NWACC Board of Directors Meeting
President Jim Duschel called the meeting to order at 12:30 PM at Friendly Chevrolet, Puyallup, Washington. Other officers present were: vice president, George Schwartz; secretary, Lona Hyatt and treasurer, Dave Kaiser.
Roll Call
Clubs present were:
Corvettes de Olympia
Classical Glass Corvette Club
Corvette Marque Club
Glass Odyssey Corvette Club
Mt. Hood Corvettes
Rose City Corvettes
Clubs not present were:
Capital City Corvette Club
Columbia River Corvettes
Mason County Corvettes
Northwest Corvette Association
R-Vettes Northwest
Willamette Valley Corvette Association
A quorum was established.
Minutes:
Lona Hyatt passed out minutes from the April 9, 2005 meeting. Minutes were previously emailed to all clubs. Jim asked for questions or modifications to the minutes. There being no corrections or modification, a motion was made, seconded and passed to accept the minutes as published.
Treasurer’s Report:
Dave Kaiser presented a written and verbal treasurer’s report. All 12 clubs have paid their dues and insurance premiums.
Competition Committee Report:
George Schwartz noted that today’s CGCC event was the first NWACC sanctioned event of the season to be followed by tomorrow’s autocross and next week-end’s Rose City Classic. After that, NWCA of Vancouver may be sponsoring an autocross on the 24th of September (according to their web site)and NWACC is hosting an October 2nd autocross at the Shelton, WA airport.
George will have flyers for the NWACC event available at Rose City next week. The registration form can be found on the web site. Rooms have been set aside at the Little Creek Casino for those who want to come down on Friday night. Please make your reservations early. We will have al least as much course space available as last year and possibly more. George noted that he is talking with the radio controlled airplane club to see if we can use more of the runway. The event will be held rain or shine. All reps are requested to take word of the event back to their respective clubs.
At the April meeting we passed an amendment to the By-Laws to suspend the NWACC card/number system for the 2005 season. This was done to encourage every member of every club to take part in as many events as they could without the hassle of paperwork. Participation points will be given to every club member who participates. Not having an NWACC number should not stand in anyone’s way. Clubs will track and report all participants and everyone who is a member of a member club will be eligible for year-end awards. If this is easier and better for club members we will want to consider adopting this process permanently by making proposing a permanent amendment to the By-Laws at the end of the year. Any member club may propose this permanent change.
George reported that Chuck Spittal of Rose City has proposed hosting an autocross and has mentioned a concern about awards for such an event. Chuck’s question was to the type of awards required. Because NWACC rules do not dictate a specific type of award, it is felt that this is a non issue. If Chuck wants to do an event, he is free to determine the type of awards presented.
Chuck would like to have this be a two-part event with separate morning and afternoon autocross’s on a reversed course. In other words, participants would go through the course one way in the morning and in the reverse direction in the afternoon.
Dave agreed that this would be a good idea as it would add two additional NWACC sanctioned events to the 2005 calendar. Tim Cox raised a question in regard to how these two events would be scored. If considered two separate events for NWACC points, then according to the rules, if a person was unable to attend both the morning and afternoon events, he or she would be disqualified from year-end points for having missed two events. Discussion of the dual-autocross proposal was tabled until the next meeting to allow Dave and/or George time to talk with Chuck and obtain more information.
OLD BUSINESS
Jim and George reminded all club reps that they need to be looking to their clubs for members who might wish to fill officer vacancies on the Board in 2006. The offices of vice president, secretary and treasurer are open for election. Lona (sec) has indicated she wishes to step down at the end of this term and although both George (vp) and Dave (tr) are willing to continue in their respective positions, both would welcome a year off. Please help get the word out and also think about taking on a position yourself. All club members are eligible for office.
NEW BUSINESS
Jerry Weese noted that Rose City will be hosting the year-end banquet and inquired as to the budget. All clubs present responded that they would be contributing toward the raffle as usual. The banquet will be on November 5th in Portland. Flyers are available and will be going out today and tomorrow at the autocross.
