Creating a new JCNA: the prototype (part 1)

Allow me to start by making a few points:

First, I have no personal vendetta against anyone within JCNA. Some people tend to take opposing opinions as a personal insult but rest assured that is not the case. Within any organization debate should be encouraged and opposing views heard. For a great discussion on this topic read "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill" by Ron Suskind.

Second, some people may see this as a criticism of the job that Mike Cook does as editor of Jaguar Journal. Nothing could be further from the truth. I personally think that Mike Cook does an EXCELLENT job with the Jaguar Journal, given what he has to work with. And let's be honest, as an organization JCNA gives Mike Cook NOTHING to work with. To be able to produce a 48 page magazine every two months must qualify Mike for some sort of award as "Magician of the Year". Like Karen Miller, he is a treasure to the North American Jaguar scene... and yet nobody seems to care.

Third, while I am not a big fan of the current JCNA concours scene, maintaining the heritage and history of these cars is a VERY important undertaking and I applaud the efforts of Dick Cavicke and his team of dedicated enthusiasts (I wonÆt refer to them as judges because they are much more than that). Together, they are struggling to document for all future generations just what is ôcorrectö and put on paper a history that can be used to properly remember just what all this enthusiasm was about in the first place.

Also a little bit of background: my area of expertise in management. My day to day job consists of interviewing management teams and then deciding who will be successful and who will fail. When I look at JCNA's management structure I see a dog's breakfast. 60 clubs, 60 executive committees, 60 presidents, 60 vice presidents, 60 treasurers, 60 activities chairpeople, 60 membership chairpeople, 60 annual elections, 60 newsletters and newsletter editors, 60 webmasters and 60 websites, 60 individual agendas, goals, aspirations, and conflicts of interest. 6 regions, 12 regional directors, 12 elections, 5000 ballots, 6 regional agendas, one president, one vice president, one secretary, one legal council, countless committees, committee chairs, committee members, committee reports, one magazine editor, six magazine issues annually, one extremely ponderous set of bylaws and ôcorporate policiesö, covering hundreds of pages; and so on, and so on, and so onà

The point of all this is quite simple: with an ôorganizationö like this, nothing will ever get accomplished, no progress will ever be made except at a snails pace, and worse, all initiative, creativity and individual freedom to ômake a differenceö will surely be crushed under the weight of bureaucracy, bickering, and conflicts of interest. Any decisions that are arrived at will be, at best, compromises designed to please no one and everyone at the same time. This type of organization will forever be doomed to be a lumbering dinosaur, inefficient and always several steps behind the times. Witness the success in the last decade of Jag-Lovers, sprung from JCNAÆs inability to deliver what the North American Jaguar enthusiast desires in a timely fashion. Witness the success of the JEC, building the largest single marque club in the World around little more than a successful magazine. More recently, witness the success of JONAT (Jaguar Owners North American Tour), built entirely without the knowledge, consent or assistance of JCNA (and right in their own backyard).

The sad part of all this is the fact that behind this ônational organizationö there exists 60 individual clubs. 60 newsletter editors and webmasters struggling to find material for publication, 60 presidents and vice presidents struggling to find someone (anyone?!) who would be willing to take over the work load. 60 activities chairpeople struggling to figure out what to do next to keep the local members interested, 60 concours chairpeople struggling to find ways to keep a seemingly disinterested membership showing their cars for trophies that have become less and less worthwhile. All the while at the National level we struggle over life and death issues such as ôthe kneeling ruleö (I donÆt make this stuff upà).

Yes, I will admit it: my vision of a successful national marque club is built upon the model of the Jaguar Enthusiasts Club (JEC). I also accept the geographical argument that North America is simply too big to successfully structure a ônationalö club, and I would accept the point of view that North America may be able to host 2 or 3 regional clubs. But one national magazine and one national website should be able to handle it. Last time I checked, Jaguar has always sold ten times as many cars in North America than it has in England, so the argument that North America is ôten times biggerö does not hold water, because for any point on the map you care to stick a pin into, youÆll find an equal number of Jaguar owners in a radius around it.

