[Vicegrip]

You might not want to read more into this than it is. I think it is little more that an offshoot of a conversation.

Originally Posted by little b

there's alot of politics that can't be avoided.

I don't belong to the PCA. YET. if i can finally GET TO doing DE's then it will be unavoidable.

for now i help out here when i can, and benefit ALOT from all your help.
but we here are dorki. we exist because we want to.
where are our bylaws? our charter? we don' need no stinking charter!

Don’t think I am picking on you little B your post just had some points I had questions about. Other posts did as well but you were able to get them all together. I post this only as I have some limited experience with both and want to share my perspective. As tech chair I am on the board but in reality am but a flea on the camel and plan to stay that way.

For an all volunteer group I have seen a lot less politics that folks might think. People volunteer for many reasons some good some not so good. The people that sign up for the wrong or self serving reasons can be a source of irritation but they tend to leave after a while. From my experience PCA Potomac is not HOA-hole land.

PCA need bylaws and a charter. Dorkiphus does not need a charter because Dorki don’t (yet ) do things on the scale that PCA does. Potomac alone runs a DE program that extends well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and is planned out years in advance. The wrangling to get track contracts alone is a story in itself. Ask Doug E or Vu what goes into something like a fun run or a Dorki dinner. Time spent ,effort spent, money spent. Both guys put in a lot of effort, it shows and they deserve accolades for it as we all benefited from it. Now expand that out 100 fold plus and have everything continue even if the original volunteer decides to move onto new things. What would happen if Geoff had to stop hosting Dorkiphus? Who would pick up the work involved and pay for hosting it? This entire group exists from one source point, a single website. Friendships would continue but the underling energy might not.

If you think about it, Dorkiphus and PCA are the same thing at different ages. They both exist only because they want to and have similar roots. PCA was formed in 1955 by a gang of P car nuts right here in this area. They formed it to have a way to get together help each other wrench, share parts, tools and know how. Not having the internet (Al Gore had not invented it just yet) they formed a club. As an example, the Goodie Store. It is now is a vestigial appendix of PCA but in 1955 parts were hard to come by and without website part houses, shops or dealers in the area, the early members banded together to get parts and tools for their, in 1955, odd little cars. Sound familiar?

I see PCA as merely Dorkiphus having grown to a much larger scale via past success and the passage of time. It has the good and bad that comes along with being big. Being large and well run PCA can plan and run very complex programs like DE or Club Race that continue year in and year out. With that comes some boring monthly meetings that are needed to keep things running and a fathead or two now and then.

I am curious as to why some folks knock PCA as vehemently as is they do. Are there reasons or is it just fun to knock anything big? I also find it interesting that some people that have no direct experience with PCA have a bad impression. How does this impression come about? Contact with members? Projection? I used to be in a Dive club because I like offshore wreck salvage, the clubs were the only way to get to the deep wrecks and the deep wrecks are the ones that are not picked over. I was not a club or fraternity kind of person and I hated the Dive club. Some of the guy’s heads were so fat I don’t see how they ever got submerged. The fathead to OK guy ratio was poor to say the least. I was reluctant to join PCA as I projected that it was going to be more Dive club BS but it has not been the case.

Two questions and some thread theft at that.

What do any Dorki like about PCA? What do any Dorki dislike and why?

Using the HOA infiltrate and improve protocol, you have the power to improve Potomac too.