I recently sent in my membership renewal, and today in the mail came an envelope from them which I assumed would have my new membership card in it.

Well, that's all it had! It was a business-size envelope, and all they could be bothered to do was put the little card in there to rattle around as it traveled across the country.

No thank-you note or cover letter or even a little card thanking me for renewing or anything like that. No secret decoder ring to go with it. No refrigerator magnet that says "Oldsmobile Club of America" on it. No nothing. The whole thing comes across with the attitude "here's your damn membership card, now get the hell out of my hair!"

I know I'm quibbling over very little here, but it just seems to me that here's a perfect opportunity for the OCA to be a little more personal and reach out in the most tiny way possible to the membership, and they do nothing.

 

I had a secret decoder ring! Keds right?

 

Not even a couple of lousy window stickers??

They rest on their laurels because they have the Olds market cornered and don't really care what you think, they got their money. The local chapter here can't even be bothered to have real judging anymore at the annual show that's held way out in BF Egypt because the club president lives there. They use participant voting and the club officers and the longtime member and friend clique win nearly everything. The swap meet does usually have some good stuff, if I needed parts that's the only reason I would show up there again.
I'm a lone wolf now, no car clubs and no need for them.
Rant over.

 

Amen to that, bruddah!

We did the 'hello my name is...' stickers thing once and only once. Besides, the Olds club here has pretty much disintegrated. Even their website hasn't been updated in over 5 years. It was sucky anyway.

 

I had one of those. It was light blue if I recall, with a clear lens in the middle.

As for the rest of it, I'm an antisocial jerk (as all can see in these forums), so I have no use for clubs. Between the motion to accept the old minutes, the cash-on-hand, and the motion to adjourn, I don't waste my time.

- Eric

 

I'm going to take this opportunity to plug the North Texas Olds Club, (NTOC). I am not a member but recently attended their annual Zone Show. Great group, very friendly and respectful, it was a very pleasurable experience. If I lived closer I would probably enjoy being an active member.

As far as the OCA, my point is, it's the membership that makes or breaks a club. If they want to tolerate mediocre, then most of the membership will get bored and leave.

 

Not sure what else would be in there. I'm the membership manager for the Motor City Rockets, when I send out membership cards that's all that goes in the envelope, just the card. It's a volunteer position, and just printing up the cards and envelopes takes a significant amount of time. I don't feel like taking the additional time it would take to put in anything additional so that nobody gets their feelings hurt. I can only imagine what a pain it must be doing membership cards for a club of over 4000 members.

BTW, as far as I know, the OCA has never given away window stickers. And they have always been obscenely expensive to buy. For a while the only size you could get was about the size of Texas. It looked like it covered a quarter of the windshield and could be seen on your car by pirates in the Indian Ocean. I may be exaggerating a bit with the previous statements, but I think the actual diameter of the thing was 4 or 5 inches. Looked hideous on the car. But even the small one was something like $10.

 

Oh, I don't know, how about a "thank you" note?!?! I'm not asking much, but this is what we call good membership relations.

Oh, boo hoo hoo. Don't be such an apologist.

Don't tell me that because they have thousands of members, to have to send out thousands of thank you notes would just overwhelm them. The poor little dearies! My heart bleeds.

Nonsense. They're already generating thousands of envelopes with addresses on them and thousands of membership cards. The hard part is already done, for pity's sake. How difficult would it be to print up a couple thousand of even generic thank-you notes that they could drop into the envelope when they're putting in the membership card? The answer? Not difficult at all.

 

so what are the benifits of joining a club like this?

 

I would join a club if one was around here but im the only person with an Olds!
I wouldn't join OCA, no reason or benifit.
I was a member back in the 80s though.

 

You get a card in a big envelope...

 

In the past, 80's and 90's, at every renewal I would get two window decals. Haven't gotten them in over ten years.

