Dear Forum, After reading Mr. Shortt’s humble statement, I understand better that we are in the presence of a Renaissance Man. He is a polymath gifted in the arts and sciences of accounting, business, entertainment, politics and leadership. His laser power point of a 77% vote majority that is gently referred to time and time again just a true leader would do, is reminiscent of other charismatic leaders such as Castro, Mussolini and Maduro. This is the mandate for change that he modulates with grace and compromise. Our Messiah has come. Reverentially yours, Chuck Engles PS: The latest Pantera Survey questions from the Politburo remind me of that clever courtroom interrogation: “When did you stop beating your wife?” From: Pantera Owner's Club of America(michaelsavga@gmail.com) [mailto:mailer@mail2.clubexpress.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2016 8:50 PM To: cengles@cox.net Subject: 2016 State of POCA Message View in your browser <http://POCA.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=722&club_id=999896&emtid=48579683612&mtid=293966696752&ht=0> _____ Greetings POCA Members, In one of the free comment responses to the 2016 Fun Rally Survey which was sent out the day before yesterday (it will remain posted until Sunday night, please participate, even if you did not attend. There are questions about future POCA events and your opinion matters a great deal to me). There was a comment that really struck home with me. It stated the following, "I wish the POCA President had given a report about the club in general at the banquet". You know what, I wish I had too, it was my first time and I was being aimed and pointed most of the rally, I now have a closer understanding of my Dog's issues as a result. You ladies and gentlemen deserve no less, so it's what I'm going to do now. Please forgive me being a fews days late. 2016 STATE OF POCA ADDRESS A warm welcome to all of you, my fellow speeders with oil pumps for hearts and 20/50 dead dinosaurs running through your veins. I do enjoy the company of car people; we are a special breed, we can be like golfers, tennis players, bingo nuts or even ballroom dancers, we often make the long drive, serve one up on fire, get 6 in a row and appear graceful simply hitting an double apex at speed without lifting. Some of us do these things every weekend, if not every day. I was elected presumably because I ran a campaign that promised change in all forms. My opponent for President was Rob D’Orazio, whom I met in person in Las Vegas along with his lovely wife, Josette, who serves as our POCA Store manager (and is very dedicated to her job, she did a fantastic job moving $4,600 in merchandise). I know for a fact you did not "like me" better than Rob because I had never met most of you last year. You all know Rob; he is a nice guy who also cares deeply about this club. Therefore, I must deduce (rather than assume which always leaves one open as a punch line) that your support of my candidacy was based on my shared vision of what POCA could be and what I saw (IMHO) it needed. While 23% of you did not agree, 77% of you did agree. I was both thrilled and excited that you would trust me to lead your long established club into a brave new future with a progressive plan of action. I know that many of you heard this, in our first BOD Meeting last January, I had a list of 23 agenda items. It was an ambitious beginning; what was not shared was that this wasn't my list for my whole term in office; it was my list for the first six months. Most of it has been accomplished; some items were not as a result of not being supported by a majority of the BOD. The BOD is comprised of your 8 elected positions and the Past President. I must share with you that it has not been easy to work on your behalf; this is the part of this address where brutal honesty must kick in, and for that I must apologize. It is not now, nor was it ever my intent to divide the club with such a deep chasm as has been developing in recent weeks. In most polite clubs, governments, churches, HOA's, corporations, etc., when a new President or CEO is brought onboard with such a huge margin of victory, most reasonable people see the election results as a mandate by the electorate; in my particular case, a mandate for change to lead the club into the present and prepare it for the future. If some of those 23% who opposed me had truly embraced change, they would have accepted the decision of 77% of the members and worked with us, shoulder to shoulder, together as a solid, cohesive unit to institute meaningful, thoughtful and considered change for the betterment of the club. That is what happens in an ideal world; it of course, is not happening here. I'm sorry to do it, but I feel I share with you what has been going on during these past five months. But before I do that, let me tell you most people think I'm a nice guy; I have lots of friends in my own social circles, in business, in racing, and in my community. For fun, I run Political campaigns; in the last 20 years, I have managed 41 Campaigns for elected public office and my candidates have won 38 times. I am currently working on #42, which, by all indications, will turn into win #39 next Tuesday. Respectable discourse and debate are not new to me during elections, not are dirty tricks. What is new to me, in 100% of the time following these 41 previous elections, the side that was not successful understood those who voted made a distinct choice and rejected their candidate or platform. Never in my life have I encountered a group where those who lost (and I do not mean Rob; he has been a perfect gentleman, and I think we got along famously in Las Vegas) just seem to keep on doing their own thing and pay no attention to the person elected or the mandate they represent, that is to lead and provide direction to the whole club. Before I move forward in thought, let me share some good stuff. On the BOD I am honored to serve with Mike Burnett as Vice President; he is a thoughtful and measured man, an experienced business owner and former Fortune 500 Executive. You are lucky to have him standing by "just in case". He provides leadership, guidance and a way of letting me know I'm doing the right thing. We have never voted on opposite sides. When you elected me, you also elected Joe Stockett, your Secretary; Joe works in IT for a major bank. With Joe, you folks have someone dedicated to making perfect records for our meetings; you also have a teddy bear of a man who wants everybody to be happy. He is our peacemaker. We also have never voted differently on any issue. Next up is Ed Mendez, who serves as our PR Director; Ed is a computer whiz and has established our footprint on Facebook, during the past 6 months generating over 200,000 Pantera related posts. Ed works weird hours and we often chat at 3 am about club business online, me in Georgia and Ed off in New Zealand. We also have never voted differently. Last on the progressive side of the room is our Past President, John Buckman. A super nice man who has provided amazing insight and guidance to me; his observations are spot on and he knows where all the bodies are buried; he knows the entire club and he has brought me up to speed on many items. Both he and his wife Kathy have been helpful to my efforts. We have voted differently a couple of times and I respect John for following his heart; he is the 5th vote for things for most of what we get done; sometimes he's not, and that's OK; we all need a person who proves, "you can't win them all". It is because of these folks and occasionally those not yet named that we have