization.  We also met with the
> Detroit chapter over dinner to get a sense of their willingness and
> abilities to assume local CPF Staff Committee responsibilities.  As the
> result, our recommendation to the combined BoD's was to, as much as
> possible, relocate CPF assets to the Ypsilanti Heritage Museum, and put the
> rest of the material in local storage in SE Michigan.  We had a couple
> months of e-mail discussion/debates about SE Michigan as the location etc
> and then voted to go forward with this relocation in late '01 or early '02.
>
> The Ypsilanti Heritage Museum location was a can do.  They wanted us, and
> the price was right: free space in their existing museum.  While I do not
> remember all the details, The Ypsilanti Heritage Museum has local civic and
> governmental support, a functioning BoD and viable financing.  It is also
> part of an association of automobile museums and historical sites in SE
> Michigan sponsored and funding at some level by the State of Michigan.  The
> location of the Willow Run Assembly plant up the road was a added bonus, as
> was the Detroit CORSA chapter (DCC) with willing volunteers to help.
>
> Remember, you have to staff a museum, pay for heat and lights and insurance
> anda anda anda.  How long is the list?  All requiring large bags of large
> denomination US currency.
>
> At the time we decided to put the CPF material on display at the Ypsilanti
> Heritage Museum, the building next door was for sale.  High priced, but for
> sale.  So high priced in fact, the local folks, who really wanted it, could
> not afford it.  CPF, with its large bag of pennies, was a joke.  (Still is.
> Sadly.)  So we took the best we could get.  Not ideal, but better than
> CPF's
> assets being located in several garages and basements around the country.
>
> The Wade Lanning's, Clark Hartzel's and Pete Cimbala's and many, many
> others
> are the hero's in the storage and relocation process.  They gave of their
> time and funds to make it happen.  The feet on the ground folks who are
> unsung, unappreciated and generally unknown to the rest of us.
>
> Nothing better than Ypsilanti Heritage Museum has apparently come alone.
>  So
> far, no one has the money required to change the status quo.  And so far as
> I know, there are no efforts in place or planned to commence to begin to
> start to try and figure out the money.
>
> Actually taking an offering at the convention and buying a bunch of mega
> lottery tickets isn't a bad idea.  But who would own the tickets/winnings?
> CORSA or CPF?  Is such an idea even legal?  You need to burn a second truth
> into you heads when having these thoughts.  Here it is: CORSA and CPF are
> two separate legal organizations under IRS rules.  They are not both
> 501(c)(3)s.  Only CPF is.  My suspicion is CORSA would get itself in
> trouble
> with the IRS if it owned the winning tickets.
>
> Now then, the inflammatory content.  If I won a mega lottery, (please
> understand since I choose not to participate in any state sponsored
> voluntary taxation program, the idea is belly laughable) I would get
> together with the Ypsilanti Heritage Museum folks and donate sufficient
> money to buy the building next door, remodel it, plus toss in enough money
> for them to upgrade their existing facility and enough to maintain the
> location for a lot of years.  My stipulation would be the building would be
> used forever by CPF for a Corvair wing of the Ypsilanti Heritage Museum.
>
> Why would I sidestep CORSA/CPF you ask?  Because I have no confidence the
> combined CORSA/CPF BoD's, while being good intended volunteer car club type
> people, have, or will ever have, the necessary time, knowledge and skill
> sets to run a Corvair museum as any group of us gathered together over
> drinks of our own choosing could envision.  No confidence what so ever.
> This is largely a governance issue with how CPF as currently
> organized....or
> not organized.
>
> How much money would it take to do what we would like to see done.  I don't
> know what the building next door to the Ypsilanti Heritage Museum would go
> for today, or what remodeling would cost, but my guess is at least half a
> million dollars.
>
> There.  I said it.  Will make some people mad.  So be it.  Live long and
> prosper.  See you in Ventura.
>
> Historically Yours,
>                        James Rice
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:40:12 -0400
> From: "Clark Hartzel" <chartzel at comcast.net>
> Subject: <VV> CPF Museum
> To: "Virtual Vairs" <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID: <000001c8cc24$dfd2eb10$6121f362 at grumpyjo>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> As CPF Curator, I should be more positive but, I can't ever see us
> having our own museum.  Even if someone "gave" us a building, it costs
> lots of money to maintain a museum.  Jack Miller at our Ypsi museum says
> visitor admission fees don't even cover the electric bill let alone
> insurance, heat, water bill, wages,etc.  He recently spent $50,000
> installing a sprinkler system to meet city code.  Who would we get to
> stay at the museum 7 days a week to run it?  I'm curator for CPF and I
> only get to the museum a couple of times a year.  Jack is paid a salary
> to sit there waiting for the dozen or so people who may wander in on a
> given day.  To fund a museum you need endowments from rich people or the
> government.  Let's face it, Corvair people are at the bottom of the
> barrel wealth wise.  If we had any money we wouldn't be playing with
> rusty Corvairs!
> Clark Hartzel
>
>
>
>
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-- 

George Jones
--------------------------------
Tidewater Corvair Club (since 1987)
Central Virginia Corvair Club (since 2006)
Corvair Society of America (CORSA)(since 1987)
'65 Monza Crown V8 Convertible
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2397326
'66 Monza Coupe Custom (in progress)