 

I think by far the two biggest are the annual Nationals, which until recently you had to be a member of the OCA to be able to register for, and the monthly magazine, which isn't too bad in my opinion. One of the people who frequents this site, Aron Nance, writes a column every month. It's always very good and worth the price of a membership right there.

You also get access to "model year advisors" and the opportunity to join a local chapter, not that these are any great shakes, especially if there's no chapter in your area. You can attend local chapter shows without having to be an OCA member. Of course, if everyone took this attitude, there'd be no local chapters and thus no local Olds-focused car shows.

But you have to remember that it's only $30 for a year's membership. Two years is something like $50. Those are hardly a king's ransom in this day and age. Anyone in the old car hobby spends $30 or $50 at the auto parts counter at the drop of a hat, and joining the OCA should hardly put them in the poorhouse.

I join because, like I say, I like the magazine, and I want to support the organization that supports the Oldsmobile hobby.


But I still think they should stick a thank-you note in the membership renewal envelope!

 

I agree that some sort of a cover letter is a standard courtesy, whether it says "Thank you for renewing" or "Good to have you as a member" or "Here's what you get with your membership," along with some sort of a giveaway publicity item, such as a window or bumper sticker, which, if affixed somewhere, provides free advertising for the club.

This is not rocket science (pardon the pun), and is routine from all but the quirkiest Mom & Pops.
Its absence indicates poor management, and an organization in decline.

- Eric

 

They should have never stepped in and stopped "W machines" monthly newsletter, it put them to shame.
I still have a binder full of them as reference!

 

So a second, even less personal, piece of paper would make you feel better? Seems like a waste of paper and money to me.

I just consider the card to be my thank you.

 

They could buy 25,000 stickers with the unecessary CD they have.

How does a car club get to have sooooooooo much extra money? Over charging their membership ..........

 

I say they could have saved the money spent on envelopes by putting the member addresses and a stamp on each card.

 

Not a chance. The membership card is the size of a business card, which is about 2 inches by 3.5 inches. The minimum size for a piece of mail, according to the post office website, is 3.5 x 5 inches.

 

I have thinner skin than you.

 

Even better, to save postage entirely, they could E-mail a PDF for each member to print out on their own.

 

This is actually an excellent idea. I already get my auto insurance and health insurance cards sent to me as pdf files which I print out, cut out, and stick in my wallet.

Given how little one actually does with their OCA membership card other than put it in their wallet or toss it in their desk drawer until they get another new one when they renew their membership, it's not like the card has to made from sturdy paper.

The problem with this would be, I think, the same problem the OCA seems to have adopting any kind of more electronic-oriented existence, such as offering JWO itself as an emailed pdf, and that is general inertia plus a significant fraction of the membership who are older and use computers little or not at all.

 

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. What's the point of a "membership card" nowadays anyway? Do you show it to other Olds enthusiasts to impress them, or flash it at the door, along with the secret password, to get into the clubhouse?

George was making the same point with his reference to the "decoder ring."

I think this entire thread points to the anachronism of a club like the OCA in the modern world - clubs like that were popular for socializing and obtaining information before the days of the internet. Now all of their former functions can be better carried out in other ways, by an organization with a different structure (or by an OCA with an updated structure).
Printed magazines?
Membership cards?
I have nothing against those things, and actually do subscribe to a non-political printed magazine (Motorcycle Consumer News), but the full magazine is also "push" delivered to my phone every month.

Unfortunately, the people who truly value print magazines and membership cards (and, as I say, I have nothing against them, and enjoy reading magazines) will be dying off as a statistical force over the next ten to twenty years, and organizations like the OCA, if they do not change, will go the way of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Benevolent Paternal Order of Elks, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos, and, yes even the Masons.

- Eric

 

Car clubs are a mixed bag. My good friend's wife (who is also my good friend) runs the HOCA for Hurst Olds's. That seems to be a good club, but it's a lot smaller than what I assume the OCA is.

