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By Steve Moskowitz |
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Don’t forget that National headquarters can support your region or chapter in a variety of ways. The staff is dedicated to serving you but you must ask! First of all, we always have a supply of our new brochure for you to use with perspective members. It is a great visual tool that highlights not only the club but the AACA Library & Research Center and the AACA Museum. These brochures are available at no charge. Also, remember the AACA Film Library. Searching for something extra for your meetings? Look no further as we have over 100 films for you to show. Many are extremely funny and others give you a peek into the past. Contact Karen White at headquarters and she can help you with your request. Seeking merchandise or gift items for an event? Call us, we may be able to provide some close-out items at a heavy discount. Take advantage of our ability to help you find potential members in your area who have not joined the region or chapter. Unsure of your insurance situation? Give us a call and we will get you the answers you need. Don’t forget that National has a lot of new merchandise your members
might be interested in. Great new “tin” signs, new ladies clothing items
and new children’s toys make up our latest offerings. Please consider buying a Solstice raffle ticket. Only about 500 more to go to sell this out! Please support our club, Library and Museum. Who knows, you may win the car or the cash! The odds are better than a casino or the Lotto that is for sure. Thanks for your continued support.
2006 Pontiac Solstice AACA Raffle Car
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Legislative Issues in Your Region/Chapter By Tom Cox. |
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In recent years, we have become too familiar with federal and state regulations that have a direct and indirect negative affect on our hobby. Issues such as federal and state funded scrappage programs, mandated fuel additives, Freon replacement, limitations on paint refinishing products, and increasing pressure to lower emissions of all types have given our hobby a collective headache. Fortunately, we have active hobbyist groups and auto aftermarket organizations such as the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) working with us to minimize the impact of government on our hobby. However, these organizations are unable to provide much support and oversight at the local level. There are simply too many town councils, and boards of supervisors for them to monitor. Therefore, it is up to the local hobbyists to act as the watchdog of the hobby. Your local AACA region or chapter is the perfect organization to perform the function of oversight and action regarding unfriendly ordinances and legislation. Localities and the emerging homeowners associations across the country are increasingly oppressive in their approach to issues affecting us. Nuisance ordinances can prevent us from keeping our properly stored project and parts cars on our property, not to mention car trailers as well. In many localities there are now ordinances prohibiting general repairs in residential areas. Restoration work is almost certainly prohibited in these areas as well. You may think that since your project is in an enclosed garage you are immune to regulation. Think again! Many localities and homeowners associations prohibit mechanical repairs regardless of whether they're done in your garage or not. They fear you are creating and disposing of hazardous waste in the form of used oil, anti freeze etc. Consequently, repairs can only be made in areas zoned for industrial or automotive repair purposes. Watching prices at the Barrett Jackson auctions these days will put a glint in the eye of any municipal tax collection agency. Many areas want revenue and are busily pouring over ways to get into your pockets in the form of fees and personal property taxes. What can you do to keep ahead of the laws and ordinances? Be vigilant. Make sure your region has a duly appointed legislative representative. Read the public announcement section of your newspaper, or go online to check the upcoming agenda on your areas council meetings. Attend local shows and discuss potential problems with other hobbyists. They may know something you don't, and even if they know nothing they may think joining AACA is a way to stay ahead of the regulatory wave. Getting to know your area legislators is a big plus, especially if you find one who is a car nut. Meet one on one with your legislators to discuss your position on ordinances or proposed legislation affecting the hobby. If you can’t meet one on one, use the phone, but always be positive and polite when discussing your side. There is always security in numbers, so try to seek out other like minded hobbyists outside of your region or chapter at car shows and cruise-ins. Other hobbyists have a lot to lose or gain with legislation as well. Use AACA as the anchor organization, holding meetings on legislative action before or after your normal region meeting. Non members who attend will be helpful, and may join AACA as well. Remember...as former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local". You don't need to have problems to get to know your representatives. It never hurts to stay in touch when times are good. Invite your council members and other officials to your next show and ask them to pick their favorite car for an award such as "Mayors Choice". Take pictures of them making the presentation and put them in your newsletter, which can be sent to their offices. Don't pass up on the parade ride you just gave to your local official. Take every opportunity to let them know you need their support. Awareness, working together, and developing relationships with representatives will bear fruit when you have to move to protect your hobby. Start building those relationships now, because you may need them to protect your rights as a hobbyist tomorrow. Editors Note: For additional information on the AACA legislative structure and how AACA members can get involved with legislative issues pertaining to the old car hobby, see the Legislature Resource Page on the AACA web site at: http://www.aaca.org/resources/legislation.aspx |
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By Brenda Shore Kaiser
