Author: Pam Jeffers

Tigers East/Alpines East Board of Director’s Meeting
Holiday Inn—Fairborn
Dayton, OH
Friday July 31, 2015

Attendees:
Present: Pam Jeffers, John Logan Jr., James Lindner, Tom Calvert, Dave Reina, Eric Gibeaut, Tom Ehrhart, Judy Sharkey, Joe McConlogue, Kerch McConlogue, Barb Geshcke, Jim Sauer, Robert Jaarsma, Eric Smyder, Bill Bulpitt, Russ Eshelman, Mike Schreiner, Curt Bowland, and Tod Brown.

The meeting was called to order at 3:10 PM by President Pam Jeffers.

Secretary’s Report: President Jeffers asked for any changes to the minutes from the Feb 2014 Semi-Annual Meeting (Conference Call) provided to the attendees in advance. No changes or corrections were noted. Tom Ehrhart moved that the Feb 2014 minutes be approved as read and seconded by Eric Gibeaut. The motion to approve the minutes was carried.

Treasurer’s Report: Barb Geschke reported as of July 31, 2015 the club’s balance was $29,788.49. The Treasures Report as of July 31, 2014 was emailed earlier to all officers and members of the Board of Directors. It should be noted totals reflect income for this United. United expenses will be posted at conclusion of United. Treasurer Geschke reported this United is running favorably from a financial standpoint. Treasurer Geschke has acquired copies of the club’s past financial records and will prepare a report on the club’s financial trends over the past 5-7 years. Treasurer Geschke did report the year-end balance has grown by about $2,000.00 over the past two years. Judy Sharkey made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report, which was seconded by Tom Ehrhart. The motion to approve the Treasurer’s report was carried.

Membership Report: Chairman Joe McConlogue presented the Membership Report (all data as of 1 July 2015):

• • Current Members: 518
  • o Sixteen (16) expirations in June—most will renew
• • Member Web Access
  • o Electronic newsletter delivery 134/26% (up 3% from 2014)
  • o Valid email address on file 455/86%
  • o No email/electronic newsletter 3
  • o No email/print newsletter/paid with Paypal 1
  • o Minimum of membership with web access 88% (down 8% from 2014)
• • Breakdown of 2014 Dues Payments
  • o Paypal 263/51%
  • o Checks 245/47%
  • o Money Order 4/1%
  • o Cash 6/1% (5 @ United/1 @ Bash)
• • Renewals (Same as Last Year)
  • o One Year 45%
  • o Two Year 55%

The map on the website showing geographic dispersion of the members is updated monthly. The locations for six members who requested non-inclusion are not shown. New Membership cards and window decals have been printed and are now included with new member packages. Sixty (60) copies of the 2013 Roster remain. Approximately 12% (62) of the membership have joined since the last roster was printed. A similar number have lapsed membership during the same timeframe and continue to be listed as members. President Jeffers advised Chairman McConlogue can provide a list of members by region.

Website Report: Kerch McConlogue reported the following:

Progress made during the past year:
• Sunbeam Survivor articles were converted to OCR and uploaded to the website.
• First two articles that volunteers worked on were added to the website under the Sunbeam Survivor.
• All archived Rootes Reviews have been added to the website.
• The Rootes Archive Center newsletter has been added to the website under the Members Only
• The revised United Manual was uploaded to the website. It is password protected. Information on how to gain access is found within the Board Section of the forum.

General Website Statistics
• Average number of hits per day: 100
• How visitors find the website
o Organic Search: 50%
o Direct Links: 30%
o Referrals: 20%
• Landing Pages % of Visitors # of Visitors
o Home 45.6% 11,971
o Carburetor-ID 5.5% 1,431
o Paint Color Codes 4.2% 1,105
o Cooling the Tiger 3.65% 960
o United XXXIV 3.4% 885
o Vendors 1.3% 330
• Devices Used
o Desktop 77%
o Mobile 12%
♣ ipad 39%
♣ iphone 20%
o Tablet 11%
• Miscellaneous
o United Registrations completed online: 2014-18/2015-61
o RSS Subscribers: 2014-77/2015-85
 
Forum Report: Eric Smyder was not present. President Jeffers reported the use of the forum is limited and varies greatly. President Jeffers pointed out that the difficulty in posting photos is a limiting factor.

