Almost 3700 registered members and still growing! Lots of activities and cruise nights being held all across the country for our members to “meet and greet” each other will help swell these numbers even more as Summer 2004 starts to wind down.
Since our last progress report in May, we have added another Regional Director and made other changes to reflect the challenges of expanding an organization such as ours.
Daniel “Danny” Araujo of Dayton, OH, joins us as Region 8 Director for Ohio and West Virginia. Danny is a Los Angeles, CA native who stayed in the East after serving in the U.S. Air Force and is a life-long mechanic, now working as Manager for Hyster Fork Lifts. Mr. Araujo (he pronounces it “A-Raw-Ho”) owns a 1978 Custom Elky with a 400 h.p., 327 engine. We hope he will keep Mike Dallesca on hand to help in organizing events in that large region.
Danny Hernandez of the San Francisco Bay Area is stepping up as Region 18 Director for Northern California and Northern Nevada, replacing Jon Roberts, who is taking on a different role described below. Danny is a long-term state employee dealing with automotive issues and will be a great asset to us.
And speaking of large regions, we have decided, after consultation with Dan Smith, Robert More, and a few other leaders, that we need to recruit and appoint “Area Coordinators” in some of the larger states such as Texas, California, and Florida. Because the driving distance is too great to allow all members to meet and greet without making an overnight stay, we will have Area Coordinators assisting the Regional Director in scheduling events that are closer to home for more of our members. This will probably also work in those regions that cover several states, where we hope to find an Area Coordinator for each state that has a large number of members. (Of course, we are always open to redrawing our Regional boundaries, based on geography, membership growth, and local feedback.)
First to step up into this new leadership role is Mike Stevens of Jacksonville, Florida. Jon Roberts, formerly Region 18 Director in Northern CA and Nevada, will become Area Coordinator around the Bay Area. We are presently talking about this position with several other candidates. We are in active discussions with several other members to fill vacant Regional Director jobs. If you know of someone who could fill either the Regional Director or Area Coordinator role, please contact me via email at judgeharris@comcast.net.
Several other initiatives are also under way. Robert More has recently installed a bigger and better server for www.elcaminocentral.com with the financial help of those who have become “Supporters” of our website. As of early July, $800 was contributed to offset Robert’s expenses in maintaining and upgrading the website. And speaking of which, Robert has been working on a major revamping of the website to add new features and improve its reliability and performance. The most significant change will be the requirement for more information about our members’ automobiles and their location, which was approved by our Board of Directors last year. While this location and personal data will still remain confidential and not be disseminated outside our organization, it is vitally important to our Regional Directors in expanding their ability to contact local members and organize meet-and-greet events. So, we encourage our Regional Directors and all members to send their supporting contribution to Robert More at the address shown on the website, and also to support our change-over to the new location and contact information for our new and existing members. Look for an announcement of this change soon.
You may have noticed a lot of postings about meet-and-greet events and cruise nights/car shows lately. We are encouraging Regional Directors and Area Coordinators to focus their major attention to this activity. It is much more practical and easier for us to have our members attend existing events already organized by others and avoid the major financial and legal hassles involved in setting up new venues. I have been contacting major publications and websites to have them list NECOA and www.elcaminocentral.com as links in their publications, so that more people can find us. In addition, I am trying to identify all the major listings and publications for auto enthusiasts who have regularly-scheduled events and will forward this info to you as it is available. Most states have some list available on the world-wide-web which contains information about auto clubs and events. You are encouraged to look over these lists and find one or two events each month that would be convenient for your local members to attend if they can, and to post this information on our website under the proper Forum for your region. Please try to avoid long-running postings about who’s coming or not, and use our Event Scheduling modules and direct email for this function.
Each of you should start building an email “group listing” of members in your area using the files that were sent to you in May, and continually add new members as you learn of them. There is nothing like a personal message of invitation from a Regional Director to each member’s own computer about attending a local event. You are also encouraged to share your “lessons-learned” and other feedback to your fellow Regional Directors by a posting on our website.
In the meantime, thank you all for your efforts to help our club and its website grow in stature and impact.
John Harris, National Director – NECOA August 15, 2004
