hello ,to the Club Committe
.
from a Australian member , is the Director Ballat only been delivered in the sep/oct magazine ?
if so with a return voting of 31 oct 2016 i have only recived the mag today 16/11/16, it may have been in the post office box a few days ,so a return in time was never goimg to be , ,,there needs to be a better way to vote ,ie a long lead in time to send out and recive back the votes from overseas members .
online voting in members only site would help

,
the secnd thing is i would be happy to have my magazine subscriptions changed from a printed copy to a on line paid member only read magazine subscriptions , this would save printing cost to the club making my members cost more a donation to the club .
.
thank you , bruce oz

Neil Clydsdale reported to us that there was a problem with delivery of the magazine containing the ballot to Australian Members. Apparently there was a postal strike or slowdown which caused your magazines to take over two months longer to reach everyone. Because of this, we have held open the ballot period and will still accept your vote. Because of this problem, we have adjusted things this time so that you don't have to return the ballot card to vote, you can email or call the office to record your vote as well.

Our Nominating Committee has been considering alternatives to improve the voting process for some time. With our current structure, we haven't found a better solution than the ballot cards mailed with the magazine which balances costs, best service to our Members and provides a reasonably secure election process.

We are allowed by Oregon law and by our Bylaws pretty wide latitude in how the elections are run. We can allow online voting, voting by email, phone or by mail in card. One advantage of the mail in card system is that the card provides us some security in that a person wishing to manipulate the election would have to incur some costs to duplicate the cards and mail them into the office. Voting electronically, by email or phone generally lower the cost barriers to fraudulent activity, so they generally require higher security measures to be employed. Those higher security measures generally cost more money to implement and we've been trying to hold our costs down while working to improve the finances of the Club.

As our financial picture turns around and we have a bit of a budget for such projects, improving and expanding the Member's Area, along with possibly implementing a controlled method for Members to vote, but not allow more than one vote per Member, is on our list of projects to consider.

As far as an electronic version of the magazine, that is a bit of a financial catch twenty two for us, too. Each issue of the magazine costs about $14,000.00 to produce. That includes publishing, printing and mailing a little over 3,000 copies. The difficulty in cost comes because of the economies of scale. If we reduced our paper magazine count by, say, 300 and converted those Members over to electronic delivery, we would save the actual postage and paper portion of that $14,000 cost, but our per unit cost to print the other 2,700 copies would be a bit higher. The shorter production run you do in a printing environment, the more expensive each unit costs you and at 3,000 our run is so small that we're on the ragged edge of being economic. Our actual net savings by reducing our press run from 3,000 to 2,700 would be only a few hundred dollars.

We know that eventually we'll need to offer electronic delivery and probably somewhere around five years from now we'll probably need to stop paper delivery altogether. In the meantime however, a surprisingly large number of our Members prefer or are only capable of receiving paper magazines. While that is the case, it is not going to make economic sense to reduce our count of paper magazines produced. I could see us offering an additional service of sending or providing you with an electronic version of the magazine at the same time as we send you a paper magazine.

Our marginal cost of providing the electronic copy we get in the Member's Area or emailing it to you would probably not be much and would enhance your experience. You'd have the electronic version sooner than the mailed version, but would still get the paper copy later. This is another project that we can probably begin considering since our finances are about at a breakeven now. If you wanted to forgo the paper magazine, we could probably offer the option to go electronic, still print the magazine but add it to our stock of back issues for sale, saving the postage, too. Because of those economics though, we wouldn't be able to offer reduced dues for going only electronic on the magazine.

If things go well next year, we should have a reasonable profit and can start things moving on some of these projects, including electronic voting and production of electronic versions of the magazine.

Thank you for your interest, we're sorry that your magazine got delayed, but we definitely want to make sure that your vote is received and recorded.

Pete.

Bruce We had 3 spots to fill and only 3 people interested enough to run. If I had of got my way we would not have wasted time and money doing the ballot. we had a grand total 231 members voting or about 7%. 216Trish, 213Andy, 193Mike, and 1 vote for Lance Johns who got off the BoD because he no longer wanted to do it. To change the out come of the results we have there would have had to be 193 writes ins with the same person. Its very sad that we have to beg people to get on the ballot and never in my time have we had more then spots needed, then only 7% even vote its hard to get too excited about it all.

