The natives are restless

[Sundiego]

It's a good time to go to the VCA website and see the changes in the club. Maurice and others have been terminated. Some regions have left. If it gets moderated away, Viper Alley will have the info.

[HyperViper]

You beat me to it. I logged on to post about this and wanted to get everyone in The SoCal regions position on this. Everyone please go to Viper Alley and VCA Forums and read up. (will take you hours if not days) as lots of BIG changes are coming.

What are the clubs officers positions?

Thanks

Ron

[Sundiego]

Lee Stubberfield has resigned, making Dan Everts president. There is still a ton of problems with it.

[PCH VIPER]

As your Regional President, I am monitoring and gathering as many FACTS as I can.  I am talking one on one with as many of the principal "players" involved and this includes people from ALL sides.
In doing so, I am doing my best to understand all perspectives and will do my best to communicate it to our membership. It is a very fluid situation and things are constantly changing with each passing action/reaction.  This makes it very difficult for me to communicate what is happening with so many changes occurring in short periods of time.

Please keep in mind that as paid VCA members, we have paid our dues for the entire 2013.  Our Region is in good standing with the VCA.  Our Region has received every benefit with which we are entitled to.  We have received our Membership dues through the second quarter and 3rd quarter dues are forthcoming very soon.  They have provided us with the required insurance coverages for our VCA Events.  They have approved our regional stipend and we have received over $1,500.00 in additional support for our events.
Our So Cal Board has not had any issues with the VCA and as such are hesitant to make any snap decisions based on internet comments and jeopardize the benefits that we have already paid for through Dec. 31, 2013.   

Please consider your sources for information before forming your opinions or making comments that may not be reflected upon positively.

_________________________________________________

On a much more personal note, our Region's officers, PAST and PRESENT, have personally put in hundreds of hours to create a very positive energy Club.   The Southern California Viper Club has always made an effort to operate in this way and will continue to do so.  This Club exists purely for the fun, camaraderie/friendships of the Viper owners.

Our National Officers have their hands full right now and hopefully will address all aspects of the conflicts in a manner that is positive in nature.  As members, we can only hope that they are able to find a solution that satisfies all concerned and not let the negativity prevail.

[Kala]

I know Dan has been promoted to National President... I have seen no other mention of who is currently filling the other seats... Have a clue Lance?

[PCH VIPER]

I do not know.   But I can tell you that it isn't ME  !   

[Speedtactics]

Lance,
Well said. There is no need to perpetuate the negativity, it will not help the VCA or the SoCal region going forward. We all need to make sure that we stay positive and act with the club interests in mind. There are people out there who are only acting for self interests. Passing hate and mis information to others so they can win their support. After all this is only a car club, if they don't like it they can buy some other car and join that club, see if they get the same kinds of benefits from Vette or Porsche.

[Kala]

I'm not sure this is only about self interest... I see this latest thing from a lot of directions.

Telling them to go buy a Vette... mmm... not sure I would bring that up Hirk... 

[Kala]

This just in:

September 12, 2013
Dear Presidents and Members,
The VCA .....Moving forward!!
Good afternoon everyone, you have all heard by now that Lee Stubberfield submitted his written resignation as President of the VCA on Tuesday Sept 10th. The VCA is planning to hold a special election in January 2014 at the annual President's meeting to elect new national officers. Dan Everts, formerly our national treasurer since April 2013, will be acting president until the January election. The BOD had our first conference call last night and already many of the issues plaguing the club are being addressed. No issues or stones will be left unturned. Let us review with you the positive steps the VCA is taking starting from DAY 1 with our new President:
 Dan Everts sent Maurice Liang an email dated Sept. 11, 2013 offering to reinstate him as an officer in the VCA. Dan sent the email to Maurice because a written statement received from our club's attorney, Bill Corum stated, "it is unclear to me whether he (Maurice) was properly removed from the BOD by the actions of yesterday". We, as a Board of Directors, recognized that we must now consider that Maurice was not properly removed, has been and is still a current officer in the VCA. We are suggesting that Maurice serve as our Vice President, rather than his former position as Secretary. Some of you may not be aware, but Lee Stubberfield had suspended Maurice the day
prior. As of this letter, the email has been sent and we are awaiting Maurice's reply.
 Dan Everts personally made a phone call to Jon Brobst of PartsRack on Tuesday. It has been discovered that Jon B was not mailed a copy of the letter stating that he could apply for reinstatement to the club on July 1. The VCA will agree to certain behavior, as will Mr. Brobst, and a legal document will be prepared for both parties to sign. Upon completion of this agreement, PartsRack will again be allowed to advertise in Viper Magazine, on the VCA website and Jon B will again be a member in good standing with the VCA.
 The letter from Pat Dougherty at Mopar dated Aug.20th asked for a separation of Chris Marshall, Viper Parts of America and Coast to Coast Management (Mary Marshall), stating a conflict of interest. Chris has made the decision to stay with the Viper Parts of America. The contract with Coast to Coast expires on Sept.30th. This contract will not be renewed and Coast to Coast has agreed to stay on, in a month to month basis, until January 1, 2014. We thank Coast to Coast for their support and understanding. Greg Crouse from the SW Zone has offered to accept the responsibility of obtaining bids for a new management company going forward. John Mavridis has offered to help
Greg with this task. We understand that one of the key elements to our success going forward is our relationship with Chrysler, because of this, we are making the above changes to remove any potential conflict for Mopar in the management of their parts business (which they cited in the August 20th letter as a concern for them,) and we will review these changes with the Chrysler team to ensure we are on the right track.
 Financial disclosure of the VPA was discussed and they will be given 60 days to begin making quarterly and annual financial reports to the VCA, as well as a year-to-date for 2013. Dan has requested they get their parts inventory and bookkeeping on Quick Books or an equivalent system. Year-end VPA financial reports will be made available to the regional Presidents at the annual President's meetings as they were last year.
LETTER: PRESIDENTS AND MEMBERS,
MOVING FORWARD
SEPTEMBER 12, 2013
2 | P a g e
 The new board and officers are keenly aware that the presidents want, and should have, a greater voice in the direction of the club. Gathering thirty plus (30+) presidents to vote on day to day issues and general club business could be daunting. The national board and officers are going to commit to meet with their zone presidents, minimum twice a year, and prior to national board meetings, so that they can represent the views and the majority of their zones. As well, we will examine changing the by-laws to bring the presidents in to vote on major issues facing the club when they arise.
 John Canal offered to start working on the location of our next venue for VOI 13. Since the last one was in Charlotte, NC it is agreed that the Viper Owners Invitational slated for the fall of 2014 will be in the Western or Central United States, please email him with your suggestions or comments and ideas. ([email protected])
 We are happy to report that the raffle has been completed! The original winner of the car was ineligible to receive it, and the second place winner has been awarded the first place prize—imagine his delight when he was told that he won the 2013 Viper! The third place winner has been awarded the #2 prize, and so on. A new drawing was made and videotaped for the third prize and everyone has been notified!
 Dan Everts will be working on the next raffle car, and he will be calling Pat at Mopar in a few days to report all of these timely changes to him. We are certain that Pat will be pleased at the progress that has been made in such a short time!
I am sure you will agree as you have read this that we all deserve to give Dan, Fredi, hopefully Maurice and our new Board of Directors a chance to fix all of this. The majority of you asked for Lee to step down and he did. You asked for Chris Marshall to make a choice between VPA and Coast to Coast...he has!
You asked for us to work on competitive bids for a new management company – it's being done! You have asked for us to work on repairing our relationship with Mopar – it is all in the works as you can see. Everyone wants to work with a board that offers transparency and a full financial disclosure of the VPA will be available in 60 days or less.
We are welcoming your suggestions on how to improve the VCA, so please take a moment to send us your thoughts as to how we can be even better moving forward. There is no other club like the VCA in the World, but of late, we have become stricken with politics. These officers and this board are committed to putting the club back on track and getting back to the members and having fun with the cars. We sincerely hope that those that are considering leaving this great club do what this board and these officers did last night, put the past where it belongs, in the PAST. Let's all come together and get all four tires firmly back on the track.
Putting our members first.
Sincerely,
Dan Everts
Fredi Spaltenstein
John Canal
Greg Crouse
Ronne R. Kooser
John Mavridis
Cathy Smiley

[HyperViper]

This is probably more from members asking questions and not receiving answers than it is from anything else.

If you ask direct pertinent questions and all you hear are crickets chirping.....The national officers and the BOD had plenty of opportunities to squash a lot of this before it even started.

Let's see if they can fix it.

[viperCFP]

I am astonished that nary an opinion has been shared, when the subject concerns perhaps the greatest challenge the National Club has ever faced.  One purpose of the forum is to foster the open exchange of ideas.  Have we no consenting or dissenting views on something this serious?  What's with the ambivalence?  Cawthorne would have given us a piece of his mind.

The correspondence that was copied and pasted, a culmination of a much larger chain of events that brought us to this present day, answers and addresses nearly nothing.  Instead, it raises a multitude of questions: why and how did we get here, who were the actors, what was the end game, what needs to be done to ensure that it doesn't happen again?

One promise within the letter stuck out to me in particular: "No issues or stones will be left unturned."  I really want to believe that.

[viperCFP]

To clarify... I meant opinions from our members on this thread.

Thanks HyperViper.  I didn't see your post until after I clicked send.

