The AO Platform, My Analysis

I see that we got shut down over on RL because the voting has started, but I also see that the voting will apparently go on for a while, and because the poling place is at least 200 feet from here (is it?), I will keep campaigning. I thought I had better do this analysis as a seperate thread from the one I started about voting for James, mainly because I don't want any of my hopefully objective, but somewhat negative, analysis to reflect in any way on James, because he didn't put me up to it and I didn't even consult with him about it.

I see by Andrew's opening platform about his candidacy for President that he layed out a pretty certain platform consisting of mainly three planks, Value, Communication, and Clarity of Vision. Then he concluded with a personal note which explains his limitations in ability to do this job, which I kind of take as pulling some of the nails out to the platform.

I'm going to do this in three or four different posts because it is kind of long, so the first plank I will address in about Value.

VALUE=What an I getting?

I pay $30 and get 1 or 2 t-shirts plus some other trinkets. Actually the t-shirt is worth about $20 and the other "trinkets" are easily worth more than the other $10. Then there is the postage for that which is mailed.

THE CHANGE? Andrew will "have" the Vendors give OC Members a discount! Andrew says that Roger has already embraced this idea, but I wonder if and how it applies.

I suspect Andrew had not thought this through. First of all what is the mechanism to "have" a vendor give the member discount? I suppose it is to simply ask. If Roger has already embraced the concept it would appear that the mechanism has already been activated, so where does the change come in? Too, the result is what it already is.

On the other hand even is we suppose that there is a new and better mechanism to impose additional Vendors to "embrace" this concept, my though process suggests the following:

1. What might the Vendor expect in return for a discount to OC Members? Andrew suggests that there are only 400 of us, and we are already dealing with the existing Vendors, so how is it attractive for one more of the Vendors to impose a discount in hopes of attracting more OC Members than he already has?

2. If the mechanism can be imposed on all or most of even the major Vendors (the big 3, or is it more?) then how does the discount attract business away from one vendor to another? The same discount woud be all around. Maybe Andrew percieves that the discount will work more like a price war in the old days with the gas station. Not likely.

3. I suspect that the Vendors have already set their pricing in such a way as to make their efforts barely worth while keeping their margins at a minimum given that the overall 928 market is very small and somewhat more conservative than say the Ferrari group or even the later 911 crowd. There simply isn't likely to be any fat to be trimmed off for a discount.

4. Finally, how would such a discount program even be administered? How does the Vendor know who is an OC Member? "Take my word for it?" Then everyone gets the discount; so the discount simply raises the prices to have the end discounted result put the vendor where he was to start with.

In short, Andrew offers nothing of additional value, at least that I can see in his program.

I said it on RL that I do not intend this to be personal because I think Andrew is a great guy. However, I have a lot of respect for all of the members of this club and I am very concerned that Andrew is far from ready to become its leader.

Jerry Feather

The Next Plank is COMMUNICATION

Andrew proposes to improve the visibility and communication of the OC. It has been void over the past few years, according to him.

THE CHANGE(S)?

1. A regular listing of upcoming events.
2. A tech corner.
3. Listing of "Partner Vendor" specials.
4. All in email form.
5. Apparently publish something to all 928 people to attract members.
6. Better Marketing Effort.

All brought about by something called "regular Communication."

Andrew admits that Stan Shaw had made these efforts in the past without success, so it has to change. Aside from the list of changes proposed, as shown above, all of which is firmly in place so far as I can tell, Andrew proposes nothing.

This membership concern that Andrew expresses about having 400 members (down from his number of "1600 unique members" --which I feel certain is a pure fiction) reminds me of a time when I was the President and Chairman of the Board of an organization very similar to the 928 OC. It was my particular airplane type-club. We had about 900 members, also worldwide, and the Board suggested that we should or could have many more. Their thoughts were in the right place, much as Andrew's, and I found that there were about 1200 of our airplane types then registeredd with the FAA. I obtained the list and sorted out all of 400 or so that were not members ( I know, the math does not look right, but our foreign members were not registered with the FAA).

Then I drafted a nice letter to each of the non-members which was a form letter in substance, of course, but which was individually addressed and which I personally signed, and I mailed each one. From all of that effort we actually got only ONE new member, a fellow in Missouri, as I recall, who said he had heard of us but didn't have our contact information until he got my letter. That was before the internet, or at least our use of it in the Club.