I have found that I don't care for brand specific car clubs. I like local car clubs that all go to shows together. No judging, small dues, and parking together at shows.

On the other hand, I have found very, very few car judges that I care for, so it may not be a car club's fault that I dislike any club that "provides judges."

 

You keep it just to keep it, just as Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory keeps his Justice League of America membership card in his wallet.

 

at times i think i should belong especially since i cant belong to the new england olds chapter without being an oca member but i recall hearing a lot of threads about some kaos with the regime...so i will hold onto my money for now i'm not going to support what may be some crooks... i will have to read up on it some

 

Let's not get carried away or start rumors here. I don't think anyone has been accused or suspected of criminal activity. As I understand it, the problems have been more along the lines of unhappiness with the behavior of one of the officers, but a vote to remove him failed. The result has been the GMO chapter canceling its offer to host the 2015 Nationals and things like this. So the problem is not unserious, but I don't think it has risen to the level that people should be arrested and thrown in jail.

One complaint I have with the OCA, though, is that there has been no mention of this that I've seen in any OCA correspondence or any issue of JWO. It might not be the most pleasant of situations, but I think the OCA leadership owes the members accounts of what's been going on, and JWO would be the perfect place to report on this. But there's been nothing, and president Jerry Wilson's columns have been their usual, almost fluff pieces rather than an update as to why one of the officer positions on the second page is suddenly blank and why the 2015 Nationals suddenly don't have a home even though it had one a few months ago.

Ed Konsmo's column where he mentions that the 2015 and later nationals will no longer be handled by local chapters but rather by the OCA hiring a firm to run them is part of this. The leadership is dancing around the underlying trauma that's been going on rather than being open about it.

 

i dont necessarily mean theft when i say crooked,and your right about what i was reading about the attempted removal of one of the regime members, when i hear stuff like that something is not straight with organization

 

Much of this was discussed in this rather lengthy thread from last spring.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...-petition.html

 

- Eric

 

You no longer have to join the OCA to belong to a local chapter..voted on at the Natl's membership meeting.

 

Now there's a perk!

 

POGO69 - The New England Chapter will be lifting that requirement now that the OCA changed their requirements. Hope to see you at our show 9/22 this year?

 

thanks, thats good hear I will join the neoc, the 22nd is sunday and thats going to tough for me to get off from work

 

You better be there Pogo!!!!! Lol

 

The OCA is far from a perfect car club. It will be hard to find a perfect one if it has more than 1 member. Anymore than that and you have the chance for different opinions.

If you think new members should receive more with their membership packet I am sure they would let you help with that.

I agree, I would like to hear something from OCA about all that has been going on as of late. I would guess that there are a lot of things still not settled and it is in everyone's best interest to keep quiet until everything has been dealt with.

Some of you do not enjoy the club thing and it is understandable. The club is made up of people, both good and bad. It can be very frustrating at times.

The way I see it is; without the OCA there would not be a national show. Without a national/local show, no swap meet and no common place to meet fellow Olds enthusiasts. It still is the center point for most Oldsmobile activities.

Don W

 

I emailed Consoli and asked what they did to get a handle on this stuff. He gave me no details but said that they never talked about any of that stuff thet were looking forward. I think it is BS and Wilson wants to sweep it under the rug.
It is a disgrace this is gonna get covered up
Rich

 

The most useless thread I've ever witnessed. Because the OCA didn't send a letter or crackerjack toy along with the membership card,that makes it a useless club. I'm a 30 year member and all I get is my card along with JWO and a boat load of friends and memories that I cherish very much.

 

And phooey to you, too. Didn't you ever hear of the concept of tongue-in-cheek?

30-year member or not, you need to learn to lighten up. You may have "boatloads of friends," but at them moment I'm finding that kind of hard to believe.


signed,

The initiator of "the most useless thread I've ever witnessed"

 

Hi Mike.

And I agree this is on the list of dumbest threads Ive ever read.