accomplished so much in the first five months of my term as your POCA President. We have opened up the financial books to member review; there simply are no secrets about money within POCA. We have a $100,000 reserve in the bank; it is there because for several years this club did not produce four Profiles every year, yet you all paid your full dues. With no expenses, building up a larger balance becomes very easy. I created the Cleveland Block, a monthly teleconference with POCA Chapter Presidents; we have had 4 such calls; I think the record thus far is 14/20 Chapter Presidents on a single call. These meetings are always respectful, polite and informative. It is where we share fresh ideas, which can be implemented or creatively adjusted to better serve POCA members. I enjoy these calls because there has been no yelling, no name-calling, no fighting and we all work towards a common goal. It is easy to see why each of these men were elected to be the President of their respective chapters. I wanted to make the POCA Hall of Fame a more visible part of the club; it now has a dedicated page on the website, and it will be populated soon. We attempted to set a standard policy whereby POCA would send flowers to any deceased member’s family if they had 10+years of membership; that effort did not pass. I wrote a Code of Ethics for all POCA elected officers to sign, I signed it and so did all those listed above, others would not sign it. It basically states that you may not profit from the club, nor make personal gains as a result of your elected position. I was asked to rewrite it to take fewer pages (3), not knowing how to edit integrity out of the document, I have not represented it for additional signatures. I presented my vision for a new website; that vision is 70% complete and the result debuted on May 7th. It exceeded my expectations and I'm very pleased; it is a website I can now proudly refer others to visit as I reach out to build the POCA brand and a larger membership. I know it to be a sleek, performance oriented website; it navigates well and looks as good as any Pantera at speed on the open road. I am proud of my baby. The website has been a huge asset to membership, signing up more new members in a week than we normally get in several months. It has processed more renewals in the last week than are normally processed in several months. The best part is it is automated; when the new member signs up, they are instantly assigned a new member number, their online account is set up, and they receive an email in a few minutes with their login and temporary password to use the website. Their membership dues are deposited into our bank account within hours, and the best part, the POCA database is set up at the same time with their address, email, telephone numbers, etc. At the same time they are added to the mailing list for emails, Profiles and the monthly Newsletter. The website has over 450 POCA publications archived on it as well as all the DeTomaso, Ford, Modena, and ZF manuals from the $79.95 "The Works" DVD we used to sell. It's now FREE to all POCA members plus a lot more info in the technical library. You will also notice our 45+ Discussion Boards for members only; it's a better and safer (we have extensive malware, phishing and virus protection programs in place, unlike the old email forum) way to share information, ask for or give advice. On the home page, we have installed a rotating slide show to showcase member cars; if you have a photo that you would like to submit, please rename the file name to your name (“JohnSmithPantera") and submit as a jpeg no smaller than 400K and no larger than 5mb; email it to " <mailto:pocaphotodrop@gmail.com> pocaphotodrop@gmail.com". We are going to change the slideshow monthly with 10 new POCA Member cars of contrasting views and colors. I made a presentation centered around 4 POCA Rallies per year (N.E.W.S., North, East, West and South) to be held in regional parts of the country to enable all POCA members to have the same opportunity as those who have attended the Fun Rally for 35 years. The first of these will be in Savannah, Georgia, Sept 29-Oct 2; it is called the 2016 POCA East Rally. It is my plan for these events to be hosted and run by Chapters on a rotating basis. In my humble opinion, POCA National should be providing instruction and a set of proven activity guidelines to be followed, insurance and registration support to facilitate these events. I believe the chapters should run the rallies and profit, based upon their ability to throw a party others will pay to attend. The is a proven concept in the car show community, Club A will make a super effort to attend a car show being sponsored by Club B because Club A knows if they do not support the show, then Club B will not make any effort to support their show, everybody wins because nobody wants to lose. POCA should only participate as BOD guests, have the right to sell POCA store items and conduct our raffle for National fundraising; everything else should be a responsibility of the host chapter. Can I have an Amen on that? Speaking of which, Yes I did ask for and deliver a blessing at the President's Breakfast, as I often do in my life. I am not one to get preachy or insist on compliance, everybody can do their own thing, but please consider - I still had two airplanes to get on before I was home safe again. I had no involvement in the recent 2016 Fun Rally in Las Vegas, which was scheduled before I was elected; I share no credit or blame in it at all. If you had a good time, thank the right people and if you didn't, those are the same people to voice your opinion too. The BOD has never run the Fun Rally, there has always been a Fun Rally Committee which consisted of 2 or 3 BOD members and 2-5 others who plan and manage these events. The aforementioned survey will be the Tale of the Tape; we'll ascertain how the event was perceived by those who attended and responded ( and so far over 40% of those in attendance have replied), and I'm looking forward to the results. We have started to work on a new draft of revised Bylaws to update the old version and fill in a few cracks. We have copies of the Bylaws used by the Ferrari, Porsche, Mustang, Shelby, and Jaguar clubs to determine what is common among car clubs. I mentioned early on in my candidacy that I felt the Newsletter should be distributed via email; we voted to do that (it passed) and it was supposed to sunset when the new website went online; that also has not happened. It is my desire the Newsletter and Profiles magazine become self sustaining with advertising space sold within their pages, like every other club newsletter and magazine in the world; this has also not happened. I took it upon myself to contrast and compare our Newsletter and Magazine Printing Costs, since this club spends $45,000 per year (more than we retain in member dues after Chapter rebates are deducted) to produce these publications, it seemed like what would be expected of me as your CEO. I feel I have a fiduciary duty to ensure that YOUR money is being spent prudently and wisely, I also helps that I was a partner in a printing company from 1986-1988 and have worked in professional media for 36 years. What I discovered was POCA has been severely overpaying for both publications. You currently are paying $25,000 for 12 monthly Newsletters which have a colored stock paper cover with Black ink and all Black and White content pages. You have been paying $20,000 for 4 issues of Profiles, a quarterly magazine with a 4 color cover, sometimes a color 4 page insert and all the rest of the pages are