Dave reported that he is extremely tired of dealing with member clubs who delay remitting their dues and insurance premiums year after year. It has become expensive and time consuming for him to manage. Most member clubs do respond to the annual billings quickly and remit event fees timely as well. However, there are a few clubs that never do this. The responsibility to chase after these clubs to collect past due fees, that all clubs have agreed up front to pay, falls to the treasurer. However, the treasurer has no way to make them pay timely. It was suggested that perhaps this situation could be better handled by a By-Laws amendment that more clearly defines payment responsibilities and puts “teeth” into the verbiage providing consequences for non-payment. At this point, the club reps were asked to remind their clubs that payment needs to be submitted when due. If this continues to be a problem, a stronger solution will be sought.
George reported that he had recently read the Northwest Corvette Association’s (NWCA) newly amended By-Laws to which a membership classification called “member-at-large” has been added. Regular members will be moved into this membership classification based upon the number of events in which they participant over a given period of time. The By-Laws state that NWCA will not include this class of members in the annual membership count it submits to NWACC for insurance purposes. This is a reemergence of the same issue we had earlier this year when NWCA submitted its membership roster short of members determined to be not “actively participating”. At that time, NWCA, issued a letter withdrawing their NWACC membership rather than pay for all members. A week later they rescinded their withdrawal and paid the balance of the fees. This By-Laws change seems to be a direct attempt to circumvent NWACC rules.
Jerry noted that NWACC membership includes all members of member clubs. The following points were discussed. Individual club membership classifications do not matter. Payment of the “per member” insurance remittance is due for each and every member of every club. If a club wants to be a member of NWACC they must abide by NWACC rules. We don’t care what they put in their By-Laws. NWACC membership is calculated the way NWACC says it is calculated.
NWACC’S liability is based upon the number of people potentially attending NWACC events. Hence, our insurance coverage must be based on the same criteria. We must cover all members of all clubs regardless of the amount of individual participation. It is impossible for NWACC to purchase insurance for specific members, including some and excluding others. It is imperative that all club members be covered at all events.
NWACC’s annual membership renewal is approaching and Dave is preparing to send 2006 letters of invitation to all member clubs. He asked the Board to authorize the non-renewal of the NWCA based on their lack of compliance with NWACC rules.
Ron Waller suggested that before such steps are taken, Jim contact the NWCA to inquire about the By-Laws change and NWCA’s intent. It is important that we find out why they made this change and what they plan to do in the future. He will also ascertain further information on the September autocross event. Jim will make the phone call and report his findings at the next meeting.
Lona reported that the situation with the NWCA prompted her to take a closer look at our Constitution and By-Laws. Although they do speak to the issue of membership, they do not clearly define what a member is or what the insurance requirements are. Lona will write up a proposed amendment in clarification of membership for presentation at the next meeting.
Lona also suggested that we consider changing the annual membership renewal date to coincide with the annual insurance renewal date. This would reduce the amount of work required of the treasurer by renewing everything at one time. Many clubs in attendance agreed with this in concept. It was suggested that the upcoming membership renewal be for a period which includes the months in between the current renewal date (November 1) and the new renewal date (April 1). This would mean that clubs would pay an increased annual renewal fee this November and membership renewal would not come up again until April, 2007. This year only, the renewal would include November 2005 – March 2007, or 17 months. Beginning in 2007, the renewal month would be April 1st, the same as our insurance renewal. Lona will write a proposal for presentation at the next meeting.
Jerry suggested that perhaps we could put out a letter to the clubs who are not actively participating letting them know that they are missed and everyone would love to have them join in the fun. Megan Renick stated that many clubs are using NWACC as their insurance agent and proposed that we require each member club to host one event per year. This suggestion was quickly countered by others who noted that many clubs cannot afford to host even one event. Additionally, some clubs have too few members to be able to support an event on their own. A discussion ensued as to other ways to enlist more participation.
Dave Ellingson noted that Glass Odyssey is working on a plan to host a car show next February inside the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale, WA. This was met by much enthusiasm. Dave will update the Board as the event planning comes together.
The next meeting will be held at the Rose City Classic, Saturday, August 15th, at approximately 12:00 PM.
Meeting was adjourned at 2:00 PM.
Respectfully Submitted by,
Lona R. Hyatt, NWACC Secretary