Editor’s Report: Editor Tod Brown reported on the difficulty of the publication process, especially the setting of deadlines for the submission of articles/photos. Usually, enough information is on hand to publish each month and this is known by mid-month. In Feb 2015 there was insufficient material to publish an issue so a consolidated Feb/Mar issue was published in March. Editor Brown asked that material be submitted as early in the month as possible or at a minimum send him an email that material will be forthcoming soon. Submissions should be in Microsoft format, as PDF documents are extremely difficult to manage. President Jeffers requested all present to make submissions. Regarding the length of the newsletter, Editor Brown explained the newsletter is printed in four (4) page increments. Twelve (12) pages per issue seems about right, since eight (8) might be too short and getting material for a sixteen (16) page edition could prove difficult. Editor Brown solicited guidance on how long to run the classified advertisements submitted by members. The BOD concurred on his recommendation of three months.

Publicity Report: Robert Jaarsma reported the completion of the United Manual update and posting it to the website. President Jeffers urged all present to look for opportunities to publicize the TEAE name. Website Manager Kerch McConlogue reminded all about the event form available on the website. When the form is completed and submitted the event is automatically posted to the club calendar on the website and it also goes to Editor Brown for inclusion in the Rootes Review.

Regalia Report: Eric Gibeaut reported the online site (http://www.fourth-gear-ltd.com) for regalia sales is now operational. Chairman Gibeaut explained that by using a third party for regalia sales the club does not have any overhead. Examples of the logos are available in the hospitality room. An article about the online sales will be forthcoming in the Rootes Review. Items and links are available online at TEAE.org/regalia

Old Business:

Update on Rootes Review article to thank Jennifer and Kenneth Arters for their work on the archived newsletters: Tom Ehrhart, action officer for this project, reported he had contacted Fred Baum who said he knew Jennifer and Kenneth well enough to provide information for the article, but has had no response from Fred since the initial contact. Tom Ehrhart said he will get an update.

Sunbeam Survivor Manual: The project to update the Sunbeam Survivor Manual is nearing completion. All tech articles from Sunbeam Survivor have been posted to the online Survivor Manual. In addition, volunteers identified additional articles from the old Rootes Reviews and another set of volunteers are editing the articles to clean up format readability. They will be posted online as they are completed. Individual Articles are in searchable format

Rootes America Award: President Jeffers reported that on March 9th she posted on the forum the revised criteria for the award, but to date there has been no discussion or proposals made regarding the revisions. Judy Sharkey pointed out that in view of the club’s efforts to be more inclusive of “Rare Rootes” cars, the purpose of the award is to recognize cars which might otherwise be ineligible for the Wally Swift (WSA) or Keith Porter Awards (KPA). It was suggested that the revised verbiage regarding a “non-competitive driving event” was not consistent with the objectives of the existing awards. Moreover, Eric Gibeaut pointed out no “Rare Rootes” cars compete in the Autocross. Tom Ehrhart suggested a revaluation of this proposed award and its objectives. Tom Calvert made a motion to cancel all further discussion about the creation of this award. The motion was seconded by Tom Ehrhart and the motion was approved.

Future Uniteds:

United XXXV: Bill Bulpitt reported next year’s United will be in Atlanta and tentatively scheduled for mid-September. Similar to this year, consideration is being given to holding the
United in conjunction with an existing show. Bill reported the following regarding ongoing planning.