Black and White. The newsletter is mailed loosely, as many of you know it often arrives looking worse for wear. Profiles is usually mailed in a large white POCA envelope which does protect it from dirt, but not from moisture. So I contacted half a dozen national printers and asked for competitive bids, and they poured in. All responsible businesses, club, organizations frequently release RFPs to stay abreast of competition, to review new services and lastly to keep current vendors honest and grateful for their continued patronage. All well run companies, churches, charities or clubs operate this way, vendors are not entitled to business, vendors must earn business and always offer fair and competitive prices, service and support. What came from all this work was the newly discovered ability to deliver POCA publications to it's members in FULL COLOR from front to back. A monthly 32 page Newsletter (with a matte finish and pre drilled for a three rig binder) and to deliver a 52 page Profiles magazine in FULL COLOR on glossy 100# stock, with both delivered to your homes in a plastic, sealed, water and dirt proof, heat shrinked bag with a laser address label and save the club $8,000 per year over what we are now paying for Black and White. $8,000 in Savings represents the net dues of 160 POCA members and is almost 20% of our total budget. Yet I am meeting a great deal of resistance. As I stated above, I would rather have a digital Newsletter and save all of that money and produce an even better printed Profiles. For this effort I am also meeting a great deal of resistance. During the Las Vegas Fun Rally at the President's Breakfast, we had in attendance 6-7 Chapter Presidents, 6 BOD members and 18 other assorted guests, 30 people in total who suggested that we simply raise our dues by $10 per member to facilitate keeping a printed paper Newsletter. At first I though this was an excellent compromise until I did the math, we have 22 chapters and almost 870 other members who rightly deserve a voice in this matter since 100% plus of your dues support these publications. I am going to be asking you to voice your opinion over this weekend, details below. I devised the "3-5-1 Membership Recruiting Program" which will allow any current POCA member to reach out to new member prospects as a recruiter and be awarded their membership dues for FREE (paid by the club) by helping us grow. That program is now underway and has it's own button on the lower menu on the website. If you sign up three new members, your National dues are paid for the following year and you are presented with a Silver POCA patch. If you recruit 5 New POCA Members within one year, your National and Local Chapter dues are paid the following year and you are presented with a GOLD POCA patch. For Superstars, if you achieve GOLD status 5 years in a row, you are presented with a Lifetime National POCA membership and you never pay National dues again (except for your Local Chapter's dues), plus you are presented with a Light Blue POCA patch. To help members achieve these goals and support this effort we have redesigned the POCA Membership brochure and printed enough copies of the full color trifold piece to ensure every member will have 5 to keep stowed away in their car. The brochure directs new member prospects to go online at <http://poca.com/> poca.com to sign up; during that process, they will have an opportunity to list their sponsoring member to ensure they are credited properly for 3-5-1 program rewards. I mentioned I wanted to take POCA worldwide, we now have forming new chapters in New Zealand and Canada, and we also have owners interested in the UK and France. On the new website, fully 33% of the newly joined members in the last week are International members. I stated to grow the club we must also include all DeTomaso cars, that too is happening (with a twist) because we are forming a Qvale Mangusta Chapter now and want to form chapters for each DeTomaso Model. The Qvale Club may even roll into POCA. Speaking of which, you will notice that I use POCA 10x more than Pantera; it is on purpose to help me to remember to be inclusive of all DeTomaso models and International efforts; there is no desire to change the name of the club, but it's OK to call Elizabeth - Betty, Beth, Liz or Lizzy, - we all still know who's the prettiest. I asked that all members must have a chapter designation to help build up the core of the club and make our chapters stronger; that also did not happen. I still believe the strength of any National club is derived from having strong chapters; even the Hell's Angels understand the concept; it works. To my way of thinking, a National club is only as strong as it’s weakest chapter, we must do more to support the chapters. Helping build membership and spreading their influence, to grow strong is to grow from the base upwards. I think everybody knows the root system of a tree has a far greater spread than the limbs, branches and leaves; so too does a National club. Real strength comes from a strong base; any strong wind can fell a tree with weak roots. Members wanted to know if they could switch Chapters; yes, now you can, but only one Chapter gets the dues rebate and you may only do it once per year. I'm told the Chapter rebate is made 60-90 days after every member renews or joins, so if you are moving and do not wish to pay local chapter dues again, please make your switch when you renew. We established a PayPal account to accept dues, so now those who want to use a bank check or different credit card can do so easily. We have been seeking benefits for POCA members; thus far you are entitled to receive a 5% reduction in Collector Car Insurance from American Modern or Heacock; please contact me for the right agent to call. Denali PLS also offers a 10% rebate on hearing aids to POCA members. We are seeking more; if you have a company or service that you wish to turn on to our members, please contact me. In the works is our new DeTomaso Pantera Registry, I am looking for volunteers to assist in this effort, please reach out to me, it will be the finest registry in any car club, where the Car will be the Star, not the member who owns it. We wanted to add POCA Jr. Members; that also did not happen. We elected to bring Tom Tjaarda to the US as our guest in November where I have secured a special guest judge status for him on Saturday and Sunday at the Hilton Head Island Concours and Speed Classic. I have been allowed a special presentation area for 12 DeTomaso Cars. I am seeking prime examples that can make the trip to HHI, SC. Qvale, Vallelunga, Deauville, Longchamp, P70, P5000 and all variations of the Pantera. It is a very prestigious event with tons of national automotive press; we will reap lots of National exposure as a result. I tried to build support for a single National POCA Charity effort, something like a Toy Drive with the USMC at Christmas. I do it with my own club; last season we donated 1,200 toys in 3 hours; that also did not pass. Thanks to my friend and Southeast Pantera member Rob Dumoulins, we devised the DeTomaso 911 Directory (D911D) which is an opt in program to be on call 24/7 to assist any POCA member who may be traveling and develops an emergency issue. You can provide help in any number of ways, from simply directing them to professional services or going out to find them on the side of the road and helping to fix a problem. All you have to do is sign up on the website to be a real life POCA hero. Here are some things that you can expect in the near future. Everybody will be receiving a new POCA patch soon in DeTomaso