MARC enforcing Region membership requirement

[Mike V. Florida]

Exchange from last month,

OK,

Just heard a rumor that MARC will be eliminating regions with small national memberships. Is the request for a number of National members in our club for purposes of deciding to remove the club from the rolls? Is this connected to the search for a new insurance company?
Is it just small national memberships or the ratio of National to casual members that will lead to the removal?
I have heard this from other clubs in Florida.
Mike Vitetta

message dated 5/20/2014 2:19:21 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Dear Mike.
Amazing how rumors start. I will try and keep it simple. The request is made by our new Insurance Company. They are trying to find out how many region members are members of MARC. The intent is to NOT eliminate or diminish the role or the size of a Region.
Our Constitution states the following for Regions and their membership:
"A minimum of five (5) members in good standing may petition to form a New Region in MARC upon completion of an application and payment of an application fee as determined by the Board. The application shall be reviewed for completion and verified to assure each member is in good standing. A prerequisite for all Region Members shall be MARC membership. All MARC members shall be eligible for Region Membership."
The sticking point is the guideline requiring MARC Membership. Some Regions have members that are not MARC Members. Our Insurance policy essentially covers MARC Members. Those that are not put the region members and MARC in jeopardy. MARC membership supports the cost of maintaining our National Club which includes insurance, standing committees, employees, publications, office building and maintenance thereof.
Sincerely,
Gary Johnson
MARC Vice President.
From: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 14:45:53 -0400
Subject: Re: Email from the Website
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]


I always want to go back to the source when it comes to rumors. It is easier to squash them that way.

Mike
Hi Mike,
I agree it is best to squash these rumors before they have a chance to START but when already being spread we need to make sure all members get the real story and not innuendo or rumor.
It is part of my job as Director of Membership and Public Relations to make sure MARC grows and remains at healthy membership numbers.
It will never be the intent of this club to reduce our membership by even one person and certainly not any regions.
Quite the contrary, we are doing all we can to increase the membership in MARC and need the help of all the regions to do so.
We will be adding on Regions as they are formed by groups around the country and even the world.
We have active Regions in many countries around the world and communicate with them frequently.
It is as Gary has indicated very important that all members be members of the National MARC to support our efforts to cover all of the members and regions with a significant insurance policy so if a catastrophic event occurs they can be protected by our policy.
The National Board of Directors has made decisions to make sure this is all possible to protect those members and regions that we are talking about. Please remember all Board of Directors come from a Region.
I want to thank you for bringing this rumor to our attention so we can squelch it as soon as possible.
Thanks for being a dedicated member of the Model A Restorers Club,
Ken
MARC Director of Membership and Public Relations


Ken Ehrenhofer
[email protected]
Home 815 -337-4656
Mobile 630-697-3906