While this is about the Vintage Triumph Register, I think
any british-car owner should read it with his/her thoughts
focused on similar reasons to belong to the national
club that supports that owners marque.
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During the absence from my office during the last two weeks,
TeriAnn Wakeman posted a message asking: "Why join or
renew membership in the Vintage Triumph Register (VTR)?"
As president of VTR, I'd like to reply to the questions and
issues raised by TeriAnn in that message. Let me preface my
response with the fact that I in no way feel that TeriAnn has
unjustly flamed or critisized VTR. I have interspaced my
remarks within the body of TeriAnn's message. TeriAnn's
comments are prefaced on each line with a > character.
>From: "Teriann J. Wakeman" <mit-eddie!APPLE.COM!twakeman@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
>Subject: To VTR or not to VTR ...
>
>Other than getting a club to put on an insanely great convention somewhere
>east of the great divide once a year, what does VTR do that justifies its
>existence????
>There has not been a convention in a location that doesn't require a major
>expidition for west coasters to get to that I know of.
TeriAnn is absolutely correct that the farthest west any of our
conventions have been is Boulder, Colorado this year. VTR must, out
of nesessity rely totally on a local VTR chapter to serve as the
host club for each annual convention. While I have personally
talked to a few individuals from west coast clubs that were
(apparently) thinking of hosting a convention, VTR has never
received an actual request from any west coast club to actually
host the convention. For clarification, a request would be some
form of written request/proposal for a future year's convention
giving proposed dates, events, location, etc.
>I have yet to read an artical in the glossy magazine that would be of much
>interest to a TR3 owner.
Certainly it isn't easy to provide something for everyone in each
issue of the magazine. VTR members own the entire range of available
TRs/Spitfires/GT-6/Stag, etc. I don't know how long TeriAnn has been
a member, but I think any TR-3 (infact any Triumph owner) would find
the engine rebuild flowchart in the last issue (044) of interest or
the disk brake article in issue 043. The next issue, already printed and
waiting for mailing labels as I write this contains a great (IMHO)
article written by the American team about their exploits with their
TR-3 entry in the 1958 Alpine Rally. I know TeriAnn is very know-
ledgeable about her TR-3 as well as other British marques, and perhaps
some of the material that many people find very interesting is,
therefore, of less value to her (I'll revisit that thought again later).
>I often get the feeling that the newsletter is
>mailed just to try to meet membership agreement obligations and not because
>it has anything useful in it.
VTR started the newsletter in 1981 to supplement the magazine. The
purpose of the newsletter is to provide current events listings,
reports on local club activities, advertising (both classifieds and
vendor display ads), and anything else that is either time sensitive
or of such a nature that a member is less likely to want to retain
that information in his/her home library. In contrast, the magazine
is intended to be the source of historical articles, technical
information and any other "permanent" info/articles that members would
generally want to save. In the absense of the magazine on a regular
basis, some technical information was being done in the newsletter.
With the magazine now coming out on a close to normal basis, that will
no longer occur. So, with that in mind, I have to ask TeriAnn what,
specifically, would she like to have included in the newsletter that
isn't already there.
>Our (Triumph Traveler's) VTR rep has two stock reports for the club meeting...
>1. Nothing new to report. or 2. a news letter has just come out. If you have
>not received yours, your membership may have run out.
Over the past year, we hope he (Mike Millard) has been reporting that
a magazine has been issued also. Additionally, Mike and I talked
at the convention in Boulder and we'd like to come up with some
additional activities/freebies/etc. for the local VTR rep to get
involved with at local meetings. I have to ask you to trust me on
this, but we are looking into it.
>Its getting near time for me to reup my membership & I am looking for a reason
>to do so. There must be a reason that I am missing.
How about because anyone that is into cars should belong
to at least one national organization and one local club if
there is one nearby. Seriously, while I don't believe TeriAnn
is the kind of person to not support the hobby, there are
too many others out there that fit that description. I firmly
believe that any individual that is into a particular marque
should help support that marque by joining one national
club that caters to it. TeriAnn has several marque interests,
so I wouldn't feel slighted if the financial aspect of joining
the national club(s) for each marque could be a burden, and she
gave up membership in VTR. But, I would hope she retains
membership in at least one.
