CORSA "Planning for the Future" (paper & discussion)

[Scott H]

Download the attached pdf file by Jamie Reinhart (CORSA Central Director)
This paper covers financial stuff, the tiered membership proposal, administration fees, Insurance, Communique, etc.
Please read it, then comment on it with your ideas, thoughts, etc.

[4carbcorvair]

I know lower bids were put in for editing/magazine. Much, much lower AND included a FULL COLOR monthly magazine. Too many hands in one bucket. Unless someone has the balls to cut some strings, nothing is going to change. Except a declining membership, possibly including myself.

[Danthesignman]

I spent an entire week trying to get My van roadworthy to attend the 50th convention . When I got there thurs. I was treated like a leper . Didn`t even bother to register , doubt I will ever waste another $50 on a membership .

[Scott H]

That sucks Dan. I saw your thread over on CC. You did do allot of hard work to get there, what a bad deal to be treated like that after all your hard work.
I'm sorry that happened.

[Vairforce1]

Dan-

Did the folks at registration blow you off? I do know that by the time you would have arrived on Thursday that registration would have been winding down, so that might explain part of it. At any rate, I'm glad you showed up since I enjoyed BSing with you and the folks from Canada that evening. Good to see that you are getting the 'Brier sorted out and are putting some miles on it.

Dave

[4carbcorvair]

I spent an entire week trying to get My van roadworthy to attend the 50th convention . When I got there thurs. I was treated like a leper . Didn`t even bother to register , doubt I will ever waste another $50 on a membership .

Dan, you are not the only one who has had issues in the past. Our very own Kevin was declined registration about 5 min before registration closed IIRC, at the Buffalo convention. I was there with Kevin at the time and he was not treated very nice IMO.

[SAHD JOAT MMFFC]

All, Yes there was one bid out of four that was way lower for editing the communique. There were two problems with this. 1. They wanted the articles provided to them ready to be placed into the Communique. This means the articles were to be solicited, then edited for spelling, grammer, technical content, ect.
2. This companies current customers were culinary magazines. The staff had very limited knowledge of classic cars and especially something as unique as corvairs. Could they have done the job? Maybe

Our current editor does a lot more work to produce our magazine than anyone realizes. He solicits many of the articles placed in the communique. He has been doing this for years and understands the cars well, and what he isn't an expert in he forwards to our technical editor for verification. He does a lot of behind the scenes jobs at the convention and in his daily schedule. Does this justify his salary, which is on the high end of the editorial pay scale for a magazine of this size? That is debateable. The only way to fix this problem is to find someone that is willing to spend countless hours being a volunteer editor for the communique. Is this possible? Maybe. Anyone want to step up to the plate?

The biggest expense we have now is printing and postage. No one has been able to under bid our current management and publishing team in this area. Another Director even solicited a bid from an Iowa prison industries print shop. I followed up on it for him. I thought this may be a good solution. I was wrong. The printing quote was almost twice as much as it is now. Printing in color in any form more than what we do now is very cost prohibitive. One thing is for sure, printing and postage will never get any cheaper it will continue to become more expensive as time goes by.

As our membership continues to decline it will become difficult to continue producing a printed Communique. That is why I am advocating producing the Communique quarterly and supplimenting it with the newly redesigned website which should be done sometime yet this year. The website will become the focal point of CORSA in my opinion and should contain a WIKI and the Commscan project. The Commscan project will include all CORSA printed material from the last 40 years in PDF form available to CORSA members. There will be no shortage of information when this is all completed. Thats all for now. Any questions?

Jamie Reinhart
CORSA President

[CorvairNoob]

wow...and everyone that knows i got my corvair told me to go to corsa...um..no thanks apparently..

The last thing i want is to end up like dan and get treated like my car is a POS because its not got that certain sticker, or something stupid like that..

i wonder what they would do if i showed up in a Ratrod corvair? i bet at least one of them would have a heart attack..

purist...ugh..

thoughts?

[Scott H]

We have got some new younger guys in charge now and you'll see some much needed changes coming soon.

[CorvairNoob]

thats good to hear, i was rather hesistant to contact them after reading about what happened to dan..

