I have been waiting to hear back from Momudder on this subject but as we heard from his last visit he is extremely busy. He e-mailed me the same day of his last visit and suggested that I take over for him for now. I e-mailed him back and suggested he post something on here if he thought a new leader was in order, but we haven't heard back from him. Momudder is a great guy and is a valuable member to the Missouri chapter, but he is extremely busy right now and has only had limited time to visit us hear. So if anyone thinks we need to elect a new leader lets hear what you have to say. I'm willing to do it unless someone else would like to. I know there is other members that would do it and do a great job. So let's hear what everyone else thinks.

 

If the Missouri chapter is going to survive and grow I think it's going need someone who is active on this website and has time for the extracurricular activities involved.

 

Nothing personal against momudder, but unfortunately, the leader does need to have the time to be able to do the duties of being leader., If he feels he is unable to do that, we really should go to someone who can. It doesn't require a lot of time, but need to be able to check in and take care of business regularly, rather than have to take a long time between messages to let people know what is going on. It is no disgrace to him to have to let it go, and i believe he took it largely to get the chapter back on track, even though he may not really have the time for it. When the decision was made, it was quite hasty. Now we have had more time, and others can feel more comfortable in handling it or not. I do feel that for the meets that are set by a leader, the leader needs to be able to attend. That does not mean that the leader needs to set all the meetings, however.

 

it's really up to momudder. If he feels he has time, then he can keep on goin. If he feels that he does not have the time, then let's let him pass the flag. The chapter does need an active member though. I'd do it if I wasn't so clueless as to how these chapters work.

Ryan

 

Along with the chapter leader there can be other officers elected. Some chapters have Area Coordinators to help with meets. Here's some info from the chapter guidlines.

"In order to start a Chapter you must have minimum of 5 FTE members willing to join. Each member must be an active FTE user for at least 30 days. The member organizing the Chapter must be an FTE user for at least 60 days.

Once the Chapter is formed, you must organize an off-line meeting of the Chapter to elect a Chapter Leader and any additional officers your Chapter may need such as secretary, treasurer, photographer, etc. Each Chapter needs to have one or more persons with a digital camera so Chapter related photos can be maintained in the Chapter Gallery.

The Chapter Leader is responsible for seeking out new Chapter members on the FTE forums (we provide the tools for this), overseeing the organization of events, meetings and gatherings. Additionally, we encourage Chapter members to seek out new members at auto shows, fellow Ford owners in the work place and Ford truck owners you may encounter in your day-to-day life. You may even consider telling local dealerships or auto parts stores about your Chapter."

If we could follow the guidelines and create a more formal chapter I think we could attract more members.
Jeff

 

I don't know as more formal is necessarily the need, but study how Kansas does theirs, and you will see sucess. Hopefully.
They are, but so far, Iowa has been quiet. We tried having quarterly meetings, but the attendance hasn't been there. I encourage local meets, but just hasn't been much going on. There are 65 regisyered members for the Iowa chapter, but only maybe at best 10 regulars, and the most at one meet was 6.For whatever the reason, people just aren't making it, whether it be financial or time constraints. I don't know why there isn't more online participation, why so many have signed up, and then never show up again. It's awful hard to set up much of anything when the participation in setting them up is not there.

 

The only reason I brought this up again is so that we didn't have to go through having the chapter locked up again. I think anyone with enough time could probably do the chapter leader job. We need to get somethings taken care of such as more participation on-line and getting some off-line meets set-up. I have been sending pm's out to new FTE members that joined in the last month inviting them to join us in the MO chapter. That is probably something the leader should be doing but probably doesn't hurt for someone else to do also. We just need to get a plan set and then take care of things.

 

The invites don't have to be reserved for the leaders, but it makes a better impression perhaps. If you can get a word from Momudder would be best, but we can operate without him being in the thick of it for a while. Being chapter leader isn't that big a deal as far as experience and knowledge, they let me do it.... I have never been involved in car clubs or such, so it is a learning curve for me, and pretty much anyone that does it. The main thing is to be available, try to get things going, kind of try to coordinate ideas and such, not necessarily call the shots, that is NOT what being leader is about, that comes straight from the top. This is a chapter of the members. no leader is to dictate or decide it all, and on occasion, leaders have to maintain order of a sort. We are not moderators, at least not yet, but once we are given moderator responsibilities, we are still responsible to the members and to the management. The one thing leaders do have to do, is officially accept members, it is not set up automatically for whatever the reason, we have to do it manually, and that requires checking to see if there are requests to join.

