Re: [DML] Delorean Owners Assosiation

[David Teitelbaum <jtrealty@xxxx>]

This is a reply that I got from Henry Breer, a Director with the DOA. 
This was an e-mail response to my public post on the DML. My feeling
was that only by seeing it directly could you appreciate the tone.
At the time I was trying to contact the DOA I was a member but my
membership for having the article published has expired. My
intention was to point out some areas of improvement, I guess they
don't take criticism well. This e-mail is a telling look at how we
are percieved by the DOA and their attitude to their "membership".
I wonder why he had to respond in RED. Don't be too hard on him
after all everyone is just a "volunteer" and doing this for the
love of Deloreans?

David Teitelbaum
vin 10757

Henry Breer wrote:

> 
>
> David Teitelbaum wrote:
>
>> I have been trying to reach the DOA as per Trevor's suggestion. There
>> is NO contact info except for John Truscott whose phone doesn't answer
>> and there is no message. The DOA website has no contact info ...
>
> David - I guess in your haste to criticize you did not find the 
> listing of the directors at 
> http://www.delorean-owners.org/doa/direct.html which gives links to 
> all of our emails. Some, like mine, are the actual email addresses, 
> others are pass-through mailboxes maintained by our ISP.
>
>> It seems strange that such a public appearing
>> organization makes itself so hard to contact yet they put themselves
>> foward as the premier owner's organization.
>
> I don't know about 'premier', but certainly the oldest owners 
> organization. This year we are celebrating our 20th anniversary. 
> That means that for the last 20 years, some of the board members have 
> been attending monthly meetings, gathering information to publish in 
> our magazine, discussing events to stage for our members, wrestling 
> with the problems of finances, insurance, etc. ad nausium. 20 years x 
> 12 meetings/year = 240 meetings (which usually last 3-4 hours on a 
> Sunday afternoon). Have you devoted over 4 years worth of Sunday 
> afternoons to DeLorean Owners?
>
>> It would seem to me that
>> it is really a California club that is trying to make itself look
>> larger and more important than it really is.
>
> Not only are we a California club, but we are actually a registered 
> California Mutual Assistance Corporation. We are governed by an 
> elected Board of Directors, conduct our meetings according to Robert's 
> Rules, and file state and federal tax returns. Seeing that we were 
> successful, others world wide have joined.
>
>> I was only trying to
>> contact them to let them know that I have received a lot of e-mails
>> privately agreeing with me and telling me how they don't like what is
>> happening but they won't come out publicly.
>
> We are not an altruistic group. We exist to serve our members, not 
> the DeLorean community at large. We are always happy to receive 
> feedback from our members. However, we pay no attention to those who 
> are not Association members.
>
>> The DOA should know what
>> is going on and ignoring it won't make it go away like they hoped the
>> DML would just go away.
>
> This is my personal opinion: There is a lot of bad advice given on 
> the DML by people who want to be a big fish in a small pond. There are 
> incomplete answers to incomplete questions. On the whole, I think the 
> DML has done more harm than good for the DeLorean Community. It's only 
> redeeming feature is that it is a forum for owners to communicate with 
> each other. I just wish they had something useful to talk about.
>
>> Between the direction the magazine is going
>> and the change in the membership rules IMHO they are not doing things
>> to improve the DOA. I would hate to see it disappear, it was the glue
>> that held the Delorean owners togther for a long time in the early
>> years when it wasn't clear what was going to happen and there is an
>> extensive archive of technical info accumulated over the years.
>
> This 'extensive archive of technical info accumulated over the years' 
> that you refer to is the back issues of DeLorean World. If you own 
> them and have read them you will see that virtually every aspect of 
> maintenance and repair on a DeLorean has been covered there. True, 
> many of the newer owners do not have these magazines, but they are all 
> available on our website, as is an index to most of them. It has been 
> a couple of years since I have seen a question posted on the DML that 
> couldn't have been answered by looking at an old DeLorean World.
>
> So where does the Association go from here? We could re-publish old 
> magazine articles, but why? We decided to let Gullwing and DCS 
> magazines try their hand at publishing the technical articles we have 
> already covered. (DMCH's DeLoreans is just their catalog - ever see 
> anyone else's ads in it?)
>
> We thought we would try something new: Owning a DeLorean is a 
> Lifestyle. If that doesn't work, we will try something else.
>
> Hank Breer
> Director at Large
> DeLorean Owners Association
> VIN 1141
> 
>



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