Monthly Meetings

[Guest Hal Davis (MODEL A HAL)]

What do your clubs do for a monthly meeting?<P>Our club meets on the 4th Sunday for an afternoon meal. Each month is sponsored by a different group of families. Sometimes it will be held at someone's church or maybe at a community center. Sometimes at a restaurant, a park, or sometimes at someone's home. The sponsoring family or families will either provide the meal themselves or have it catered. <P>The problem arises when four or five families get together to sponsor one month and other months have only one sponsor or as the case is for today's meeting, NO sponsor. We didn't have one last month either. Last month, we met at a restaurant and each paid his own way. Today, we are meeting at a member's church. We are having a caterer come in, but we are all suppose to pay our own way again. We'll see, but I bet there will be those who weren't aware that they were suppose to be paying their own way. If they weren't at the last meeting and didn't read their newsletter very well, they'll have no way of knowing.<P>I have been in this club for three years. The first year, we went in with one other family (new members, as well) to sponsor a meeting. At the last minute, there were a couple of long time members who felt sorry for us and wrote us a check to help out. I wasn't going to the poor house without their help, but I did appreciate it. Last year, my wife and I sponsored the meeting totally by ourselves. This year, we had a family say they would go in with us, but they backed out at the last minute. I am alarmed by the seemingly declining number of members who are willing to help sponsor a meeting. This is the third month this year that has had no sponsor. On the other hand, some months have as many as 5 sponsoring families. Their has been talk of trying to break up these large groups, but ther's no way to do it without hurting feelings. After all, who knows what kind of financial shape someone is in. They may can only afford to split it 5 ways.<P>I wonder if we should forget about the "eating meetings" altogether and just have a meeting, or maybe make it a known fact that each meeting will be Dutch treat at some given restaurant. I am curious as to what other clubs do.

[Guest SalG (Sal Grenci)]

Hal, It sounds like a nice idea, but I have a few questions. How many people attend these events? Do you have other meetings on a monthly basis or is this your regular business meeting? Perhaps you could organize a standing committee to run these events? They could vary the food and charge a small set fee, say $5 that everyone will know about.<BR>I belong to 3 regions and 1 indy club on Long Island and each club meets on a week night i.e. 1st Thurs, 2nd Wed and we have a coffee break after the meeting and before any lecture or film. Some clubs look for monthly volunteers and others have an assigned person(s) who buy the bagels, cake, doughnuts or what ever and get a check when the bills are handed in.

[Bill Stoneberg]

Hal,<BR>What our club does is:<BR>We usally meet at someones house or at a picnic pavilion (when its not so ungodly hot), and the club provides the meat (hot dogs, brisket, hamburgers, etc.) and club members bring something to share and their own drinks. We have yet to run out of food and the club treasury is still in the black.<BR>Once a year, we meet at a restaurant where it is dutch treat. That is normally inJanuary to take car of elections etc.

[Guest Hal Davis (MODEL A HAL)]

Sal,<P>We normally have 30-35 come to these meetings. They are our regular business meetings. Typically, we will eat first, then conduct the meeting.<P>The idea of having a "pot luck" or "covered dish" meal was brought up and quickly shot down by an old timer saying "We'll have 15 different kinds of potato salad." <P>This is the way it's been done for years, so I doubt anyone will want to change, but we need something to do on the months that no one will come forward to sponsor.

[Guest BruceW]

Harford Region holds business meeetings on the last Tuesday of every month, except for July, August, November and December at an Elementary School (thus no meetings during the summer months) We also have no business meeting in Nov or Dec because two of our biggest event (Annual Dinner and Christmas Party) are held during these months. If something important comes up during the months we have no regular business meetings, we hold a meeting at one of our activities during that month). <P>Our meetings start at 8:00pm ..well after dinner. Following the meeting and a program, we have refreshments. Refreshments are provided by those that signed up for rthat particular month. At the biggining of the year, our Hospitality Chairperson puts out a list, where people sign up for a month (each month has three slots). Those three people provide refreshments for the meeting that particulat month.

[Guest]

I am in several different clubs, none of which hold monthly business meetings. Several used to do that but found out car oriented activities draw more people. Besides we were all getting fat.

[Jim Bollman]

We do much like the Hartford region with several people signed up for refreshments, but only 1 dinner meeting a year for elections. That meeting is potluck with the club usussally suppling the meat.

The ATCA chapter that I belong to meets for lunch every other month on Saturday at a restraunt that normally isn't open till later in the day. They have the normal lunch menu for us and everyone pays their own way. A couple of the meetings are picnics with small truck shows on the side. Seems to work for us.

Jim...

[Guest BruceW]

We have car related activities almost every month throughout the year but still have monthly meetings. Although we will discuss business at a car event.. if needed..., we prefer to leave the business discussion at the monthly meetings. We have large turnouts for both our car activities and business meetings. We get about the same number of people attending the monthly business meetings (both husband and wife) as we do our activities.