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At every Membership Roundtable, held at each meet, we receive comments, questions and suggestions that involve the way that the AACA stores and processes data. It may not seem obvious when the question in asked but in some way, data is involved. As you can imagine there is a lot of information that is kept for each member, car, and judge. My responsibility is to assure that the data is maintained, is secure, and is available when and where it is needed. This year, however, the responsibility has increased to include an update to our current application to make it stronger and more useful into the future The interesting and challenging part of developing an application to support the AACA requirements is that our needs are unique, unlike a standard business. We need to access our data not only at Headquarters in Hershey, but remotely at meets and in planning the meets for registration and judges. In addition, it is our responsibility to ensure that the data we capture is secure and available only to those individuals who have a need to access the information. My goal for 2006 is to capture our current requirements for information and add to the requirements to strengthen the way that we can operate. Wouldn’t it be great if you could update your address on-line and do it only once instead of sending it to Headquarters and the Chairman of Judges Records? How about being able to pay your meet registration on-line? These are just some of the things we are planning as we move forward. I do not want to imply that the changes we make to the system will take away from our current way of doing business. Improving our systems and making them more accessible will increase the options available to you; we will not stop the mail or the phone as a point of contact. The direction we are going is aligned with the future of our membership where our younger members are familiar with the world of the internet and look to it as a way to do business. Our technology must be upgraded not only to keep up with the growth of AACA but to embrace future generations of members and their expectations As I continue to work on our technical future I welcome any of your suggestions, comments and questions. You can contact me directly at bshorekaiser@hotmail.com or if you prefer, by phone at (704) 241-2872.
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Are You Aware of Development and Support In AACA? By Dave Chiotti |
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There are four divisions in AACA; the Eastern, Southeastern, Central, and Western. Herb Oakes is the Vice President of Development and Support for the Eastern and Southeastern Divisions. I, Dave Chiotti, have the Central and Western Divisions. The Central and Western Divisions cover everything west of an imaginary line from the southern tip of Texas to the North Pole. As Vice President of Development and Support for the Central and Western Division I have eleven Chairmen to assist me. It is our soul purpose to assist each and every Region and Chapter in any way possible. It is our goal to strengthen the bond between the membership and the National Organization. Our task is to inform and help address any questions and or concerns the membership has. Our door is open. All you need to do is knock. Happy Motoring in 2006. Dave Chiotti VP Development and Support
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By Herb Oakes |
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As your Vice President of Development and Support of the Eastern and South Eastern Division of Regions and Chapters, along with a team of chairman, I would like to introduce to you our on-going program of interaction with and between Regions, Chapters and individual members to promote good will and understanding (“esprit de corps”) between members, Regions Chapters and the National organization. Consider me that of a goodwill ambassador representing the National club. Our task is informational and should help to address the main questions of what can the AACA do for our local Regions and Chapters. If your members would like to have one or our chairmen make a visit, they would be more than happy to accept an invitation to your club meeting or event, as well as accept or answer questions from individual members. Our objective is to make a presentation, have a short video and then answer questions. The presentation would cover a basic background conformation: History of the AACA, membership, national meets and tours, policy and procedures manual general information, attending national meets, activity request cards- where to find them and how to use them, etc. These topics can vary based on your membership requests. The total amount of time from beginning to end should be approximately one hour including 5-10 minutes for questions. This effort is designated to establish more direct face-to-face contact between individual members and the National organization to foster a more direct feeling of belonging rather than any feeling of being “forced to belong”. It is my goal as Vice President of Development & Support to make individual members that are encountered feel they are important to the National organization and that their feelings and concerns are heard and considered. Having said the above, the success of this program is the volunteer chairman that I have as the VP of Development & Support working with me as a team getting our program out to Regions and Chapters. I am looking for volunteers who are AACA enthusiasts interested in the preservation of our hobby and who enjoy talking to others to get the message of Development & Support to each and every member. Chairpersons are needed in the New England States which covers Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island; Western Virginia, Southern Florida, Delaware and Maryland, Tennessee and Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, West Virginia, Upstate New York, Southern tier New York and Central New York. This position requires chairpersons who are interested in furthering AACA. These are the folks who will make personal contacts with our members as they can, so as to give AACA more visibility and show the membership that the National Club has a true interest in their enjoyment and understanding of the Club. For those AACA members who would be interested in becoming a chairperson on the Development & Support team, please contact me. I can be reached at: 102 Converse Dr.
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