Willie, I note Your comment that "Lance Johns' didn't want to do it [Member of BOD] well Willie , I take offense at that Statement ,I didn't go for the second term for 2 reasons [1] My good Wife's Health was not Shaping well and You should recall at Wisconsin last Year she was having a Battle with travelling and Movement which were giving here Much grief .Her well being is far more important to Me than anything else , We have been Married for [Then] 52 years . We do everything together , [2] I felt that my health was slipping a little and 3 Years down the Track I may not be able to handle My Duties as Director to the standard I set Myself . You seem to forget that I am still on the Membership Committee and Chairman of the international sub-committee . I am also president of Chapter 18 . I enjoyed and Worked hard whilst on the Board and that experience has been an enormous help to Me , I have been able to Help Neil Clydsdale settle in with His board membership transition as well, I battled for sometime to get My feet on the ground so to speak and sure appreciate his work there now , We have formed 2 Chapters in Australia , increased ACMOC membership considerably out Here ,and have prospect of further Chapters in Foreseeable future . Deanna an I have travelled by air or road 10's of Thousands of kilometres At OUR OWN EXPENCE to Further the Organizations aims . In My 3 year term I only missed 2 Meetings , [1] I was out of Mobile reception and the Other attending the National Show at Mudgee in NSW . I field on a Daily Basis Phone Calls or Emails [In fact the last 3 Days I have had probably 10-12 Contacts from People wanting Help with Parts or advice or Just a Yarn. So Willie I am still very Active with ACMOC Business and will continue so as long as I can LJ

Well , a big thank you to you Lance for your input to the club and Chapter 18 .
I for one ,respect your reason for not standing for a second term .

Willie I think you will find this issue is the same with any club's of today plenty of people want the benefit of the club but dont want to put there hat in the ring Go to any AGM if you get people to turn up most sit on their hands and wont say boo
I dont know the answers to any of this but I know at our last chapter AGM I was adamant I wasnt gunna come away doing the position I had held for the previous two years and I didnt I came away with even more work LOL

So I think perhaps all members need to start to put their hand up and take on a more active roll or other wise one day these clubs not just ACMOC but all clubs will slowly die off

Paul

Lance 1st off I see my spell check changed your name Sorry
2nd Your personal issues are none of my business and certainly not for me to post on the social media. I simply stated you didn't want to do it with out gossiping about your personal problems.
If what I said offends you that's your problem not mine. Because in fact you didn't want to for what ever reason

Willie.

I am very troubled by the last post, I would prefer a director stand down than have ones that are just filling the seat like some of the current directors, so Lance you get my vote any day and I think the work you are now doing is better for the club than some that have complained about your standing down. it's just a shame the person that replaced you is not as committed to the club as you are, which is a step backward for the club!

WHAT THE ????

Struth I dont reckon any of this is in ACMOC's best interest no wonder we always have trouble trying to find people to chuck their hat in the ring and have a crack

fair dinkum are jokers serious ???
Knocking the blokes that are having a crack and on a public forum, pretty poor taste and the fact that Im the only one that thinks this way says a lot about the club and its members that wont even stand up for the blokes trying to run the show this a bloody disgrace and if people reckon they need to have gripe about some ones performance in the club theres gotta be a better way than doing this

dunno not happy at all about this

If you dont have enough guts to phone a bloke and have a word you shouldnt start having a whinge on the forum about them

Were are the moderators this crap needs sorting and sooner rather than later

Paul

I think the discussion here has gotten a little off track. I count both Lance and Willie among my best friends, I'm confident that I know them and because of that feel a little entitled to add my interpretation here.

Willie and I have served on the Board together for six years. For three of those we served with Lance. I am proud to have been one who encouraged Lance to join the Board. Because I know Willie well, I know that he has nothing but respect for Lance, for his service to the Club on the Board and for his continued service to the Club after he left the Board. I feel the same way.

I believe Willie's first post didn't intend to impugn Lance for choosing not to run. I think he was simply stating the fact that Lance got one vote even though he had chosen not to run. I know that Willie felt it wasn't his place to explain why Lance chose not to run, that is Lance's business.

I think Lance may have read a little more into Willie's words than was really there. No matter though, I think it was good for Lance to explain his perspective and to tell Willie if he felt Willie's post was misleading.

I can tell you all that both of them have worked and continue to work hard for the Club, building Membership, helping us create events and merchandise to attract and entertain our Members and contributing countless hours of their time.

d23j, I don't think Willie was complaining about Lance's standing down, he was simply stating a fact. I can assure you that each of the current directors is engaged, works hard for the Club and actively participate in Club operations in their chosen areas.

mrsmackpaul, I don't think anyone can reasonably interpret Willie's nor Lance's posts as insulting one or the other. Willie simply stated a fact, Lance expanded upon that fact, providing personal information and background which Willie (in my mind correctly) viewed wasn't Willie's business to discuss. Willie could maybe have been a little more diplomatic in his reply to Lance, but he did factually explain why he didn't provide that background (which Willie did know).

Lance did open his post with a statement that he was offended by Willie's comment. I'm a little confused about why he was offended. Willie didn't say anything negative against Lance, he simply stated the fact that Lance had chosen not to run. With Lance's opening comment that he was offended, it was reasonable for Willie to explain why he didn't mention any of the background and point out that Lance shouldn't have felt offended.

I can assure you all from personal knowledge that Willie recognizes, appreciates and respects the work that Lance does for the Club. I can also say from personal knowledge that Lance feels the same about Willie. I think we see here another example where the written word can be interpreted differently than the writer intended. That sometimes leads to some additional discussion, which is what we see here. I don't think this is discord or disrespect. From the discussion we all clearly see Willie's and Lance's perspective.

Pete.