Virtual Chapters?

So, CCA is really a buying club with a magazine?

Sounds a lot like Sam's Club but with a much more expensive membership fee, no free samples, and a poor selection of merchandise.


My experience working at a BMW Center is that I have to remind my customers that they are entitled to their "loyalty" rebate and print the form for them. That can't be why they continue to be members, and certainly not why they join.

I just think there are many members that look at CCA as a $48.00 subscription to a magazine.

I gotta agree with Phil. Loyalty rewards is pretty low on the list, IMO. I'm fairly certain I'll never get one and I daresay only a small percentage of 'CCA buys their cars new. I think, like the general population, most of us came by our BMWs the way everyone else does: 'pre-owned'. I rarely speculate on the reasons people join us. It's like watching sausage being made. I don't want to know. I only care that they do and that they enjoy it enough to keep on doing so.

Virtual Chapters will be a reality early this year. I am not opposed to the idea. I just want it done responsibly and respectfully disagree with those who believe that this will generate a windfall of new members.

The important issue is to do this responsibly and think through the process so as to not harm existing chapters. Possible unintended long term consequences should at least be discussed. I would like to see a program that at allows the traditional geographical chapters an opportunity to introduce themselves and their activities to new members, at the very least. If the virtual chapter program is structured so new members never have an opportunity to get to know the local folks or the opportunity to get involved we may well be a very different organization 5 years from now.

In the light of my desire to continue to push at the national level to aggressively grow membership through marketing this becomes important. The value for money calculation will make retention difficult if these new members have nothing more than an expensive magazine subscription and online forum of likeminded enthusiasts to retain them.

It has always been the people, and the events we stage together (AutoX, Street Survival, Tours, Driving Schools, Concourse, etc.) and knowledge and passion we share, that make the CCA valuable to me.

Mark

Future communication

I would humbly submit that in the not to distant future far more consumer type communication, research, purchasing etc. will be on electronic media. We now have dashboards connected to our wireless network for weather, news, recipes etc. I don't think an IPAD type interface built in the can is that far away. It appears that the virtual chapter groups would be on the leading edge of that technology and will probably use is anyway.

Well, Mark, I'm as 'on board' as anyone for a virtual chapter, but I don't see it as a windfall of any kind. If anything, we'd perhaps reach a handful of a couple hundred people who have a specific interest not well-served by their local chapters. An Isetta SIG, for example, since their cars simply can't be used for most typical club events. Another could be a chapter of cabrio owners who run their own driver schools that don't require a fixed steel roof (since the decision is up to the individual chapters).

The one possible group of which I'm a member is MyE28.com. I see this group dedicated to this single model (we're cool with E12s, E24s, and the occasional E3 or E34) becoming more marginalized because our major concerns in keeping our older cars on the roads are rarely well understood by most members with their 'New Millennium' cars. This happens with each new generation leaving the older ones behind. The pre-Neue Klasse owners have been there for a long time. I'd think, if you asked guys like Michael Izor and Joseph Chamberlain, you'd find that the pre-NK cars were never really accommodated within 'CCA. BMW CCA was formed by a bunch of guys who were primarily interested in BMWs less than 10 years old. That may fairly be doubled now, but the majority of the membership views BMWs over 20 years old as historical curiosities, not as primary activity cars.

The club as a whole will need to evolve to address the phenomenon I describe above. In 5 years, I'll then have a 30-year-old car even more marginalized from the local chapter's interests. It is already intimidating to try to run a stock E28 in an advanced or instructor run group - and I say this as an instructor. Even a well-driven rolling chicane is a danger at some level. When will we have to restructure our schools to filter out cars that are getting relatively as slow as the Isetta or a stock 1600-2?

While you're right about what it has been, in order to serve this relatively new kind of constituency, the club will have to look at different kinds of events that address their interests. As one of the organizers, I was delighted to see Oktoberfest welcome the MyE28-based 5er Fest this past year. I believe we've done the same for Isettas and I know we hosted the Motorsport Reunion in the past. By their very nature, these are national or even international groups and the only reasonable way for them to organize is to be 'cloud-based'.

I can count on one hand the number of E28 fanatics in my chapter, but I know a hundred or so around the world - and they know me. One popular event we occasionally organize is a regional 'wrenchfest'. While this sounds suspiciously like a 'tech session', it's not going to prove terribly engaging to E92 enthusiasts who aren't interested in getting elbows-deep in changing out a 20-year-old Getrag 265/5 - although beer is usually involved. One of our quick 'hands-on' seminars shows you how to fix the power headrest - like anyone who doesn't have an E28 wants to learn THAT.

Over the years, I have heard a number of complaints from other 'old car' guys like me that they simply don't feel welcome at typical chapter meetings; that everyone seems to disdain their old BMW and is more concerned whether the new F-XX will be available with a 9-speed manual or only the 8-speed automatic - and when will BMW ever learn to do Bluetooth right? I think the club will have to address that alienation or face losing the ever-increasing number of narrow-interest groups that have coalesced online because there's nowhere else they're wanted.

Thank you Phil for pointing out my oversight, I'll look into this situation tomorrow. I guess as someone once said "to error is human" although I'm sure you never missed crossing a T or dotting an i while you served the club.

CR Important to not contune this myth ALL BMW CCA driving events must comply with the DE minimum standards.

Best

Mark

I THOUGHT that was exactly what I did by pointing out that it is a local chapter option. Unfortunately (in my view), I believe most local chapters simply decide to follow the DEC's recommendation and prohibit them. At least the closest ones to me do.

Unless you're talking about autocross or something like that ...

To be clear, I wasn't pointing the finger at you, rather pulling Steven out from under that thumb.

The executive v-p is a position, not a person.

... and that position, old friend, is "Bend over and grab your ankles."

OK; the weenies finally won. Well, I've been out of that closed loop for a few years now. So I'll just go sulk in a corner, but not before pointing out to Mark that a past practice no longer used does not make it a 'myth' (which is impliedly something that never existed). It merely makes it a past practice. So don't portray one who was involved during the development of that past practice as someone who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Is it just me or does anyone else find these two opinions in direct opposition to each other?

Or is this what Doran meant to say (with punctuation, spelling, and emphasis added by me)?:

Thanks for clearing that up, Phil. The original statement is ambiguous as written, and I read it as I knew it to be a few years ago. If the last Chapter Congress finally engraved it in stone, and Chapter Congresses are held every three years (last I knew, unless some other 'CCA confabulation timetable tablet has come down to Moses), then more than three years ago, it was a local chapter option to allow cabrios under certain conditions. Living in a backwater like eastern Wisconsin and doin' stuff like runnin' Oktoberfest and 5er Fest, I sometimes miss things like this.