Squatch, I appreciate your thoughtful comments and you are speaking very directly to the challenges that face this club and many others that are similar to ACMOC. 

As a member, everyone needs to ask what the club is about, is it to provide a store for items that for the most part were not all that popular? Are we here to simply provide a magazine, a website, be a model producer, and to arrange and have all members pay for a "national" show that only a small percentage can actually attend? Or are we here to be an extended family that welcomes people of like mind into the group, that supports the history of Caterpillar, the massive impact these machines have had on our world? Are we here to provide specific restoration information and support restorers only, or is there a bigger picture?

I get that people may not like that there is no store any longer and that for a small subset of member that having a full time person to help them renew and order things from. But what has to be understood is that the store operations, including models, has been a money-loser for many years, it was unsustainable. What we were paying for full-time staff consumed over 75% of the dues collected.

I would like everyone to think, just for a moment.

Before the store closed and we still had full time staff, our financial analysis at the board level was to track how many months we had left before the money ran out. What that means is, if we continued on as it was, the club was on a very direct path to bankruptcy. What happens at that point? 

Where we are now, and have been for all of 2023 is we are profitable, meaning we no longer are on a countdown to insolvency. Our membership has grown by over 10% during 2023. 

There is no doubt, that chapters just like the international club, suffer from a lack of member involvement. A stunning statistic is that only 1% of the club membership actively volunteers to invest their time and talent into the club - 1%!  There is only so much blood to squeeze out of that rock. 

I ask, what is a club fundamentally for? Can any club thrive if members are not interested enough to be involved, to put some of their time into it, some passion? If it is not members willing to serve members and the public at large, then we are not much more that a magazine publisher, and a website manager. 

I know for a fact that those that are volunteering are passionate they put in a significant amount of time and talent into the club, I have great admiration for them, they really do go above and beyond and all of them have jobs, businesses and families to attend to as well.

As for chapters, I am very disappointed in the result. The fact is that chapters knew that change was coming by June of 2022. I stopped that in the fall of 2022 to regroup and hopefuly find an alternative solution. In the end, there was no other option than for the "subsidiary" chapters to become "contract" chapters, I repeat, there were no other options. I created a guide that laid everything out step-by-step and the board allowed over 90 days to complete, or substantially complete the changes. As I have said in many other posts and emails, I know the work could have been accomplished in 6-8 hours, but to be generous, let's say 20. The work could have been divided up and handed to 2-3-4 chapter members and the time burden on any single person would have been minimal. Keep in mind that all chapters outside the US have had to do this and have done so without a problem. So we know it is not an impossible task 

In the time that has been spent complaining about the change, all of it could have been done. That is a fact. Frankly, I have spent more time explaining, replying, defending, encouraging, etc. than it would have taken me to personally do the work for every one of them. But that is not my place.

I offered my assistance to anyone that wanted it, only one chapter asked for help, and that was chapter 15. They took a "let's get it done" approach, they valued the association with the club and they have done a lot of work toward it.

Whether we like it or not, change is a fact of life. This club will not survive without change, it will not survive if it is operated like it was in 1995, or 2010, or certainly 2014. We have to adapt. Caterpillar would be out of business if they were still building machines of 1950's technology and methods. Adaptation, takes all of us. To spend time and energy griping about why it isn't like it was 10-20-30 years ago is a waste of effort and does no good.

As far as the "other club". The effort by that group was destructive, there is no other way to describe it. If they really wanted to affect change, they could have done that according to the bylaws, they could have actually offered their assistance or put their names in to be on the board, but they did not do that. The changes they were demanding they themselves do not offer in their own club, 6 magazines per year, models, etc? Nothing there, I would have thought that those would be things they would have offered right away. Their efforts created a challenging and adversarial environment that did not add one iota of value to ACMOC. 

All this said, if you would like to form a chapter, put your talents to work, or otherwise be an active supporter of this really great club, let me know, I would love to have a chat.

Kurt

 

Absolutely not true. The fact is, I did all the research, wrote the guide, created a draft of bylaws, went through 90% of the tasks in two different states (the only thing I did not do was press send), in four hours on an airplane traveling for a business trip. The only thing left was to acquire insurance. I did spend another 10+ hours testing the guide to validate ti, but that is not something a chapter would have to do. 

I'll ask you as well, did you attempt it and if you did how far did you get in the process. If you got stuck, did you see where with the guide I offered assistance?

 

I'll make one more comment. Not one of the chapters that have said that there was not enough time to make the change asked for more time to complete it. The fact is, they could have asked, they could be working on it now, if they wanted to.

d4angelo wrote:

You nailed it buddy! As the former President of Chapter 16, you didn't miss a point in your post. Same goes for Sasquatch. Our club is very happy to move on. It was my recommendation to out members to maintain membership in the club to enjoy the magazine and the website. Put a fork in it and move on.


Did you attempt to do the work? How do you know there wasn't enough time?  Why did you not ask for an extended deadline to get the work accomplished?

ianauz wrote:

Skinner wrote:

Yes the unobtainable deadline, which no one speaks of.
more than anything ended the chapters.

So , If this deadline has passed ,Why are Chapter 5 and 15 still trying to  complete the registration ????
Is Chapter one compliant  ? Has Chapter 31 formed after ,and compliant ?
Without Chapters ,Is this the end of the ACMOC national shows . I cant see the Bods organizing a show .
How long is the forum going to be open for ?  Joe Blacks ACME forum is still around .



If you read the latest magazine, you will see that the board is heartily supporting members that want to organize a show. It is only the end of shows if there are not enough members willing to make the effort to have one.
 

brewzer wrote:

I am not trying to rattle any cages. My post is to bring awareness to the fact that ACMOC has lost over 20 of its US chapters. What is the reason for this? Does this indicate a healthy club or a declining club? I am still a member of ACMOC and still have my interest in caterpillars. My chapter was not able to meet all the qualifications to become a contract chapter. It's as simple as that. Obviously all the rest of the chapters could not either. My hats off to the people who tried to hold it together and are still working for the club. To Gees inquiry as to where I got my info, your chapter will be holding a meeting on the 20th.


The reason is pretty simple, the chapters and their leaders did not feel that the effort was worth it. 

Here's the deal:
Every chapter leader was supplied a step-by-step guide to get this done. I created the guide. I can provide it to anyone that has an interest. My estimate is that it would take 6-12 hours of time and that is a very conservative estimate. I know that I could have had chapter entities setup in two states in less than four hours all by myself, and that was with doing all the research for the two states and the federal regulations that applied. If I had the guide that I created, it would have been even less time. This time includes having a draft set of bylaws completed.

After the entity is created, there are a small number of other tasks:
1) elect a president, treasurer, and recorder
2) Finalize the by-laws
3) acquire insurance appropriate to the activities that the chapter will engage in

I hope this helps clarify.