 

By more formal, maybe the wrong word to use, I am reffering to the structure of the chapter and what it has to offer. The guidelines simply provide organization for the way we operate as a group keeping everyone on the same page. Mosty "car clubs" are more localized - city vs state wide- so meetings, cruise nights, gtgs will take time to get going. But we could still have things like a chapter website and a chapter gallery going. I'm sure other chapter leaders would be willing to share ideas on what works or helps in their chapters.
I am not saying Momudder needs to be replaced. I do think he needs to evaluate his situation and decide if he has the time or the energy to be the chapter leader. Participation here is always voluntary and no one should feel pressured or obligated to do something they are not able to. Hats off to Momudder for accepting it in the first place but nobody can speak for him but himself. If there responsibilities that only he can perform what is availible for delegating those and the idea of a local chapter is face to face contact offline, Who knows how to contact him personally?
Jeff

 

the chapter gallery and website do not have to be done by the leader either... I am not tech savvy enough to do a website, and I also don't know how to get a chapter gallery done without a website... it is also up to the membership as to whether they are concerned about such. For the Iowa group, I end up relying on members for some of the tech stuff, because it just isn't my area. At this time, ther is no Iowa website or gallery, and there hasn't apparently been much interst in one either. It is up to each chapter as to whether they want one or not. If we want to have one, it is not just up to the leader to do it, members can do it all the same.

 

Here is what I've been able to find out so far.
"FTE will donate 50 meg of web space to any chapter that needs it:

chaptername.ford-trucks.com
The chapter leaders are given access to ClubFTE (as a paid member) to create & manage a 20MB web site.
This is one of the things Ken talked about : C/L privileges."
Posted by Dennis
"The chapter leader would handle all "chapter name" :
Web Site needs
E-Mail
Photo Album within the web site
All other things that the web site can handle."
Posted by Ken.
This indicates atleast a chapter leaders involvement and I'm only looking for clarity and understanding on how things could be as a member of this chapter.
I found the Mo chapter page but I don't see how to access it and I don't think it is more than a sign in page right now.
When it comes to computer illiteracy, I'm like a teenager with a new license I can make it go, it's pretty scary and there is a crash coming just around the next corner.
I also found a post by Ken that indicated joining a chapter would become automated.
Jeff

 

some of the changes are slow, and some things have changed since the post you found. There is a forum that can only be accessed by the chapter leaders, but I can keep a watch on the items in there. The clubFTE used to have a website that came with the membership, but as of this spring, that is no more. I'm not sure on the chapter websites, that may remain. I'll have to look into that. Personally, I would let another member that is tech literate handle it for me, they would have the password and all to do so... I tried to set up one of the websites they gave with the Club FtE memberships, but I was never successful in completing it, just couldn't quite get it to work, and the instructions weren't enough for me to figure it out. So as a result, I haven't been real ambitious about it. I know some of the other leaders have set up some web sites, but I have yet to find the help to get it done, not for lack of asking.
At this time, memberships are still manual, in time they may become automatic. We were also told we would have some moderation "powers" to be able to sticky threads and such, not full blown mod functions, but some to take the load off the admin. Hasn't quite gotten done, but as far as I know, is on the to do list. Some problems I can forsee with a website being locked down to a certain leader is some of what we have seen here, if for some reason, the leader is unable to take care of things, it will be a problem, also in the event of leadership changes, such as annual elections. If it is locked down to only one person, then it becomes unuseable to the rest of the chapter if that person disappears for any reason. If what I was told is true, Ratsmoker, our last leader, was called up to go to Iraq. I don't know if it is the story or not, but it is an example of how it would be a problem.


OK, I just checked, and a request has to be put in by the leader to have a website created. So yes, a leader does have to start it. But it doesn't mean they are the only ones can access, but that would be where a vice president and other officers come in... right now we are flying under the radar on that, as we don't have any but are supposed to. That is actually the way the chapter is supposed to have been reopened... that is also the procedure for starting a chapter.

 

Thank you fellro86, I wasn't trying to put you on the spot but since you are a chapter leader I figured you would have a few answers. I know FTE is in the middle of making changes and that can take time. And you finally got the point I was to trying make about delegating responsibilities, it keeps the chapter going smoothly when any one persons' life gets too busy to be here. I realize the chapter leaders are not dictators or moderators and not a one man show either but that person should be as the title implies, be a "leader." Again thank you fellro for your time and effort and answers here.
Jeff

 

believe it or not, I got accused of fostering that attitude... from someone who wasn't even in my chapter. My wording wasn't quite what it should have been apparently, and I got blindsided and accused of being a dictator... I did start to get the picture after a bit... No problem on the help, happy to do it. It sure would be nice to get back to how it was when I first joined, slowed down about 6 months later, then died, to the point we had to rescue it.