[CDO] CDO Stuff

[Vince O'Brien]

I'm not sure why I'm not receiving these emails.  I signed up a while back.  Here's what I'd like to send out.

We have 160 members including two new ones.

I have been rebuilding the membership list from past rosters, the "new members" announcements in the newsletters and the mailed-in responses.  I am confident that I can replicate just about all the members up to 2013.  At that time Gary stopped publishing the new member's contact information.  Also, the response rate for people who joined after that has been low.  Thus, we will likely permanently lose a lot of these newer members.  I do have all the members in California as of 2015 and will send a follow-up email to those who didn't respond.

I have also been rebuilding the registry from the old registries in the newsletters.  By combining them, we will get a pretty good history of each car.  The oldest is 1966 from the prior club.  The most recent registry was October 2012.  It has 619 cars and is ten pages long.  I just had it typed into an Excel file by a secretarial service.  It took half an hour per page and the total cost was $250.  I was able to scan one of the registries and convert it to an Excel file but it took me three hours to clean up the errors.  I tried scanning and converting two more registries but the error rate was too high.  If anyone has a secretary with some extra capacity, that would be most helpful.  It would be a lot easier and more reliable if we just got a copy of Gary's registry.  He repeatedly said it was for posterity.

I have compiled digital copies of most of the newsletters.  The HCCA librarian indicated they had saved their paper copies so I'm going to ask them to scan the missing ones.  In return, I'll send them a CD copy that is searchable.  I also recovered the index that a member compile around 2012.  I need a volunteer to index those since then.  Any takers?  I promised Gary I wouldn't distribute any digital copies until after his book was published and distributed.  Then, I will offer copies to members.

The website, www.curveddasholdsmobileclub.com<http://www.curveddasholdsmobileclub.com>, has a list of people who offered parts for sale in the last five years or more.  Monroe Miller is first on the list.  There is a button to click that will bring up his catalogue.  I will be adding some of the questions people asked to the forum as well.  It's crucial that we get members using the forum or this email distribution list.

The website allows us to put up helpful information and leave it there for all to see.  I plan to add things like the production numbers, a list of parts interchangeable between the R & 6C, etc.  It also allows us to put up pictures.

Email distribution lists like this one work for low frequency inquiries as it pushes them to the participants.  However, people have to sign up.  The respondents gave me 140 email addresses so we're falling short.

Based on the responses, our biggest task it to get the members to participate rather than simply to ask Gary.  Gary was unique and 100% dedicated to the club.  None of us can match that nor should they.

Lastly, I'm planning on putting out a newsletter sometime in July.  I've got some news from members and can write an interesting article on my CDO's history back to when it was sold.  I could use a technical article and a reprinted article circa 1904.  If I can't find new ones, I plan to use one from and old newsletter.

Vince

Vince O'Brien, DBA
OSKR Economic Experts
2200 Powell St.
Suite 430
Emeryville, CA 94608
D: 510-899-7184
M: 415-302-7030

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