Aqua, Black and Silver; it's just a small token to thank you for being a member. Everybody will be getting a new plastic POCA membership card that will also have a slot cut into it so that it can become a name tag for chapter events, car shows, etc. I am working on a better New Member welcome package proposal to present to the BOD for approval, those buying cars for $60,000 - $400,000 have higher expectations and if we are to capture the new owners, we must deliver upon those expectations. NEW POCA STORE, Josette and I are working very hard at building a new POCA and Detomaso merchandise online store. I carried 60 lbs of samples to Las Vegas in a giant overweight separate suitcase to review with Josette. In the coming months, you will have a store to rival those marketing savvy gurus at PCNC, in fact Josette and I will challenge them to a little Mall on Mall throwdown as soon as we get settled. Expect great stuff, fast delivery, online instant payments and always great customer service. That my friends is how we've been staying busy these past 5 months, updating, improving and constantly working to increase your POCA Membership experience. The four Board members named above deserve a GIANT round of applause for standing alongside me, shoulder to shoulder to plowing our way through to make all of this happen for you. Others outside the BOD who have been especially helpful include Marshall Smith, Jeff Dietrich, Rob Dumoulins, and Laurie Basile. On the Cleveland Block calls, most all of the Presidents have been kind and decent people with the shared common goal of serving the members first. I value their input monthly and look forward to the Cleveland Bock calls 10x more than I do the BOD calls. There is a lot going on where the club can be in the news, really big news will be coming soon which will probably cause your cars to become in even bigger demand and prices to rise even more. We need to be nice, play nice and remember to endeavour to present our brand and always represent as a positive, fun experience. We face many challenges; our club is by member count 50% over the age of 65, in 10-15 years, many of our current members will no longer be active in this avocation. For many their car has become less of a toy and more of an investment, already a great number of members who have "cashed out", but remain members because they love the people. The price of cars has risen to such a degree that thirty-year-old guys with a family can longer afford to buy; our buyers are now forty and fifty year old guys; some are sports car guys and some are simply investors. We must always remember to try to look in from the outside and see what members and non members see, we must never forget that job ONE is offer a membership experience that is appealing to everybody, renewals and new members alike. It is here where I will mention Bob Reid, your Treasurer. Outwardly over the first four months, he has been supportive of many of the programs listed above. I believe in my heart Bob wants what is best for the club. We were all blindsided by the announcement at the 2016 Fun Rally declaring the 2017 Fun Rally would return to the Plaza hotel next April. Here’s the problem: the BOD never discussed it. We appointed Kent and Sandi Snyder as 2016 Fun Rally Coordinators; no mention was ever made for 2017 or beyond. So the Fun Rally may very well still take place in LV Vegas next year, but it remains to be seen if it will be a POCA event. Responding to the survey that was already sent to you is one tool that we have to settle this issue and move forward. You read what I thought above about all NEWS Rallies being rotating Chapter driven events, I stand by my assertion that is a far better route to success. Now, unfortunately, I have to share the not so nice stuff. I have been called mean, nasty, and all sorts of unflattering names by a small and select group of people opposed to everything we have done so far; they have kicked, screamed, emailed, broadcast emailed, violating BOD rules, violated POCA rules and violated common decency in every way, shape, and form. There are 6 members who shall remain nameless, out of 890 people consume 75% of my time and attention. Last January, we had our very first BOD teleconference; I called the meeting to order and immediately was verbally attacked for my 23 item agenda, but have no worries my friends I have survived 36 years in Show Business, this isn't even close, but it is relevant to the culture that we must all work to change. POCA needs to be a nicer place and we all need to practice what we preach. We cannot attract new members if we are perceived as a bunch of mean and nasty people, I was never a flower child or a hippie ( more of a preppy), but a little hippie never hurt anybody and I did date a few. Let's leave the VW Bus at home, take the Pantera out instead and be nice. Membership Records have been and remain a struggle, when we made the move to go to online member sign up and management, we had to take the existing paper and old Microsoft Access records and convert them to an Excel database driven engine which is what enables the POCA.com website to manage our records. It took John and Kathy Buckman, Ed Mendez, Joe Stockett and over a month to correct the typos, wrong emails, old addresses, and bad telephone numbers. I want to reach out and offer many thanks to Gerry Romack and Rod Kunishige for their assistance too, we could not have done it without them. We are still struggling with it, but have it down to about a 2% error rate. I know that many of you are still getting late membership due notices and you have paid your dues many months ago, we are working to correct the problem and as soon as the collector of your payments reports them, we can make it stop. In fact, we can do that much faster. If you are one of the 91 people being email harassed and you have paid your dues, please email me a copy of your check, paypal receipt, credit card statement and I will have it credited immediately as I have done for 30 members in the last 10 days. I'm sorry it is happening to you, if you would please renew or join online, it would alleviate these issues instantly and you can double check your address, email and telephone info to insure that you will get your POCA publications on time. My promise when I accepted the nomination to run for President was to move the club forward, be progressive, update our technology and most importantly - grow the club; and with the support of a core group of the BOD, we have kept many of those promises. Later today you will all receive a survey asking for your advice on the direction for this club. It will be mostly yes and no answers, it should take no more than two minutes to complete, and there are no math questions, I promise. Please reply and I promise to abide by majority rule, we have representative leadership; I guess 77% was not high enough to send the message that you wanted change. Please answer with your heart. I will do exactly what you want, I truly value all members, we all share a the same passion, our DeTomaso Pantera. Thank you for reading this very, very long message and please look for the survey coming very soon after this email. Michael Shortt President POCA _____ You have received this message from the mailing list of Pantera Owner's Club of America. If you would prefer not to receive these emails in the future, go to the opt-out page <http://POCA.