The Arizona LX Club Daily News

[fullofit_]

The Arizona LX CLub has joined the SEMA Action Network.
There will be a monthly section in our news letter dedicated to their work on our behalf.

Our news letter will be put out by one of our members that dose not make the meeting Sunday. So if you don't want to volunteer for that duty I suggest you be there.

Did you subscribe to the Arizona LX Club? It's easy

There is a thread I posted to thank our new friends over at G.A.M.E. for hosting us, I would really hope all would take a moment to thank them for their nice work.

Lets all keep the roll call thread for posting our stats, it is a valued tool for us, and I hope all will take the time to make sure they are listed there.

Take a moment to read and post in our Arizona LX Clubs' MOD of the month thread; a simple local version of the LXOM that will be part of the news letter.

I have been looking for a banner for quite some time and pretty much have given up on picking one, I like what our good friends over in Long Island are doing, so check this out.

We are slowly working our way into a nice home here, if you have any suggestions please send them to me via pm.

If you have any announcements you wish to have made here, or just a "hot inside scoop" to report PM me and it will make the next issue.


all the best,
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[fullofit_]

this is the hand out information from the meeting sunday night.






Welcome To the first meeting of the ARIZONA LX CLUB.

This is a nice write up from http://www.hagerty.com, I have found them to be a very car club orientated group indeed. Please take a moment to read through this as we will be using it for a guide for this meeting.

A Good Club Needs a Good Constitution
(there is a sample constitution that can be downloaded and reviewed for ideas to build our own here http://www.southwindscorvetteclub.com/images/SWCC%20Constitution.pdf )
One of the strengths of America’s Constitution is that the framers of the document worked so hard to get it right the first time. After determining why you want to start a collector car club and picking a name for the club, you will be faced with the job of creating a framework on which to “build” the club. Get it right! Often, it’s best to avoid the “committee approach” during this phase. Leadership is needed to get the ball rolling. Basic decisions are best left to a small number of people or even one person. Most good car clubs have one or two founders who start the ball rolling in the right direction. Once the club is formed, refinements can always be made. Few car clubs get bogged down on parliamentary procedures. Most use Roberts Rules of Order Newly Revised as the basis for conducting meetings.

The foundation of the club — the structure on which it’s built — will be its constitution and bylaws. See hand out for a sample constitution, which will guide you on creating your own.

Dues
Setting proper dues is important. In general, it isn’t a good idea to “guestimate” the costs you’ll run into (postage, printing, trophies, etc.) and “back out” the amount of dues. For one thing, your estimates could be way off. In addition, your dues will have to be competitive with that of other clubs. It’s far easier to base your dues on hobby standards, get as many memberships as you can through good promotion, and then create a budget to keep your expenses in line with income. Make the services match the income, instead of going the other way around.

Incorporating
Incorporation of your collector car club is a good idea. This sets up the organization as a separate legal entity. There are tax implications that being incorporated will help you deal with. Corporations have certain legal rights that individuals do not have. Getting your club incorporated makes it look more official and stable. It’ll help if you want to trademark the club name and/or logo too. For information about getting a trademark, contact the United States Patent and Trademark Office at www.uspto.gov.Being incorporated also makes the organization, rather than the individual officers, liable if any legal problems should arise. If nothing else, this will make people more comfortable in serving the club as an officer.

Statement of Principles
One final important step in organizing your new car club is to create a statement outlining the principles of your group. This should cover many of the same points addressed in your club constitution but be expressed in simple prose. Once you state the club’s principles, they can be used to promote new memberships. The statement of principles will also be helpful if you decided to file for tax-exempt status. The first part of your club constitution can easily be reworded to create your statement of principles, for example:

We the members of Your Collector Car Club Inc., a nonprofit educational and social club, are committed to the goals of: (1) gaining information about collectible automobiles; (2) exchanging ideas among the many collector car owners throughout the world; and (3) helping people throughout the world to better enjoy the collector car and its history through the publications, shows, events and other activities organized and sponsored by our membership for public enjoyment.