I am astonished that nary an opinion has been shared, when the subject concerns perhaps the greatest challenge the National Club has ever faced.  One purpose of the forum is to foster the open exchange of ideas.  Have we no consenting or dissenting views on something this serious?  What's with the ambivalence?  Cawthorne would have given us a piece of his mind.

The correspondence that was copied and pasted, a culmination of a much larger chain of events that brought us to this present day, answers and addresses nearly nothing.  Instead, it raises a multitude of questions: why and how did we get here, who were the actors, what was the end game, what needs to be done to ensure that it doesn't happen again?

One promise within the letter stuck out to me in particular: "No issues or stones will be left unturned."  I really want to believe that.

[Kala]

I have a lot of emails, forum posts, direct communication and such about the current situation.

Frankly, for me... I care about Lance, the position he is in. He has to be in the middle of different factions... I don't want to be "that member" in his book.

I care about SoCal Viper... I didn't know anyone else wanted to have the discussion here. There is plenty of discussion going on in a lot of places...

There is a new National club starting, because of some of the problems, or perceived problems with Nat'l. It all depends on who you talk to. Each side has a difference of opinion of what the problems are.

Several Regional chapters have left the VCA, some are holding a vote to decide if they are going to stay or go. It really is that serious...

At this late time, is it really worth going over how we got here? Or do we talk about where to go from here?

[Kala]

I posted the email that Dan sent out, I hope it is ok to post the text I just got.

I am doing this in the spirit of communication.

If not please delete and repost, or not as needed...
K

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9/13/2013

To all Viper Club of America members:

Recently, some terrifically unfortunate and significant events have taken place within the Viper Club of America. Many of you have been hearing rumblings with regard to several situations that have now created serious issues and embarrassment for the club. While there is a terrific amount of detail and also a lengthy history to these problems, the unfortunate issues plaguing the VCA have now culminated into some profound negative events taking place. While all specifics are unnecessary to air in this writing, the challenges we are left with have now become insurmountable and recent actions irreversible.

The VCA has indeed been suffering its share of political turmoil for years, much of which has shaped a very strong general distrust toward its national office/officers. While these trust issues have eroded the confidence of the regional members and leadership, even more unsettling events have compounded the issue and publicly validated that distrust. Most recently this year with its newest President, Mr. Stubberfield, his controversial tactics and unconventional leadership style led to an outcry for change in the national office. While his platform promised transparency, reform, involvement, and communication; over the months that ensued much of what has always plagued the club continued: Extensive politics played out as there was no break from past leadership (of which Mr. Stubberfield served as past Treasurer) and allowed their control and negative influence to continue. The club magazine, now two issues behind, was causing member dissatisfaction and also weighed down the club with massive expenses. Regional dues were also delayed as the national office retained funding to ease its own cash flow issues. Problems continued as a poorly executed raffle caused an immense uprising that ensues today and may have significant consequences. Negative publicity relative to Viper Parts of America, its legitimacy, and its CEO continues. The national Secretary and VP pulled away and publicly separated themselves from the activities that were unfolding. Several club regions even began to break away from the VCA, while others threatened the same. All the while, heavy handed censorship continued on the national website forums, disallowing any real news from flowing to members (however many get their news from Viper Garage and Viper Alley).

However, there were even more sentinel events that had occurred in the background. Among them was a complete falling out with our manufacturer early in the year as SRT CEO, Ralph Gilles, attempted to intervene due to the negative publicity the club was causing for the Viper brand. This turmoil was kept secret by the national office, and even from most of its own board members. To the dismay of many, there was even a personal letter sent by one of the national board members to Sergio Marchionne (CEO of Chrysler/Fiat) in an attempt to eliminate Mr. Gilles involvement. Shortly thereafter, another letter (this time anonymous) was sent again to Mr. Marchionne and Chrysler legal - with personal allegations hoping to now personally discredit Mr. Gilles. Sadly, the VCA and Mr. Stubberfield did nothing to impugn the letters or support Mr. Gilles during these personal attacks. The best friend of the club, main Viper-holic, and savior of the Viper brand - was now being attacked because he tried to help fix the club. Chrysler reacted by immediately diffusing the relationship with the VCA and SRT, and implanted a new/unrelated individual from Mopar to act as liaison to the club. Our relationship with the very branch of Chrysler responsible for making our car, SRT, was now changed forever - diminishing one of the deepest values of this club which made it so different from others. However, the new relationship hit an ironic fever pitch when attempts were made by Mr. Stubberfield to publish misrepresentations to the VCA membership relative to the current "rosy" state of that relationship and mutual agreements that were reached. Upon reviewing this letter, Chrysler immediately fired back with a letter contradicting several points of his account. The letters were leaked and went viral, causing a public outcry and another significant push for change began as more evidence of misdirection were clearly proven.