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=356&club_id=999896&item_id=293966696752> and press the 'Remove Me' button. Dear Forum, After reading Mr. Shortt's humble statement, I understand better that we are in the presence of a Renaissance Man. He is a polymath gifted in the arts and sciences of accounting, business, entertainment, politics and leadership. His laser power point of a 77% vote majority that is gently referred to time and time again just a true leader would do, is reminiscent of other charismatic leaders such as Castro, Mussolini and Maduro. This is the mandate for change that he modulates with grace and compromise. Our Messiah has come. Reverentially yours, Chuck Engles PS: The latest Pantera Survey questions from the Politburo remind me of that clever courtroom interrogation: "When did you stop beating your wife?" From: Pantera Owner's Club of America(michaelsavga@gmail.com) [mailto:mailer@mail2.clubexpress.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2016 8:50 PM To: cengles@cox.net Subject: 2016 State of POCA Message [1]View in your browser _______________________________________________________________________ Greetings POCA Members, In one of the free comment responses to the 2016 Fun Rally Survey which was sent out the day before yesterday (it will remain posted until Sunday night, please participate, even if you did not attend. There are questions about future POCA events and your opinion matters a great deal to me). There was a comment that really struck home with me. It stated the following, "I wish the POCA President had given a report about the club in general at the banquet". You know what, I wish I had too, it was my first time and I was being aimed and pointed most of the rally, I now have a closer understanding of my Dog's issues as a result. You ladies and gentlemen deserve no less, so it's what I'm going to do now. Please forgive me being a fews days late. 2016 STATE OF POCA ADDRESS A warm welcome to all of you, my fellow speeders with oil pumps for hearts and 20/50 dead dinosaurs running through your veins. I do enjoy the company of car people; we are a special breed, we can be like golfers, tennis players, bingo nuts or even ballroom dancers, we often make the long drive, serve one up on fire, get 6 in a row and appear graceful simply hitting an double apex at speed without lifting. Some of us do these things every weekend, if not every day. I was elected presumably because I ran a campaign that promised change in all forms. My opponent for President was Rob D'Orazio, whom I met in person in Las Vegas along with his lovely wife, Josette, who serves as our POCA Store manager (and is very dedicated to her job, she did a fantastic job moving $4,600 in merchandise). I know for a fact you did not "like me" better than Rob because I had never met most of you last year. You all know Rob; he is a nice guy who also cares deeply about this club. Therefore, I must deduce (rather than assume which always leaves one open as a punch line) that your support of my candidacy was based on my shared vision of what POCA could be and what I saw (IMHO) it needed. While 23% of you did not agree, 77% of you did agree. I was both thrilled and excited that you would trust me to lead your long established club into a brave new future with a progressive plan of action. I know that many of you heard this, in our first BOD Meeting last January, I had a list of 23 agenda items. It was an ambitious beginning; what was not shared was that this wasn't my list for my whole term in office; it was my list for the first six months. Most of it has been accomplished; some items were not as a result of not being supported by a majority of the BOD. The BOD is comprised of your 8 elected positions and the Past President. I must share with you that it has not been easy to work on your behalf; this is the part of this address where brutal honesty must kick in, and for that I must apologize. It is not now, nor was it ever my intent to divide the club with such a deep chasm as has been developing in recent weeks. In most polite clubs, governments, churches, HOA's, corporations, etc., when a new President or CEO is brought onboard with such a huge margin of victory, most reasonable people see the election results as a mandate by the electorate; in my particular case, a mandate for change to lead the club into the present and prepare it for the future. If some of those 23% who opposed me had truly embraced change, they would have accepted the decision of 77% of the members and worked with us, shoulder to shoulder, together as a solid, cohesive unit to institute meaningful, thoughtful and considered change for the betterment of the club. That is what happens in an ideal world; it of course, is not happening here. I'm sorry to do it, but I feel I share with you what has been going on during these past five months. But before I do that, let me tell you most people think I'm a nice guy; I have lots of friends in my own social circles, in business, in racing, and in my community. For fun, I run Political campaigns; in the last 20 years, I have managed 41 Campaigns for elected public office and my candidates have won 38 times. I am currently working on #42, which, by all indications, will turn into win #39 next Tuesday. Respectable discourse and debate are not new to me during elections, not are dirty tricks. What is new to me, in 100% of the time following these 41 previous elections, the side that was not successful understood those who voted made a distinct choice and rejected their candidate or platform. Never in my life have I encountered a group where those who lost (and I do not mean Rob; he has been a perfect gentleman, and I think we got along famously in Las Vegas) just seem to keep on doing their own thing and pay no attention to the person elected or the mandate they represent, that is to lead and provide direction to the whole club. Before I move forward in thought, let me share some good stuff. On the BOD I am honored to serve with Mike Burnett as Vice President; he is a thoughtful and measured man, an experienced business owner and former Fortune 500 Executive. You are lucky to have him standing by "just in case". He provides leadership, guidance and a way of letting me know I'm doing the right thing. We have never voted on opposite sides. When you elected me, you also elected Joe Stockett, your Secretary; Joe works in IT for a major bank. With Joe, you folks have someone dedicated to making perfect records for our meetings; you also have a teddy bear of a man who wants everybody to be happy. He is our peacemaker. We also have never voted differently on any issue. Next up is Ed Mendez, who serves as our PR Director; Ed is a computer whiz and has established our footprint on Facebook, during the past 6 months generating over 200,000 Pantera related posts. Ed works weird hours and we often chat at 3 am about club business online, me in Georgia and Ed off in New Zealand. We also have never voted differently. Last on the progressive side of the room is our Past President, John Buckman. A super nice man who has provided amazing insight and guidance to me; his observations are spot on and he knows where all the bodies are buried; he knows the entire club and he has brought me up to speed on many items. Both he and his wife Kathy have been helpful to my efforts. We have voted differently a couple of times and I respect John for following his heart; he is the 5th vote for things for most of what we get done; sometimes he's not, and that's OK; we all need a person who proves, "you can't win them all". It is because of these folks and occasionally those not yet named that we have accomplished so much in the first five months of my term as your POCA President. We have opened up the financial books to member review; there