Nonprofit status for tax purposes is commonly referred to as “501(c)(3)” status after the Internal Revenue Code section of the same name. 501(c)(3) status allows a club to receive donations for which donators can receive a tax write-off. Depending on local law, 501(c)(3) status can also allow a club to receive benefits and breaks that ease a charitable mission, such as being eligible for reduced government fees, or exempt it from certain laws, such as those against running a raffle. For more information on 501(c)(3) status, go to
www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html.

John “Gunner” Gunnell is the automotive books editor at Krause Publications in Iola, Wis., and former editor of Old Cars Weekly and Old Cars Price Guide.



ARIZONA LX CLUB

FIRST OFFICIAL CLUB BUSINESS MEETING
SUNDAY April 29, 2007
AGENDA
1. Adopt a constitution
2. Elect officers
3. Dues or membership fees
4. Incorporating
5. Charity work and the need for proper tax status “501(c)(3)”
6. Statement of principles
7. Insurance
8. Announcements
9. Open discussion
· Current items I have been working on see letter titled Greetings are extended to all by the “crazy crew” here in Arizona. Game has offered to host the memorial raffle event, it dose not have to be at their venue.
· Erik has been working hard to bring us some corporate sponsorship to eliminate the need for membership fees and dues. He has many other announcements to make at this time.
· Chris has made an offer to put up the host site for some really interesting web based items via his company FactoryD He will be in charge of all web development if his offer is accepted.
· Margy Bons has offered to help us with some public relations matters. Further she is more than willing to lend a hand with the memorial raffle project. She is chapter president of Operation Homefront.

· Family events at least one a month, such as water park day, polar express day, miniature golf night etc.
· Best location for east side,
· Best location for west side.
· Best location for northern state
· Best location for southern state
· Offer by GAME to hold a yearly bash, and their wish to have a track series if we can put all the pieces together.
I thank you for the opportunity to meet with all of you today,
All the best,
Joe Abrahams.

[fullofit_]

Over the last few weeks I received some email on how the club sounded like it may be getting too complicated. I also have been asked to keep it casual. There have been several concerned that it may become a financial burden to be involved with the charity aspect of the club as purposed.

Further complicating things is the lack of written results of the meeting.

So let me take a moment to break it down as simply as I can. I have taken what I think are the best ideas brought forward and I will flush all that were not too well received. Last I will list any that may have had mixed reviews.

First the club should be incorporated and also should file the proper tax forms to achieve the 501(c)(3) status.

The club name and several variations of the same should be protected by copy write for the incorporated club.

Let me next say that I hope all realize that I hope to often see post such as “how about the pavilions on Friday, then out to speed world??” That is what makes us all so tight. That so many of us will just gather and have some fun, then go racing. I do not want to see that ever stop.

There are just a few things we hope to be able to bring forward in an effort to make our obsession with our cars a little more family friendly.

It is our intention to plan one family outing for each month, these can be very simple events, or they can be a little special for the holidays. I am sure none of us will make all of them, but it should be fun to make it to more than just a few. Some of the ideas that were considered at the meeting were:
· Polar express for the Christmas holiday
· Parade entry for the fourth of July holiday
· Club barbecue at a park
· Miniature golf night complete with prizes for closest to the pin, best score and best shot of the night.
· Water park day,
· Weekend at Lake Havasu bring your boat!! Show your car!!

Now most all of these that are local events will be follow by a run to the track for those that like to line them up
Joeb1 had some awesome ideas to get our club more active in the drag strip arena. I think we can all look forward to the end result of that being many fund days at the track.

The folks at G.A.M.E. have made some nice offers that they would like to explore with our club, and I look forward to seeing how that turns out.

Charity work and how often:
I look forward to doing some charity work; I am not sure how others feel about it. I do not want that to be the identity of the club, just something that we know we do. I figured about four times a year would be enough fund raisers; I would like to keep the memorial fund for James around for perpetuity if at all possible.

So that’s it in a nut shell, a pretty large nut, but a good one.

Just a club that is about our cars, family, friends, and fun that happens to once in a while do a little something for those that cannot.

The next post in this thread will be by Erik, he will be presenting all the information on the corporate sponsors and all that they will be helping us with.

All the best,
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