I'll see about contacting corsa here soon...

[Danthesignman]

In everyones defense at the convention , My initial appearance tends to put most people off , I showed up in a lowered not so pretty Greenbrier , have hair longer than most women , I really hate to shave and have tatoos running up both arms . So...maybe the woman behind the table just didn`t know quite what to say ??

[Scott H]

Awesome Dan! I am sorry you got treated badly but I would have loved to see the look on her face.
I had hair to my waist when I was younger (17-21) and I have thought many times about growing it back out.

[flat6_musik]

I think all forms of corvairs/modded out styles should be welcomed in the corvair community!! Geez, 'vairs aren't like normal collector cars and the types of people attracted to 'em aren't your average 'stang/camaro/chevelle "it's-a-very-correct-resto" peeps.....vair's are pretty cheap and honestly, a tad weird, so.....as long as people are keeping them outta the scrap heap.....that's a good thing!

[65Ragtop]

Just read the "Planning for the Future" paper. When my old man gave me his 1963 spyder as my first car back in 1971, he also gave me a CORSA membership which I kept till around 1975. I eventually moved on to Corvettes and big block Chevelles. My older brother owned a long line of LM coupes. Time moves on and now I am back into the Corvair fold with my soon to be crankin' 65 Corsa. What is the point of this prelude, you ask?

When I got the Corvair bug "again" my first thoughts were of CORSA. I am impressed by all the good things that they have accomplished since I was last associated with them. The organization clearly was a good thing for the Corvair community over the last few decades. Cudos to all. I was looking forward to joining up again, but after hearing about all the conflict, bickering, nastyness and all that goes with it online, I have held off joining until things get sorted out one way or the other. One thing is for sure. The web site is "old school" and not in a good way. As you can presume by the first paragraph, I am clearly among the older crowd in this debate. I can also tell you that I am computer literate and so are most of my friends and aquaintences. Those who are not, are capable of getting those who are to do searches for them as well as download and print for them. My point here is that if digitization is being held back because someone thinks that the "geezers" don't know how to use a computer, it is just not true anymore. Computers are sort of like toasters now. Everybody has one and they are easy to use.

Change is hard, especially with a track record of success doing it "as we have always done it". But..............there has been a paradigm shift here and if the organization does not go digital NOW the future does not look very good. Going digital will cut costs significantly, I suspect. In my opinion all (most) items available in print now should be digitized and be made available for home printing. This could be on a charge per download or as part of the tiered membership idea (which I think might be a good idea, at first glance) with tiered access on the website. Modern home printers can print out some amazing quality for those who insist upon it. It just shifts the cost to those who wish to pay for it. Few people mail anything anymore, the post office is not filling vacancies left and right because of massive mailing reductions by the public. E-mail and digital renderings have replaced the stamp and envelope. It's just the way it is. Get on board or price yourself out of the market.

My observation is that if you wait until 2015 to go to a modern virtual manifistation, the organization will miss the good wave. From the comments coming from various sections of the community now, it looks like it has already missed the first good set. Their are some great online Corvair communities out there already. Corsa should be the hub that connects them all, instead it looks like it is being replaced by them. Sad but true.

Overall, I think that the organizatons plan looks fairly good. I just think your time frame for implementation is too strung out for no real reason that I can see. I look forward to seeing how this plays out. I really want to join up. Make it worth my while! The road ahead looks like it has a lot of curves in it, could be great fun at the wheel of a well tuned CORSA!

[Scott H]

That paper was written by our current CORSA President.

and I feel the same way as you (65Ragtop). The website is key and MUST be redone. It is being worked on and my "Directors Turn at the Wheel" for the September Communique gives my perspective on what we need to do and how crucial our website is to moving CORSA into the current times.

I'll post my article (or my unedited version of it) after the communique is released.

[Danthesignman]

I have no time to type the multiple paragraghs in My head .

CORSA NEEDS IT`S OWN FORUM !

It`s a no brainer fellas , but it needs to be quality . With buy and sell , tech stuff , storage for photos and documents , and Moderators that don`t play God .

Dan Reis