simply are no secrets about money within POCA. We have a $100,000 reserve in the bank; it is there because for several years this club did not produce four Profiles every year, yet you all paid your full dues. With no expenses, building up a larger balance becomes very easy. I created the Cleveland Block, a monthly teleconference with POCA Chapter Presidents; we have had 4 such calls; I think the record thus far is 14/20 Chapter Presidents on a single call. These meetings are always respectful, polite and informative. It is where we share fresh ideas, which can be implemented or creatively adjusted to better serve POCA members. I enjoy these calls because there has been no yelling, no name-calling, no fighting and we all work towards a common goal. It is easy to see why each of these men were elected to be the President of their respective chapters. I wanted to make the POCA Hall of Fame a more visible part of the club; it now has a dedicated page on the website, and it will be populated soon. We attempted to set a standard policy whereby POCA would send flowers to any deceased member's family if they had 10+years of membership; that effort did not pass. I wrote a Code of Ethics for all POCA elected officers to sign, I signed it and so did all those listed above, others would not sign it. It basically states that you may not profit from the club, nor make personal gains as a result of your elected position. I was asked to rewrite it to take fewer pages (3), not knowing how to edit integrity out of the document, I have not represented it for additional signatures. I presented my vision for a new website; that vision is 70% complete and the result debuted on May 7th. It exceeded my expectations and I'm very pleased; it is a website I can now proudly refer others to visit as I reach out to build the POCA brand and a larger membership. I know it to be a sleek, performance oriented website; it navigates well and looks as good as any Pantera at speed on the open road. I am proud of my baby. The website has been a huge asset to membership, signing up more new members in a week than we normally get in several months. It has processed more renewals in the last week than are normally processed in several months. The best part is it is automated; when the new member signs up, they are instantly assigned a new member number, their online account is set up, and they receive an email in a few minutes with their login and temporary password to use the website. Their membership dues are deposited into our bank account within hours, and the best part, the POCA database is set up at the same time with their address, email, telephone numbers, etc. At the same time they are added to the mailing list for emails, Profiles and the monthly Newsletter. The website has over 450 POCA publications archived on it as well as all the DeTomaso, Ford, Modena, and ZF manuals from the $79.95 "The Works" DVD we used to sell. It's now FREE to all POCA members plus a lot more info in the technical library. You will also notice our 45+ Discussion Boards for members only; it's a better and safer (we have extensive malware, phishing and virus protection programs in place, unlike the old email forum) way to share information, ask for or give advice. On the home page, we have installed a rotating slide show to showcase member cars; if you have a photo that you would like to submit, please rename the file name to your name ("JohnSmithPantera") and submit as a jpeg no smaller than 400K and no larger than 5mb; email it to "[2]pocaphotodrop@gmail.com". We are going to change the slideshow monthly with 10 new POCA Member cars of contrasting views and colors. I made a presentation centered around 4 POCA Rallies per year (N.E.W.S., North, East, West and South) to be held in regional parts of the country to enable all POCA members to have the same opportunity as those who have attended the Fun Rally for 35 years. The first of these will be in Savannah, Georgia, Sept 29-Oct 2; it is called the 2016 POCA East Rally. It is my plan for these events to be hosted and run by Chapters on a rotating basis. In my humble opinion, POCA National should be providing instruction and a set of proven activity guidelines to be followed, insurance and registration support to facilitate these events. I believe the chapters should run the rallies and profit, based upon their ability to throw a party others will pay to attend. The is a proven concept in the car show community, Club A will make a super effort to attend a car show being sponsored by Club B because Club A knows if they do not support the show, then Club B will not make any effort to support their show, everybody wins because nobody wants to lose. POCA should only participate as BOD guests, have the right to sell POCA store items and conduct our raffle for National fundraising; everything else should be a responsibility of the host chapter. Can I have an Amen on that? Speaking of which, Yes I did ask for and deliver a blessing at the President's Breakfast, as I often do in my life. I am not one to get preachy or insist on compliance, everybody can do their own thing, but please consider - I still had two airplanes to get on before I was home safe again. I had no involvement in the recent 2016 Fun Rally in Las Vegas, which was scheduled before I was elected; I share no credit or blame in it at all. If you had a good time, thank the right people and if you didn't, those are the same people to voice your opinion too. The BOD has never run the Fun Rally, there has always been a Fun Rally Committee which consisted of 2 or 3 BOD members and 2-5 others who plan and manage these events. The aforementioned survey will be the Tale of the Tape; we'll ascertain how the event was perceived by those who attended and responded ( and so far over 40% of those in attendance have replied), and I'm looking forward to the results. We have started to work on a new draft of revised Bylaws to update the old version and fill in a few cracks. We have copies of the Bylaws used by the Ferrari, Porsche, Mustang, Shelby, and Jaguar clubs to determine what is common among car clubs. I mentioned early on in my candidacy that I felt the Newsletter should be distributed via email; we voted to do that (it passed) and it was supposed to sunset when the new website went online; that also has not happened. It is my desire the Newsletter and Profiles magazine become self sustaining with advertising space sold within their pages, like every other club newsletter and magazine in the world; this has also not happened. I took it upon myself to contrast and compare our Newsletter and Magazine Printing Costs, since this club spends $45,000 per year (more than we retain in member dues after Chapter rebates are deducted) to produce these publications, it seemed like what would be expected of me as your CEO. I feel I have a fiduciary duty to ensure that YOUR money is being spent prudently and wisely, I also helps that I was a partner in a printing company from 1986-1988 and have worked in professional media for 36 years. What I discovered was POCA has been severely overpaying for both publications. You currently are paying $25,000 for 12 monthly Newsletters which have a colored stock paper cover with Black ink and all Black and White content pages. You have been paying $20,000 for 4 issues of Profiles, a quarterly magazine with a 4 color cover, sometimes a color 4 page insert and all the rest of the pages are Black and White. The newsletter is mailed loosely, as many of you know it often arrives looking worse for wear. Profiles is usually mailed in a large white POCA envelope