The folks that really get to me are the ones that only show up
at shows to win trophies, never want to help, pester
you with questions and NEVER join the club(s)
>I realize that an organization is what the members make of it. But all I have
>seen are conventions too far away for me to go and news letters that do not
>have anything of interest to me. Bill, what am I missing. What does VTR do
>that I am not seeing????
>I realize that I have been asking "Think not what you can do for VTR but what
>VTR can do for you" questions. What else does VTR do besides the newsletters
>& convention???? What else is there that I might find of value??
>My take is that VTR consists of a few people on the East coast & in the South
>working hard to keep the orginization going, and a whole lot of people like
>me who are sitting around waiting to be entertained.
Again, I think it's more spread out than you state, but you are
not far from the mark when you say "a whole lot of people....who
are sitting around waiting to be entertained. Note that I dropped
the reference in that quote to you because, in my opinion, your
contributions to the british-cars list discussions is much more
than "sitting around". Additionally, your involvement with
the local club, Triumph Travelers, is far from waiting to be
entertained.
>I think that I should either let my membership lapse or get involved, and I
>am looking for something to get involved in and a reason to do it.
>How bout projects that every member club can get involved in and contribute to.
Any examples would be very much appreciated. The closest we have going
at the moment is an ongoing series of "How I Got My Car Home" mini-tech
articles/letters. When I asked for input from members as to what, if any,
effects they have seen from onlu using unleaded gas, I only received
4 replies.
>I hope I am making a little sense. I am trying to stir up some conversation
>about what VTR is and what it does. Also, some discussion about what it can do
>to involve more of its members while at the same time meeting more of their
>needs.
Again, any suggestions would be appreciated.
>I look at the TRA newsletter and always find at least one solid tech artical,
>plus other articals of interest. Yet the TRA seems to be a midwest based
>group that also just offers a newsletter and a far away convention and not much
>else. There must be more to national organizations than that!!
Now here's an area I think TeriAnn can really help in. I suspect TeriAnn's
knowledge of the TR-2/3 series cars is superior to most members of both
TRA and VTR. I know she has done considerable research into the early
cars and the equipment they came with. We (VTR) would be happy to
recieve a technical article (or two or three) to publish in the magazine.
Getting people to write competent technical articles is perhaps the
most difficult thing we (VTR) face. I extend the offer made to TeriAnn
to anyone else that feels they have written (or could write) a technical
article on some aspect of a particular Triumph problem, replacement
procedure, etc.
As to TRA (Triumph Register of America for owners of TR-2 and TR-3s),
I won't comment on their thrust or purpose, but I'd like to point
out that VTR's conventions have moved around the country (except
as noted to the west coast due to lack of a host chapter offer to
put one on). It's worth noting that I bumped into Joe Richards,
TRA President, at The Roadster Factory's weekend party (Aug. 11)
and Joe commented to me that one of the biggest problems TRA has
is losing members to local chapters.
>What happens if the few people who have been working so hard to keep VTR and
>TRA burn out & stop proping up the organizations?
It isn't as few as you might think, but in reality, there have been
individuals who have been very active and are now "burned out". Happily,
we have always had new blood to take their place. The biggest problem
is how to find the new blood, but with the growth of the chapters and
the club in general (VTR now has over 4300 members), it isn't as difficult
as one might think and it goes on constantly.
>I think Kenedy got it wrong. You should ask first what an organization can do
>for you. And then, if you like the answer, ask what you can do for the
>organization.
Well, for review: VTR membership includes:
4 magazines
plus supplementary newsletters
free classifieds
vehicle consultants
discount book service
I don't think that's insignificant for a $20 membership. Sure, we aren't
Road & Track with their 200 pages per issue, but how much Triumph or
even British Car stuff do you find in Road & Track these days.
>Any thoughts? comments? yellow flags?
I hope I have made some inroads with this response and I look forward
to any suggestions offered. This turned out to be significantly
longer than I originally planned, so if you have read this far, I thank
you for your interest and I truly would appreciate any suggestions
or constructive critism which can help make VTR a better
national organization.
In closing, I'd like to mention that it was upon meeting TeriAnn
at a Triumph Travelers meeting in California (I was in CA on
business) in April 1989 that I learned about the british-cars
mailing list. So thanks again TeriAnn for adding this email
messaging to my daily dosage of british-cars fun.
Bill Sohl, VTR President
uucp bcr!taichi!whs70
internet whs70@taichi.cc.bellcore.com
Bill Sohl, Vintage Triumph Register President
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