I'm going to make a post out of it instead of making the comment thread longer.
Having fun with cars and guns often rubs into clubs and sanctioning bodies.
And rules. Can't have a club without rules!
As with all human endeavors, the people you're dealing with at the local level are what makes or breaks how much fun being a member of a club is.
Too often, no matter how great the local people are, the national organization's rules and requirements suck the fun right back out of things.
You wanna play on their track, or range, and you follow their rules. Whether they make sense at your venue or not.
But! with a good local club this doesn't matter because the focus is on doing the fun and not on the rules. Yes, they are followed, but they're in the background.
This runs fine until someone from a different club affiliated club moves in or newly joins and they want it run alles en ordnung.
Then that national affiliation you only got to get access to tracks, insurance and EMT presence... those fuckers will help the cocksucker whose only source of fun is making sure the officious rules are applied good and hard and that those rules become the focus of everything the club does.
Rigid adherence to parliamentary procedure at meetings becomes the norm and they lose the social gathering aspect that got the original group there.
Suddenly it's not fun any more and never will be again.
So the core group keeps being social, but stops paying their dues.
Remember, hobbies are supposed to be fun!
This has happened to me so many times that whenever anyone recommends "check out this national org to..." my kneejerk response is, "fuck that, it never works for me."
There's three Corvette clubs around here that are absolutely ruled by the rules-mongers. I'm pretty sure all three are different affiliations and I know for sure they all hate each other. Hating the other two clubs is a requirement.
It's hilarious watching them be genuinely happy and social at the Porsche club autocrosses. But the Porsche people had to put their foot down and say, "Our club OUR rules," to keep the conflicts from spilling in.
If you have a good club, fight to keep that fucker good and yours and make damn sure the newbs know it.
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Those reasons are why I like The Patriot Guard Riders. There is only one rule; RESPECT! For the deceased, the families, The Flag, and our Country. No fees, dues, meetings, or minimum attendance requirements. Come when you can, and follow the procedures of the day put forth by the mission ride captain at the briefing. As long as everyone is focused on the families, there is no time for nonsense, and we do whatever we are asked.
ReplyDeleteThankfully while I've seen some of what you are talking about as far as club rivalries with other Corvette clubs in the area, I haven't seen a lot of issued with the club I am part of, the national organization or other affiliated clubs in the region or nationally. The other Corvette clubs around here are not affiliated with any national organization, they are just cruise and eat or maybe car show clubs. They don't really have much organization at all or rules, and for them I suppose that is fine. The club I'm part of is the only one in the area that has organized racing events. Organization and sanctioning is necessary to a certain point, especially because even in a city the size of the one I live in, there just aren't enough people to support events, so we rely on participation from people from sister clubs throughout the region and occasionally people from other regions (especially early and late in the year when it is too cold up north to race). I don't even know if there is another national organization like NCCC, if there is, there aren't any clubs in the area that are part of it. I'm also not going to claim that there aren't any politics or anything else in my club or NCCC, but my club has been around since 1973, and NCCC since the 1950s. So something is going right. Issues get resolved, rifts happen, rifts are healed, it is life.
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