which does protect it from dirt, but not from moisture. So I contacted half a dozen national printers and asked for competitive bids, and they poured in. All responsible businesses, club, organizations frequently release RFPs to stay abreast of competition, to review new services and lastly to keep current vendors honest and grateful for their continued patronage. All well run companies, churches, charities or clubs operate this way, vendors are not entitled to business, vendors must earn business and always offer fair and competitive prices, service and support. What came from all this work was the newly discovered ability to deliver POCA publications to it's members in FULL COLOR from front to back. A monthly 32 page Newsletter (with a matte finish and pre drilled for a three rig binder) and to deliver a 52 page Profiles magazine in FULL COLOR on glossy 100# stock, with both delivered to your homes in a plastic, sealed, water and dirt proof, heat shrinked bag with a laser address label and save the club $8,000 per year over what we are now paying for Black and White. $8,000 in Savings represents the net dues of 160 POCA members and is almost 20% of our total budget. Yet I am meeting a great deal of resistance. As I stated above, I would rather have a digital Newsletter and save all of that money and produce an even better printed Profiles. For this effort I am also meeting a great deal of resistance. During the Las Vegas Fun Rally at the President's Breakfast, we had in attendance 6-7 Chapter Presidents, 6 BOD members and 18 other assorted guests, 30 people in total who suggested that we simply raise our dues by $10 per member to facilitate keeping a printed paper Newsletter. At first I though this was an excellent compromise until I did the math, we have 22 chapters and almost 870 other members who rightly deserve a voice in this matter since 100% plus of your dues support these publications. I am going to be asking you to voice your opinion over this weekend, details below. I devised the "3-5-1 Membership Recruiting Program" which will allow any current POCA member to reach out to new member prospects as a recruiter and be awarded their membership dues for FREE (paid by the club) by helping us grow. That program is now underway and has it's own button on the lower menu on the website. If you sign up three new members, your National dues are paid for the following year and you are presented with a Silver POCA patch. If you recruit 5 New POCA Members within one year, your National and Local Chapter dues are paid the following year and you are presented with a GOLD POCA patch. For Superstars, if you achieve GOLD status 5 years in a row, you are presented with a Lifetime National POCA membership and you never pay National dues again (except for your Local Chapter's dues), plus you are presented with a Light Blue POCA patch. To help members achieve these goals and support this effort we have redesigned the POCA Membership brochure and printed enough copies of the full color trifold piece to ensure every member will have 5 to keep stowed away in their car. The brochure directs new member prospects to go online at [3]poca.com to sign up; during that process, they will have an opportunity to list their sponsoring member to ensure they are credited properly for 3-5-1 program rewards. I mentioned I wanted to take POCA worldwide, we now have forming new chapters in New Zealand and Canada, and we also have owners interested in the UK and France. On the new website, fully 33% of the newly joined members in the last week are International members. I stated to grow the club we must also include all DeTomaso cars, that too is happening (with a twist) because we are forming a Qvale Mangusta Chapter now and want to form chapters for each DeTomaso Model. The Qvale Club may even roll into POCA. Speaking of which, you will notice that I use POCA 10x more than Pantera; it is on purpose to help me to remember to be inclusive of all DeTomaso models and International efforts; there is no desire to change the name of the club, but it's OK to call Elizabeth - Betty, Beth, Liz or Lizzy, - we all still know who's the prettiest. I asked that all members must have a chapter designation to help build up the core of the club and make our chapters stronger; that also did not happen. I still believe the strength of any National club is derived from having strong chapters; even the Hell's Angels understand the concept; it works. To my way of thinking, a National club is only as strong as it's weakest chapter, we must do more to support the chapters. Helping build membership and spreading their influence, to grow strong is to grow from the base upwards. I think everybody knows the root system of a tree has a far greater spread than the limbs, branches and leaves; so too does a National club. Real strength comes from a strong base; any strong wind can fell a tree with weak roots. Members wanted to know if they could switch Chapters; yes, now you can, but only one Chapter gets the dues rebate and you may only do it once per year. I'm told the Chapter rebate is made 60-90 days after every member renews or joins, so if you are moving and do not wish to pay local chapter dues again, please make your switch when you renew. We established a PayPal account to accept dues, so now those who want to use a bank check or different credit card can do so easily. We have been seeking benefits for POCA members; thus far you are entitled to receive a 5% reduction in Collector Car Insurance from American Modern or Heacock; please contact me for the right agent to call. Denali PLS also offers a 10% rebate on hearing aids to POCA members. We are seeking more; if you have a company or service that you wish to turn on to our members, please contact me. In the works is our new DeTomaso Pantera Registry, I am looking for volunteers to assist in this effort, please reach out to me, it will be the finest registry in any car club, where the Car will be the Star, not the member who owns it. We wanted to add POCA Jr. Members; that also did not happen. We elected to bring Tom Tjaarda to the US as our guest in November where I have secured a special guest judge status for him on Saturday and Sunday at the Hilton Head Island Concours and Speed Classic. I have been allowed a special presentation area for 12 DeTomaso Cars. I am seeking prime examples that can make the trip to HHI, SC. Qvale, Vallelunga, Deauville, Longchamp, P70, P5000 and all variations of the Pantera. It is a very prestigious event with tons of national automotive press; we will reap lots of National exposure as a result. I tried to build support for a single National POCA Charity effort, something like a Toy Drive with the USMC at Christmas. I do it with my own club; last season we donated 1,200 toys in 3 hours; that also did not pass. Thanks to my friend and Southeast Pantera member Rob Dumoulins, we devised the DeTomaso 911 Directory (D911D) which is an opt in program to be on call 24/7 to assist any POCA member who may be traveling and develops an emergency issue. You can provide help in any number of ways, from simply directing them to professional services or going out to find them on the side of the road and helping to fix a problem. All you have to do is sign up on the website to be a real life POCA hero. Here are some things that you can expect in the near future. Everybody will be receiving a new POCA patch soon in DeTomaso Aqua, Black and Silver; it's just a small token to thank you for being a member. Everybody will be getting a new plastic POCA membership card that will also have a slot cut into it so