Time to change the crb

[RSTPerformance]

I received a message from a BOD member whom said that concerns should be sent to the BOD. Looks like some important people are listening! Send in your letter supporting or addressing your concerns of the CRB. 2 OR 3 PEOPLE SENDING LETTERS IS NOT ENOUGH!

My letter that I sent to the BOD is below.

Dear BOD-

I am writing to ask for your comments on the current performance of the CRB. specifically in the area of listening to member input and the current/ongoing issues and differences between the CRB and ITAC.

Based on my experience with the CRB last year I almost left SCCA after nearly 25 years of membership. I believe that the ITAC has been listening to member input and making recommendations to the CRB. Based on my experience it appears as though the CRB is continuing to make recommendations or worse yet fail to make recommendations to you (the BOD) that are in line with OUR membership. This raises great concern to me and my experience last year has made me very biast however I would like to understand this issue with an open mind.

Viewing forums can be misleading thus I ask for your input and thoughts on the issues that have caused the recent resignations from the ITAC. I personally feel that ignoring this issue would be disrespectful to the IT community that has grown and supported this club so much over the past 26 years.

I would also like to ask your thoughts on how well the CRB communicates with its members? Is this an area you feel needs improvement? I personally feel that when members provide input and/or requests it should take less than a year to respond. Based on my experiences it has taken about 1 year to get a reply if a reply is given at all. I also have had to send e-mails to the entire SCCA world begging to be herd to get a reply - I am sure you have seen my name before, it was my last resort.

It is my impression that the CRB feels that the discussions that take place within the CRB are confidential and should not be discussed with the members. I ask your thoughts on this? If the club is member driven shouldn't the minutes that take place be open to the members so that the CRB can recieve input from the membership? I personally feel that the monthly conference calls should be open for any member to listen in on while on mute. I certainly understand that open calls without mute will cause far to many conversations that would prevent the CRB from accomplishing anything. At the end of the call the lines should be opened up for comments and/or questions. I think that one major issue plaguing the CRB is its lack of communication with the members. Technology has advanced a lot in the past 50 years and we have plenty of options to communicate with the members better.

Lastly I would like to ask how members are selected to serve on the CRB and ITAC? I feel that the CRB positions have more power than the BOD itself and thus should not be "appointed" seats and should be filled by a member election much like the BOD. What are your thoughts?

I thank you for your time and honest reply that includes the BOD position with these important topics. I think these are areas that need significant improvement and/or communication to prevent the loss of more brilliant, dedicated leaders from our membership.

Thank you again;

Raymond Blethen
Member # 270386

[kgobey]

The problems we are having are as you stated and more. NASA is a business, they aren't a club, the SCCA is run as a club... NASA is run as a small business, the parts of the SCCA business are run like a corporation...

Large business take s along time to change, change is shunned as it's also expensive, and a stodgey old fashioned company like SCCA is a very slow resistant entity.

Clubs hate change, they despise change, it's the nature of clubs to keep it the same for a long time, in fact the silly things Prod racers say about IT racers comes from a tradition of badmouthing regional guys that goes back 40 years or more, and even there it was based on assumption.

Whereas small businesses have to change, they love change, they thrive on it... The nature of modern business relies heavily on it, in fact without change NASA would still be running the Nuespeed cup and the SCCA would still be hating the E36 and we'd be arguing over the minimum weight of our SN95 Mustangs and trying to get them into ITGT...

Until the SCCA sees a need to compete with NASA, the desire to allow for change all this heartache is for naught.

Ray, I love your letter, you are the type of member I strive to be, and I wholeheartedly give you my support and encouragement. But I do this as someone that did not renew his SCCA membership.