In response to the highly publicized catastrophes, a strong majority of the board of directors had united and began making attempts to unseat Mr. Stubberfield and force change. After multiple unsuccessful requests for him to step down, the board began to use its majority vote to force him from office. When left with no option, Mr. Stubberfield conceded and stated he would resign. Two weeks passed with multiple delays by Mr. Stubberfield to push off his resignation date, but Mr. Stubberfield had a motive...

Finally, on the day he was to send his resignation letter, the most aggressive action in the history of the club was triggered, surprising everyone. Mr. Stubberfield began sending emails, suspending board members (those who opposed him strongly), promoted his treasurer to VP, assigned new board members, and bestowed his presidential powers onto his VP. It was a shocking abuse of his position in an attempt to regain majority control of the board and unseat those who opposed him. Many remaining and influential board members began to resign in disgust. Shortly thereafter, club legal counsel also resigned, separating himself from the aggressive events that had unfolded.

Shortly after executing his plan, Mr. Stubberfield resigned, leaving control again to his "team" which includes his Treasurer and those past leaders behind the scenes who have once again taken control of website/forums and will influence the club. The few innocent who were recently assigned to the board, are completely unaware of what's taken place (and hopefully reading this letter). Their attempts will once again be to make a push to "create new change" under the guise of "saving the club", but with multiple failures, crushing debt, extensive liability, a disgusted membership, regions defecting, key leaders leaving, and a completely decimated relationship with our manufacturer - it leaves few options.

The Future - A New Beginning - Your Call To Action

A historic meeting has just taken place on September 12th, 2013. A live conference call across all national regions took place which included all but 3 US & Canadian regions (almost 40 leaders!). This call discussed the events that have transpired and collectively discussed the future that is unfolding. 90% of the regions on the call stated they wanted to start fresh. It was a historic and celebratory moment.

In an effort to resolve all of the dilemma's, and also recapture those who left the club, a NEW club is being built! We are not the first club to have a major reboot or rebrand - many of the best known car clubs have had their share of scandals and through rebirth have achieved new success. So, for so many reasons, a new club is making its rise - one that will be built upon the spirit which was originally in place in its earliest years. A club built for fun and pride...

Starting Jan 1, 2014, the VIPER OWNERS ASSOCIATION will be born.

Things are moving VERY fast and a group of dedicated leaders (many who were the founding leaders of the original VCA) are working to spearhead the foundation for the new club. The name is pending final agreement, however it seems VIPER OWNERS ASSOCIATION could be likely. Much of what you do regionally is really what's most important, and much of that won't change. The central foundation that we need will be put in place - a website, administration, and a quarterly magazine are all in the plan. However, what we will surely avoid is extensive overhead, big government, processes, politics, and over-reaching control that has existed with the prior club. Building a new club, that focuses on regional control and ownership is the plan. It's uncertain how long, or even if, the national VCA will exist in the near future - but the Viper and regional clubs need to continue with their enjoyment! We know our manufacturer will soon pull us close once again and provide our members support and those special perks that make the club worth it. The website will be up shortly and membership dues collection will begin later this year.

Call to Action - What's Needed From You

How can you help? If you'd like your region to be one of the founding regions of the new VIPER OWNERS ASSOCIATION, you should tell your president that you want to be part of this club!

Spread the news and help educate others. We would like the founding regions to have their positions decided by September 28th.

We've done it before and we'll do it even better this time around. Yes, Viper Club 2.0 is on the way!




Respectfully submitted by these tenured leaders in addition to many supportive regional presidents:

• Maurice Liang
VCA Founding President, VCA NorCal Region Founding President, Past National Secretary, VCA Hall of Fame member, 19 year member
• Steve Ferguson
VCA Co-Founder, Past VCA National VP, Past VCA National Pres, VCA IL Region Founding Pres, VCA Hall of Fame member, 19 year member
• Alex Ristanovic
Current VCA IL Region President, Past National VCA Midwest Director at Large, 19 year member
• Randall Arnold
Past VCA OH Treasurer, Past VCA OH Pres, Past VCA Midwest Zone Director, Past VCA National VP, 12 year member
• Jim Johnson
Current CoUtWy Regional President, VCA SW Zone Director, Past CoUtWy Regional VP, 18 year member
• Adrian Byrd
Past NY/CT VP, Past NY/CT Pres, Past National VCA NE Director at Large, Past VCA NE Zone Director, 11 year member
• Tony Perugini
Current VCA NY/CT Region President, Past VCA NY/CT VP, Past National VCA NE Director at Large, 10 year member
• John Wojnar
Past VCA OH Region VP, Past VCA Ohio President, Past VCA Midwest Zone Director, 14 year member
• Janni Cone
Past Carolinas Region President, Past National Director at Large, 15 year Member

[Newport Viper]

Well I'm quite happy it looks like a new National Club will form and grow.

I know they can & will repair the relationship with SRT.

Hopefully, the SoCal club remains the same and, becomes part of the new entity.