that it can become a name tag for chapter events, car shows, etc. I am working on a better New Member welcome package proposal to present to the BOD for approval, those buying cars for $60,000 - $400,000 have higher expectations and if we are to capture the new owners, we must deliver upon those expectations. NEW POCA STORE, Josette and I are working very hard at building a new POCA and Detomaso merchandise online store. I carried 60 lbs of samples to Las Vegas in a giant overweight separate suitcase to review with Josette. In the coming months, you will have a store to rival those marketing savvy gurus at PCNC, in fact Josette and I will challenge them to a little Mall on Mall throwdown as soon as we get settled. Expect great stuff, fast delivery, online instant payments and always great customer service. That my friends is how we've been staying busy these past 5 months, updating, improving and constantly working to increase your POCA Membership experience. The four Board members named above deserve a GIANT round of applause for standing alongside me, shoulder to shoulder to plowing our way through to make all of this happen for you. Others outside the BOD who have been especially helpful include Marshall Smith, Jeff Dietrich, Rob Dumoulins, and Laurie Basile. On the Cleveland Block calls, most all of the Presidents have been kind and decent people with the shared common goal of serving the members first. I value their input monthly and look forward to the Cleveland Bock calls 10x more than I do the BOD calls. There is a lot going on where the club can be in the news, really big news will be coming soon which will probably cause your cars to become in even bigger demand and prices to rise even more. We need to be nice, play nice and remember to endeavour to present our brand and always represent as a positive, fun experience. We face many challenges; our club is by member count 50% over the age of 65, in 10-15 years, many of our current members will no longer be active in this avocation. For many their car has become less of a toy and more of an investment, already a great number of members who have "cashed out", but remain members because they love the people. The price of cars has risen to such a degree that thirty-year-old guys with a family can longer afford to buy; our buyers are now forty and fifty year old guys; some are sports car guys and some are simply investors. We must always remember to try to look in from the outside and see what members and non members see, we must never forget that job ONE is offer a membership experience that is appealing to everybody, renewals and new members alike. It is here where I will mention Bob Reid, your Treasurer. Outwardly over the first four months, he has been supportive of many of the programs listed above. I believe in my heart Bob wants what is best for the club. We were all blindsided by the announcement at the 2016 Fun Rally declaring the 2017 Fun Rally would return to the Plaza hotel next April. Here's the problem: the BOD never discussed it. We appointed Kent and Sandi Snyder as 2016 Fun Rally Coordinators; no mention was ever made for 2017 or beyond. So the Fun Rally may very well still take place in LV Vegas next year, but it remains to be seen if it will be a POCA event. Responding to the survey that was already sent to you is one tool that we have to settle this issue and move forward. You read what I thought above about all NEWS Rallies being rotating Chapter driven events, I stand by my assertion that is a far better route to success. Now, unfortunately, I have to share the not so nice stuff. I have been called mean, nasty, and all sorts of unflattering names by a small and select group of people opposed to everything we have done so far; they have kicked, screamed, emailed, broadcast emailed, violating BOD rules, violated POCA rules and violated common decency in every way, shape, and form. There are 6 members who shall remain nameless, out of 890 people consume 75% of my time and attention. Last January, we had our very first BOD teleconference; I called the meeting to order and immediately was verbally attacked for my 23 item agenda, but have no worries my friends I have survived 36 years in Show Business, this isn't even close, but it is relevant to the culture that we must all work to change. POCA needs to be a nicer place and we all need to practice what we preach. We cannot attract new members if we are perceived as a bunch of mean and nasty people, I was never a flower child or a hippie ( more of a preppy), but a little hippie never hurt anybody and I did date a few. Let's leave the VW Bus at home, take the Pantera out instead and be nice. Membership Records have been and remain a struggle, when we made the move to go to online member sign up and management, we had to take the existing paper and old Microsoft Access records and convert them to an Excel database driven engine which is what enables the POCA.com website to manage our records. It took John and Kathy Buckman, Ed Mendez, Joe Stockett and over a month to correct the typos, wrong emails, old addresses, and bad telephone numbers. I want to reach out and offer many thanks to Gerry Romack and Rod Kunishige for their assistance too, we could not have done it without them. We are still struggling with it, but have it down to about a 2% error rate. I know that many of you are still getting late membership due notices and you have paid your dues many months ago, we are working to correct the problem and as soon as the collector of your payments reports them, we can make it stop. In fact, we can do that much faster. If you are one of the 91 people being email harassed and you have paid your dues, please email me a copy of your check, paypal receipt, credit card statement and I will have it credited immediately as I have done for 30 members in the last 10 days. I'm sorry it is happening to you, if you would please renew or join online, it would alleviate these issues instantly and you can double check your address, email and telephone info to insure that you will get your POCA publications on time. My promise when I accepted the nomination to run for President was to move the club forward, be progressive, update our technology and most importantly - grow the club; and with the support of a core group of the BOD, we have kept many of those promises. Later today you will all receive a survey asking for your advice on the direction for this club. It will be mostly yes and no answers, it should take no more than two minutes to complete, and there are no math questions, I promise. Please reply and I promise to abide by majority rule, we have representative leadership; I guess 77% was not high enough to send the message that you wanted change. Please answer with your heart. I will do exactly what you want, I truly value all members, we all share a the same passion, our DeTomaso Pantera. Thank you for reading this very, very long message and please look for the survey coming very soon after this email. Michael Shortt President POCA _______________________________________________________________________ You have received this message from the mailing list of Pantera Owner's Club of America. If you would prefer not to receive these emails in the future, go to the [4]opt-out page and press the 'Remove Me' button. References 1. http://POCA.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=722&club_id=999896&emtid=48579683612&mtid=293966696752&ht=0 2. mailto:pocaphotodrop@gmail.com 3. http://poca.com/ 4. http://POCA.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=356&club_id=999896&item_id=293966696752