Oh god, you guys aren't familiar with this whole debacle? It's some really bad s**t. The clubs kitty got emptied and a whole lot more. There was a huge thread about what precipitated this when they kicked Bob Coates out of the track chairman position and there was an ensuing revolt by folks in the chapter. Have a look in the Tracking section I think. Once the chapter was back under control they discovered the problem. Please don't prod me for any details. It's a lawsuit and I really don't know that much about the actual details. It's a big deal but the Empire State region is back under competent control and running fine again.
good to hear..will look it up under tracking Looked it up and only found info about Coates being booted and nothing about monies lost or such
As I said, the litigation only began after the region was brought back under control. It's litigation. I've already said enough. I'll stand by my first post. Sorry.
http://www.stargazette.com/article/20121003/NEWS01/310030084/Ferrari-club-files-lawsuit?odyssey=nav%7Chead&nclick_check=1 Check out the link to the complaint!
How could this possibly happen? The Ferrari Club of America National board forced Bob Coates out and they put Leon Bourdage in without election or due process. Does not the FCA national board have a fiduciary responsibility to oversee its regions? Are there not annual reviews by the national of the region's finances and of the annual meet? How could they allow this to go on for so many years? Didn't anybody notice the depleted treasury of the most financially successful region in the club? It appears incomprehensible that the national put Leon Bourdage in power and completely ignored their fiduciary responsibly to their members. Based on the lawsuit, this amounts to each member of the Empire region being ripped off for more than two thousand dollars! Who is accountable for this? Does not the FCA national board owe each and every member of the Empire region more than two thousand dollars person, an apology and letters of resignation? This is truly outrageous!
That's not exactly what happened. Leon became the regional director legitimately. Bob was regional director and voluntarily relinquished that position. He was forced out as national track chairman. That was the ugly part. What happened after that to the Empire state region Leon will have to answer for. In a court of law. Even uglier. I'm not privy to all the details but the dollar amounts cited here involve other entities besides the Ferrari club. My "impression" is that the Ferrari club's losses are substantially less than that. It's bad enough but let's also try to be accurate and not speculative. The main point is that the chapter is functioning properly again and has been for about a year? No need to panic.
Its actually hard to believe that much money COULD be accumulated in a club chapter. How much are the dues? And don't they ever spend money on their events, quarterly magazine and newsletters? This kind of crap would never have happened under the leadership of real enthusiasts like Joe Rosen. Yes I'm clinging to "the good old days" but then again, they were "good" if not better. When was the last time you saw three GTOs, a '57 and a '61 Testa Rossa, two 250LMs, seemingly endless amounts of Daytonas and 275 GTBs at every track event of the season? I dropped the FCA ten years ago when most of what they did was a holiday party and nice little cocktail parties. Now they can spend their hard earned membership dollars in court. Sounds like the beginning of the end.
Sorry Andy, it is far from "the beginning of the end." The Empire State Region has recovered nicely from this debacle, and is aggressively pursuing this matter. Without getting into details, clubs like ESR (not just Ferrari clubs, but other marques and independent clubs as well) need to have rather large cash reserves if they are doing track events, which ESR runs a number during the year. The tracks like Watkins Glen, Lime Rock, Pocono Raceway and NJ Motor Sport Park require substantial deposits or full payment at the time of scheduling dates or months ahead of events. Without a cash reserve, these events could not be run and hard to come by dates would be lost. Clubs like this can't simply get a line of credit to fund these events. So the clubs fund themselves. ESR's reserves took many years to accumulate, and almost no time to disappear. I'm not going to go into more detail then that in a public forum. Suffice it to say that one bad actor will not spoil it for everyone else.
Your'e forgetting that it is a volunteer organization and 1 bad apple doesn't make the rest of the group bad.In order to improve things others need to get invovled.Roland Veit has made some great strides in improving the region.
Hope you are right for those who depend on FCA events. I may have some old info but last time I looked a Pocono event was the most expensive in the Northeast and they wanted $10,000. I am wondering where $500,000 comes from with a club that supports their events and has relatively few fund raisers. How many members does the Empire Region have?
