Election Discussions with Brian Minkin - Candidate for relection as RTR President

[Brian Minkin]

Since this race has truely become political I would like to address some of the items on Graham Knights platform.

Graham has suggested that one of his goals is to"Reduce the costs for instructors through a lottery system whereby each event 5-10 instructor get to drive for free (they would be selected at one event & be able to use the coupon/discount at the next event)".  As I have previously stated our DE program is one of the key sources of revenue that provides the club with funds to operate. I see the DE budget VS actual figures every month as does the rest of the exec board.  Giving 10 free instructor slots at every event would  jeopardize the clubs financial well being.  Instructors who only instruct and do not drive are not currently charged for participating in DE events.  But those that drive are charged a fee that is smaller then student tuition but they are still helping pay for track rental and expenses that they benefit from by being able to drive their car on the track.  Given the typical amount of revenue the club makes at the average DE event and with enrollments currently dropping this idea would make it difficult to continue activities such as our picnic at the America on Wheels Museum and the wonderful food at membership meetings. To offset the revenue loss the speed council would have to raise DE tuition for the students which is not going to help keep enrollment up at current levels.I believe Graham has made this suggestion as a way of trying to get the support of the instructor corps and get their vote. Clearly I do not support this idea.


Graham has suggested "  Reducing costs, particularly in the area of the Der Gasser"  This is something the Exec reviews every year and some things we do not control such as the cost of postage.  We have had discussion at having an opt out for those who would be happy getting Der Gasser  on line only and once the wrinkles of the online publication are smoothed out this is certainly a possibility.  It would however require a  great deal of effort to maintain our own database for this as the national system from which we get our monthly download of members for the Der Gasser mailing will not support this. One step we have taken to improve the cost of publishing Der Gasser is improved collection of advertising revenue by having this handled by a business manager rather then the editor as it was in the past. We have also investigated things such as  printing it on different paper stock  and reducing the size of the publication but our studies have found that postage which is the item we do not control is the biggest cost factor and that, in fact, these other steps would not significantly reduce the cost of publication. We have also studied advertising rates and given the limited distribution of this publication have found the rates to be appropriate for the size of our distribution to attract advertisers. I am sure this will be studied again next year as it always is in trying to control costs.

Graham has suggested he wants to "Increase the number of rallies and social events".  As stated above in this thread this is one of my primary goals if re elected and I am happy to see we both share this goal.


[size=3]Graham has suggested he would like to " Increase the meeting attendance by another 25 people through speakers and interesting locations".  Again this is a goal we share and under my guidance we have put new ideas in the works this year and have seen their success.  Graham has been responsible for this area of club activity and I applaud the great job he has done.  I also applaud other exec members and club supporters who have helped Graham arrange many of these events.
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[size=3]Graham has suggested that he would like to have "Another great picnic like the 200+ person one I had at America on Wheels in 2008".  As I addressed above free events such as this that draw many members require the club to have the financial resources to put on these events. Again we share the same goal here but my focus is to insure we have the funds to continue these type of events.[/size]

 
[size=3]Graham has suggested he wants to "Organize and put forth a continuous membership feedback survey"  This has been discussed at exec meetings this year and on June 5th 2008 the Exec approved having Chris Karras create surveys of what members have done, would like to do or why they are not renewing their membership (an exit survey).  This project was put on hold when Chris Karras was tasked with the revision of our bylaws and charter and will be renewed once these tasks are complete. [/size]