Greetings all,
I haven't posted on the board in a while. I'm the guy BBH was talking about a few posts back. I'm one of the original founding members of the 300M Enthusiasts Club (
www.300mclub.org) I proudly hold member number 0001. I guess I'm kinda like the George Washington of the 300M Club. I also own a 2005 300C.
There are probably as many ways of organizing a club as there are clubs out there. We chose to go through all the legal wickets with DaimlerChrysler (logo copyrights, permissions, etc) so that we could be an "official" DaimlerChrysler enthusiasts club. These clubs are listed on this page of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum web site
http://www.chryslerheritage.com/pg902.htm. You'll see the 300M Club listed there as well as a bunch of others. These clubs have all obtained the required permissions from DaimlerChrysler (DC).
I know the admin on this board posted a poll a while back to determine the level of interest in creating a similar type of club. I think there was a lot of interest shown, but not enough "hard core" enthusiasm from enough members to get the job done.
We all originally "met" on Edmunds.com in the summer of 2000. That was the largest group of 300M owners and enthusiasts then in existence. We ran a poll, similar to the one that BBH suggested, and based our initial decisions on the results of that poll. We were scattered all over the country: myself in Seattle, an attorney in Colorado, a webmaster and graphic designer in New Jersey, and the rest from Arizona, Texas, Alabama, and New York.
Make no mistake, it IS and WAS a lot of work. After deciding on a Club name (no easy task, believe it or not), we communicated with DC to get the necessary permissions for the club name and graphic elements for the logo. That done, we incorporated as a non-profit social club in Colorado (where the attorney lived). We started this process in October of 2000, and finally signed up the first new member in February of 2001. We run the club as a business, and are a registered IRS non-profit organization (that requires a lot of work also).
OK, so much for the history lesson. If this group wants to set up a club with a structure similar to the 300M Enthusiasts Club, I'll be happy to share everything I know about doing that. I still have copies of all our communications with DC, so you could start the process there. You can certainly adapt our bylaws for your own use.
What the job really requires is at least half a dozen folks (hopefully, with an attorney in the mix, willing to donate his/her services) who are willing to work their a$$es off and put up with a lot of crap and details.
You'll need a point man to act as CEO (that was my job) in spearheading the effort. We held countless 'board meetings" in a chat room to hammer out details. That's not as hinky as you might think, once you establish some rules and a protocol.
Biggest problems I see with a 300, 300C, Hemi, Magnum, Charger club is an appropriate name, and a way to structure the club with so many brand and model variants. We had only one car, the 300M, a MUCH simpler starting point.
Bottom line, I'll be more than happy to contribute in an advisory capacity, if this is the way you want to go. I wouldn't want to be an officer, but would consider a board member position (if asked).
We started out with just a few folks and not nearly the enthusiasm the LX cars currently have, so your enthusiast base is a huge plus. I think you would start out and grow a lot faster that we did. It took us over 4 years to sign the 1000th member.
Anyone interested can PM or email me on the subject. I'm going to be offline for a week or so for knee replacement surgery, so don't expect an immediate reply.