• Hotels: Contact has been made with NE Hilton and NW Marriott. Marriott caters to car clubs but is less convenient to events east of the city. Preliminary discussions about United requirements (parts/hospitality room) have started but details still need to be worked out. Other options are plentiful if pricing at these hotels is not satisfactory.
• Car Show: Contact has been made with the organizers of the “Atlanta British Car Fayre” scheduled for Norcross, GA on September 10, 2016. They are interested in TE/AE participating in their event and would provide a designated area for our cars.
• Autocross: Former SCCA race driver, Rich Combs, will handle this event. Rich is well connected with the Atlanta road racing activities and its venues.
• Other activities: Visits to Car collections, the Porsche Experience at the new Porsche NA headquarters, Panoz Factory Tour, Stone Mountain, Georgia Aquarium, College Football Hall of Fame and Duluth Railway Museum.
• Core Planning Committee: Bill Bulpitt, Geoff Bulpitt, John Keneally, Allan Ballard, Rich Combs, and Pat Deschner.

Bill advised he will submit a formal proposal to the BOD sometime during the September-November 2015 timeframe.

United XXXVI: The Virginias Region is being considered as the host for this United. Regional Representative Russ Eshelman will evaluate options and provide feedback soon.

United XXXVII: The North

United XXXVIII: Midwest or possibly SUNI VII.

Regional Representatives: Randy Bellman has accepted the offer to become the Regional Representative for New England. Tom Ehrhart formally nominated Randy Bellman as the New England Regional Representative and the nomination was seconded by Eric Gibeaut. The BOD approved the appointment of Randy Bellman as the New England Regional Representative.

Rootes America: President Jeffers reported that Dave Reina had drafted a letter to other North American Rootes clubs suggesting ways to better communicate and mutually support each other. The letter, signed by President Jeffers, suggested the Rootes America website as a potential platform for improved communication and information sharing. President Jeffers asked about the response to the letter and what is the plan going forward. Dave Reina stated that no responses have been received. To keep the initiative moving forward a three phased plan was discussed.

1. As stated in the letter sent out, post the Sunbeam Survivor Manual online and make it available to all clubs. Kerch McConlogue explained that this was already done as it is on the TEAE website.
2. Send out a follow up letter.
3. Contact Tigers United to open a dialog about the future of their website. (The site manager of the Tigers United website had recently discussed on the Tiger List the cost of maintaining the site and its value to the Tiger community.)

In addition Editor Tod Brown stated he will reach out to the editors of other club newsletters to discuss how they can better link to each other.

Rootes Archive Center: President Jeffers asked if the club should continue to make an annual donation to the Center. Tom Ehrhart made a motion to continue the annual donation, not to exceed $250.00 and this should be budgeted annually. Tom Calvert seconded the motion and it was approved by the BOD.

Possible New Award for Unrestored Cars: Judy Sharkey has drafted the proposed guidelines for a Concours award for unrestored cars. This draft was sent to committee members March 5, 2015; it is now posted on the Official Forum under “Rootes Historical Preservation Award”.  President Jeffers requested all attendees to provide comments to Judy Sharkey or post a comment on the Official Forum.

United Manual Update: The update has been completed and the manual is posted on the website under United Organizer Files. It is password protected.

Roster: Tom Ehrhart, who had previously volunteered to determine the cost of an individual copy of the roster, stated he will get the information needed within the month so a new roster cab be published and disseminated in early 2016.

Bylaws Update: Do we need to change the club’s bylaws and if so exactly what needs changing. Volunteers were solicited to research updating the bylaws. Kerch McConlogue volunteered.
New Business:

2015 Elections:  
President Jeffers informed the BOD that all current Officers have agreed to run again for another term, but stressed that this will be the last term for herself, Vice-President Logan and Secretary Lindner. Treasurer Geschke has 2 years left.  The terms of three (3) BOD members are also due to expire, but all 3 are willing to run again. They are Tom Calvert, Tom Earhart and Eric Gibeaut. 

Charging Vendors to Advertise on Website:
Kerch McConlogue recommended a charge of $25.00 per advertisement for commercial vendors to advertise on the club website and made a motion to adopt this policy. The motion was seconded by Robert Jaarsma and approved by the Board.

A motion to adjourn was made by Tom Ehrhart, seconded by Judy Sharkey and approved by the BOD. The meeting was adjourned at 5:54 PM.

Date posted here does not necessarily match the date minutes were submitted.

Tigers East/Alpines East
General Membership Annual Meeting
Boyne Mountain Resort, MI
September 2014

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