Does Your Club Have What It Takes?

What exactly does it take to make a club work? I honestly can’t say I’ve seen it all over the last 40 years but I may have come close.

My first observation is this: all clubs and volunteer organizations, be they car-related or history-related or interested in knitting humorous cummerbunds, whatever, generally have the same issues—invariably, a few people do all of the work and assume all of the responsibilities for planning and executing activities and events, and eventually they burn out. The clubs that have done the best are the ones where fresh leadership step up and members regularly volunteer to take responsibility for planning that car show, rally, afternoon tour, etc. There’ll always be that percentage of members who don’t want to be involved above and beyond getting the newsletter (Lord help the leadership – particularly the editor – if the newsletter is late!) or perhaps attending periodic dinner meetings. You can try to drag them into the process, cajole, occasionally threaten and occasionally they’ll respond, but the key seems to be identifying and working with the core of active, interested members who recognize the importance of teamwork and action.

One positive I’ve seen among clubs, particularly the current bunch of buccaneers that I’m associated with (SLTOA), is this: spontaneity. We have several members who love to get the word out to the rest of the true believers about a short-notice proposed drive somewhere, say up the Mississippi River or a pop-up drive to some location for dinner. We’ve really started doing these impromptu events in the last year, haven’t had a great turnout for any one drive or cruise to some burger joint, but it’s getting better and they’re always fun. We intend to continue.

Third, while I’m a firm believer in Robert’s Rules of Order, generally the best and most entertaining meetings have been the ones where things are pretty free-form with a lot of debate, back-and-forth and friendly personal attacks on each other (what we called “squadron humor” back when I was flying with the Navy). Most of the clubs I’ve belonged to have had great, entertaining meetings but the Triumph club here in St Louis is absolutely a hoot, a direct reflection of the wide range of characters that belong to the club. That high spiritedness directly translates to fun and entertaining events. If the membership is friendly, active, vocal and involved (the occasional food fight notwithstanding), it makes the meetings fun. If our growth in membership is any indication, our free-form, gracefully obnoxious approach to meetings works and generally guarantees that new members will keep returning.

Next, members help members with projects, emergency repairs, club events or anything. To be sure this can be a double-edged sword; I’ve belonged to a couple of clubs where some of the members only participated when they needed help with a breakdown or something similar. Fortunately, that’s proven pretty rare…with SLTOA, we truly hang together and respond in good fashion when an opportunity or necessity crops up. Getting enough Triumphs to turn out for the annual big Easter concours at St Louis’ Forest park is sometimes akin to pulling teeth, but we manage to consistently beat the local Morris Garage bunch in numbers (we’ve take the club challenge trophy three years running). Thanks to our club email group, if someone needs a part or immediate help, they can usually expect a response within minutes of asking.

Finally, communications within the club and between similar interest clubs is paramount. In the St Louis area we have something like eight LBC groups and for the most part, we all work closely with each other. To be sure, some of our Triumph owners also own MGs, or maybe a big Healey (shoot, we even have a Volvo PV-544 in our club), but communicating and participating in each club’s events – particularly the road trips and annual Christmas parties – has undoubtedly strengthened each club. Yeah, we tend to joke around and do the usual “our marque is better than your marque” routine, but it’s all in good fun. For the most part, St Louis’ Brit clubs are very close and we enjoy each other’s company.

That’s about it. Over the years I’ve seen clubs take off and flourish and I’ve seen as many other clubs fold their tents due to lack of interest and participation. It ain’t rocket science; like I tell friends who express an interest in buying an extinct vehicle, the key remains club membership and PARTICIPATION. Not only will it help keep your car running, but it’ll also put you in regular contact with a great bunch of folks who go out and do really interesting things.

By Mark Morgan
Secretary/Editor, Exhaust Notes
St Louis Triumph Owners Association