Armand Minnie
Winter greetings to all of you – we hope you are keeping warm and enjoying yourself. We have kept busy going to our first FMCA area rally and spending our first couple of nights in Quartzsite. Other than that, we have had lots of time to think about GMCWS things like the following:
Volunteers needed
GMCWS has always benefitted from your willingness to volunteer and we need you again. For 10 years Judy Cherry has been a steady volunteer serving as newsletter editor and then club Secretary. Now she would like to take a break so we need a new volunteer to serve as Secretary. The Secretary keeps records of the club membership and sends annual reports to the FMCA in addition to recording minutes of club meetings. Judy will serve until the Fall 2011 rally as our current Secretary and would be happy to help train the new Secretary candidate (the membership has to vote to make it official of course) until then. That would make the new Secretary's transition much easier.
Another function that we need help with is an audit of the club’s books. If you have the skills and experience (you don't need to be an accountant or bookkeeper) to look over the club's books with Dave our Treasurer we need you. Please let me know if you can help with this.
New members wanted
According to our records, we have been losing members every year since 2007. We don't have membership records prior to that but it has probably been happening for a while. We don't know for sure why members are leaving but age and changing interests are the reasons usually assumed and we don't know for sure. The bottom line is we need new members and that means we need to make more people aware of the GMC and to get them excited about it.
One suggestion that I have heard and really like is somehow associating small rallies with local car shows. Younger couples with an interest in cars and hot rods are the ideal candidates for GMC ownership. We need to see if that idea is worth developing. Who wants to help? Other ideas for showing off the GMC and attracting new members are more than welcome. Send me an email or give me a call and let's get started.
Another aspect of the effort to gain new members is "positivity". I would like us to bring some focus to the benefits of owning a classic GMC motorhome – the GMCnet forum, the clubs, the Blacklist, mutual support, friendships, great trips, etc. I have volunteered to give a presentation at the Spring rally in King City about the trip that Carol and I took last Summer. We had a great time and very little trouble. Jerry and Sharon Work did a similar presentation at the Fall rally in Las Vegas and it was very well received.
If you know anyone with a GMC who is not a member of FMCA and GMCWS, I have 5 free first-year FMCA membership coupons, each a $50 value, that we will give away with a new GMCWS membership while they last.
Bylaws update
I have asked the FMCA's Constitution and Bylaws Committee to review our current bylaws, dated sometime in 1996, to see what their recommendations are for updating them. My feeling is that unless they strongly recommend a change we will leave them as they are. The bylaws committee did a good job with recommendations but I don't want to take up rally time with them. I hope you agree and I will let you know what the FMCA says next time.
Web site
Beginning soon I would like to make some additions to the GMCWS web site. Billy Massey has done a great job on the current web site and I hope that he continues to do that in the future. I would like to add a members-only section that would be accessed using a secure ID and password that the member selects. Inside the secure section the member could maintain their own contact information - address, phone, and email.
The members-only section would eventually enable us to do things like register for rallies, pay fees, and communicate about club business much easier. Also, the Club Secretary's job will become a lot easier - currently Judy has to be notified of all contact changes and enter them manually in a computer spreadsheet. I will need help from our current and next Club Secretary in designing the new section - their advice, their requests, and their opinions.
See you in King City!
Our Spring rally in King City promises to be a good one. King City is next to the Santa Lucia Mountains which separate the Salinas Valley - John Steinbeck's subject in several books - from Big Sur and the Pacific Ocean. It is a relatively short scenic drive to the coast and the towns of Carmel and Monterey to the West and Salinas to the North. The Steinbeck Center museum in Salinas is well worth seeing and Joanne and Phil have arranged some local tours to see other things. We hope to see you there.