I don't klnow what more I might have been able to do at that time save looking up many telephone numbers and spending hours of time and a lot of money making long distance calls. However, that too was a purely volunteer organization and I too got paid nothing for my personal efforts, so that was the last membership drive we tried.

I wonder if that is what Andrew means about Stan Shaw's efforts that were not successful. Andrew says about this that if you want different results, something must change. However, sometimes different results are simply not available. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, to adopt an old saying. Andrew has not shown that a different result is available nor how he might attain it.

Therefor, Andrew proposes actually doing everything that the Club is already doing, but he will want to call it change; and then, as with President Obama, he will have to have a good enough reason why nothing different actually happenes.

Jerry Feather

The final Plank in Andrew's Platform is called "CLARITY OF VISION."

Andrew has, in my opinion, only one worthwhile suggestion here and that is an annual financial report, which I actually suspect is already available somewhere to interested members. If you are not a member it is none of you business, so it might be difficult to disseminate.

Aside from that an annual statement about the "vision and focus" of the club should be nothing more that a restatement of the mission of the club, and that doesn't change annually.

A report about the success or failure of a given OC event or OC sponsored (in part) event sounds nice except there is simply no measure for it. The financial aspect of an event is or would be in the annual financial report; but how do you say something like "OCIC 2012 was a total or even moderate failure because only 60 or 70 cars showed up out of the 400 that should have been there?" What if only 25 928s showed up. Would that have been a failure?

The other activities of the Club, such as the tool program, don't seem to need a report. I suppose one could report on the tool lending program that we loaned such and such a tool or tools this many times and only lost one or more of them in shipping. The cost of replacement would be in the financial report. Too, we have helped so many stranded drivers this year, and/or we have answered this many tech question this year. Then we could say that we are going to increase these numbers for the next year? That is our vision and fucus.

Jerry Feather

Finally, I am perhaps most concerned about Andrew's Personal note.

It comes across very clearly to me that Andrew is not likely to be able to do even what the Presidency currently requires, much less whatever it is he hopes to add on to "clear the vision," "communicate," and increase the "value" to members. He himself does not, by his own admission, have the time, and his lack of insight about this kind of volunteer organization is causing him a delusion about everyone else stepping up or jumping in and doing it all or most of it for him (and for the Club), when he has actually figured out whatever it might be. This kind of organization is never run by the body of membership, but only by those very few, like Stan and James and the others who have stepped up to take the reins.

In fact, if Andrew had any basis for his hope to delgate all or any of his "change" whatever it might be, why hasn't he been in there taking charge of anything that he has found that can or needs to be done before now??????

If Andrew had seen before the previous election two years ago that change was needed, what, if anything has he done in the meantime to bring any of it about merely as one of those many "talented and motivated people in our club that we need to engage and leverage" to put it in his words."

What has Andrew done to sponsor and OC Event, or any event that could be partly sponsored by OC? (I haven't paid close attention to this, so there may in fact be something I am missing.)

What has Andrew done to initiate his program for additional Vendor Discounts. Has he actually even asked any Vendor? I'm a small-time vendor, and I don't think he has asked me.

What has Andrew done to obtain the data and compile any kind of report on OCIC 2102, success or failure? Maybe it wasn't his place, but did he even ask to be able to do it?

What has andrew done to initiate any kind of additional advertising for the Club with any of the sites he is now proposing.

Oddly, I think Andrew hasn't done any or much of this because he is only a member and not in charge of it all. However, now he wants to be in charge of it all, but then have those talented and motivated members do much of it.

Actually I have been there and done that, and my experience tells me that there is much more time involved in delegating given tasks and then spending the volumns of time it takes to monitor and manage the task, and finally end up doing it yourself.

In conclusioin, if Andrew doesn't have the time to do what is altready being done and to add whatever he might come up with to put on his planks, he is not the right guy for this Presidency. In fact it appears to me that he is really not in a position to simply step in and keep what we already have going.

Jerry Feather

Malcolm, I think it will be interesting to see if the by-laws actually preclude it.

Jerry Feather

Jerry,

While I know that you mean well with the opinions you've presented in this thread, I worry that this kind of thread may gather the wrong kind of attention seeing as how politics bring out the passion in everyone. At this point in the process, perhaps we should all try to keep our feelings on these elections private. Those who are voting should be well informed by now. If not, there is plenty out there for their reading pleasure already in threads both here and on Rennlist.