NECOA STATUS REPORT
JANUARY 2006
The year 2005
is finally becoming a bad memory for many members who experienced economic,
medical, and/or environmental calamities in that most unusual year. It seemed
like every region of the country had one or more attacks from wildfires, snow
storms, rain, flooding, and devastating hurricanes that disrupted their lives.
And I’ve heard from many members who lost their jobs or had major medical
problems that put a real crimp in their El Camino activities. I sincerely wish
all of you a much-improved situation during 2006!
Nevertheless,
our membership has continued to grow exponentially during 2005, from 4516 to
6458, as of December 31, 2005. Robert More has continued to protect our
website at El Camino Central from all types of hackers and spammers; it is
getting attacked up to one hundred times a day! He has also rolled out an update
version that is more user-friendly and faster. And more and more members are
making a financial contribution to this effort, which keeps access free to
visitors and members. We are also happy to welcome back Peter Brown of
Georgia (87SS) to full participation in the website after a long absence.
There are a few
leadership changes to mention here that will help us continue to grow in the
coming months: Long-time member Mike Streets (KansasCamino) was elected
to City Council and cannot devote as much time to NECOA. He is being replaced
by Curtis Cole, who has been the leader of a small Elky club with regular
monthly meetings in the Oklahoma City area. Don Caithness, of Ontario,
Canada, has volunteered to help as Regional Director in Canada east of Manitoba
(Region 22) until we find Coordinators in each of the Provinces north of the
border. Due to the geography involved, we certainly will need to realign Regions
21 and 22 into a more practical grouping, based on where membership develops and
grows.
California is
one of the largest countries in the world, in any way you measure it. Our
present division of Northern California/Northern Nevada as Region 18, and
Southern California/Southern Nevada as Region 17 is also unwieldy and
impractical. Mike Darby of Las Vegas (Darbysan) has agreed to
step in as Regional Director from his home in Nevada. He will try to organize
members in Arizona, Nevada, and southeastern California. As soon as more
California members step up to volunteer, we hope to create a more realistic
structure in which members can attend events closer to home and become more
active as a club.
In the next few
weeks, I plan to send each Regional Director a new listing of members in their
area to add to your emailing lists to build up activity with your local members.
It is extremely important that members get email messages about local events and
meetings. Anyone who needs advise on how to do this should contact Jay
Levitan of Region 2 for great ideas.
Our
organization is fast reaching a point where suppliers and advertisers will begin
to pay attention to us. Perhaps some of them will start making specialty parts –
like door skins and dash boards – when they realize that thousands of potential
customers can be reached through El Camino Central. In fact, the El
Camino is now becoming the hot car in many ads on TV, even co-starring in “My
Name is Earl.” Your comments and suggestions are always welcome if you
have ideas about how to make our organizations better.
Best regards to all,
John Harris, National Director
Email: judgeharris@comcast.net
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