As one of the California members of NAMGBR, I must add my $.02 worth.
There may be 50+ members in Texas and 150 in California, but I that doesn't
mean that the club represents us well. Member recommmended shops come from a
member survey... not from a NAMGBR inspection, so that is spurious to the
argument about services provided... and how much effort does it take to
insert a line about an event into a newsletter?
I do like the club, the magazine, etc... BUT. in our perception out here,
they are very east coast /midwest oriented. (I would however question the
comment that they are "top heavy".. it takes a lot of folks to run a big club)
As a club president, it's very difficult for me to encourage folks to be
NAMGBR members when there doesn't seem to be any presence out here...Why
should they join??
In their (9?) years they have had only 2 (or maybe 3?) national meets out
here that I'm aware of, and one of those was in Canada. On the other hand, if
you look at the national meets and annual meetings they've had, and have
scheduled for the future, the rest are within about a 250 mile radius of
Nashville. (except for a couple of annual meeting/junkets to Vegas)
There is only one "west coaster" in leadership, Ron Tugwell, and he
hasn't seemed to have too much sucess getting the Midwest Clique, as I call
it, to recognize that there is life west of the Rockies. To my club members,
NAMGBR is completely irrelevant, as they are completely invisible to most out
here. The only club officer I've ever met or even seen is Ron
(except for one most forgettable encounter with a very drunk Robin
Weatherall.)
Major car meets on the West Coast don't get any NAMGBR representation at
all. Even the huge Palo Alto event, (with way over 100 MGs present among the
800 cars there) had never had a NAMGBR official present, until Ron took it
upon himself to run an information booth there last year... on his own as far
as I know...) A line item listing in the MGB driver isn't what I call club
support. NAMGBR reps, info packages, and publicity stuff needs to be much
more apparent at every car meet of modest size possible... there is one
MGs-only and 4 multi-marque meets each year within a 3 hour radius of San
Francisco, the smallest of them always draws 60+ MGs, and NO Namgbr support
or even presence! Oh yes, and the Publicity Coordinator doesn't even have an
EMail address!
I have never been called upon by anyone except Ron to give any feedback
RE how the West Coast could be better served by the club.. Ron was nice
enough to solicit my input but I unfortunately get the feeling he's a lonely
voice crying in a wilderness of midwestern bias. Perhaps they're waiting for
us to cry out for them from Egypt or something, but frankly, if they wish to
grow their club, they're going to have to get some presence out here and EARN
some respect. With a nearly 12-month driving season and arguably more LBCs
registered here than in the rest of the US combined, it's very short-sighted
of them to be so bloody provincial.
In my mind, the club needs to be broken up into a few regional centers, with
annual events of equal importance in each one. (see GOF for example) This
would draw folks together, give some sense of identification, belonging..
None of this is intended as a slight on the individuals involved, but just a
reality flash. There's lots of closely connected people and clubs in the
midwest and east, and they have themselves a nice club.
At this point, the rest of us are just magazine subscribers.
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One of these days I'm going to post something and not have Charley jump all
over it....I know
it's going to happen but just wondering when. The only reason I mentioned
the people that I did was because I have dealt with them personally. NAMGBR
is far from top heavy and east coast oriented. We have over 50 people from
Texas and 150+ Califorians currently members. That's like 10% of the total
membership.There are 6 member recommended shops in Texas and 20 in CA. Texas
MG Register is an affilated chapter as is Houston MG Car Club and Corpus
Christie MG Club. As far as listing events goes / if it's sent in we'll list
it. Can't list something we don't know about.
My point was that NAMGBR gives back more to it's membership than any other
organization and I'm very happy to be involved with such a fine group. The
quality of the MGB Driver is second to none. I'm also a proud member of MG
Car Club - Long Island Centre, Kansas City MG Car Club and Connecticut MG
Car Club.
Safety Fast,
David Deutsch >>
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