In my opinion, any successful marque club is built around a successful magazine. The JEC produces the BEST Jaguar magazine of all, perhaps even the best marque magazine of any marque. The magazine is the reason for their success and letÆs face it, a very large majority of our membership is interested in one thing: the magazine. So by default, the lionÆs share of the resources, finances, enthusiasm and ôsweatö of any marque club MUST go into its magazine if it is going to be successful in attracting and retaining members and GROWING. Websites are nice to have, but the magazine is the heart and soul. In JCNA, we give zero resources to our magazine and it is a miracle that Mike Cook is able to produce what he does. I heard the comment that ôthe JEC only produces a magazine and one or two toursö, but letÆs take a look at reality:

The JEC produces a monthly, full color magazine that is always over 100 pages in length. For those of you who have a copy handy, I urge you to open the magazine to page 3 and take a look at the people who are responsible for producing it (and yes, they are paid to do it!). Better still, letÆs count them:

- general manager: one person
- memberships/renewals/back issuesö two people
- website: one person
- merchandising: several people
- insurance scheme: outsourced
- travel: outsourced (and for profit)
- rescue services: outsourced
- chairman: one person
- vice president: one person
- regional liaison: two people
- editor and Jaguar Cars Ltd. liaison: one person
- shows: one person
- reproduction parts: one person
- publishing: one person
- club and regional Constitutional matters: two people
- pre-XJ40 models: one person
- XJS and XJ: one person
- MK1/2: one person
- E-types: one person
- XKÆs: one person
- Large saloons: one person
- S-type/420: one person
- SS: one person
- Racing: one person
- Brochures: one person
- Scale models: one person
- Advertising: two people
- Classifieds: one person
- Design/production: one person
- Color repro: outsourced
- Printing: outsourced

At my count, I total over 30 people plus outsourcing who are either directly or indirectly responsible for producing the superb magazine you see on your coffee table. Compare that to JCNA with ONE PERSON working diligently to produce a 48 page magazine with stale information once every two months.

LetÆs look even deeper at what the JEC offers:

- in the magazine: - club news
- corporate news
- spotlight on a region
- spotlight on a specialist (supplier, restorer etc.)
- modern car maintenance
- technical topics with the clubÆs expert
- spotlight on an interesting memberÆs car
- TWO club sponsored restoration projects are diarized in words and pictures
- technical Q&A on all models with the clubÆs expert
- a special section for memberÆs submissions
- letters
- tracing historic cars (where are they now?)
- racing news (as in the ClubÆs own racing series!)
- repro parts (the clubÆs experts actually test and rate the reproduction parts available on the market!)
- classifieds

Now thatÆs just the magazine and all this good stuff is available EVERY month (and itÆs never late!). As I said before, the magazine is the heart and soul of the club, but there is more than that:

- the club has itÆs own specialized repair tools for rent
- the club has itÆs own library of published books
- the club has telephone and email availability of ôspecialist adviceö to help members with repair problems
- the club offers individual vehicle insurance
- the club offers technical seminars on repair, restoration and maintenance
- through their own travel agency, the club offers organized tours and trips
- the club offers a professional service to inspect potential purchases
- the club organizes itÆs own racing series and track events
- through the club regions organize events, concours, trips, shows, flea markets etc.
- the club has a physical location, with offices and staff

Now, there may be some people that say ôwe do all thatàö, but the point is not ôwe do itö or ôwe can do thatö, but HOW WELL WE DO IT. Until we put into place the structure required to achieve something on the scale of the JEC, we will continue to offer the underachieving product that is JCNA and the Jaguar Journal.

Note that under the JEC structure local and regional clubs exist and thrive. They are free to sign up members, charge any fee they like, structure themselves any way they like, write any bylaws they like, organize any events they like etc. The people who run JEC are really focused on running a national club and producing a top quality product (the magazine). They are not interested in getting involved in local or regional politics. The JEC hosts concours, as do the local clubs. But only the JEC organized concours can give out a trophy that says ôJECö on it. If a local club or region wants to host a concours then the winner takes home a local or regional trophy. The equivalent of the JCNA national points scoring ôchampionshipö does not exist in the JEC. The emphasis in JEC concours is much more on original and sympathetically used (driven) cars than trailer queens.

The club also has a website which hosts a discussion forum for the use of registered members. The website does not contain technical articles or any other material that could be considered to be in competition with the main product offering: the magazine.

Although I wonÆt go into detail here, the people who are responsible for putting out the superb magazine a paid to do their jobs properly. There are perks too, as an example the editor of the club magazine has a Jaguar leased for him by the club so he can drive around the regions visiting clubs, attending events and hosting seminars.

One question I can hear people asking is "where are we supposed to get the 30 people needed to pull something like this off?" The answer is that these people already exist, they are scattered around North America, buried under layers and layers of corporate garbage in the local clubs. All that has to be done is to structure, organize and manage them properly. I'll give you a concrete example: jcna.com (this very website). For years we had a web presence that was mediocre at best. "It can't be done" the pundits said... "It'll never work". Well guess what? All it took was the proper structure and the proper people in place with the talent, ability and desire to make it happen and presto! We have a world class website (thanks Pascal).

This look at how things are done at JEC is only part one of the equation. The second part of the equation would entail how such a structure could be made to work within the North American context. Since I do actually have to work for a living and the pile on the corner of my desk is rising at an alarming rate, IÆll have to defer on writing that ôopusö to another time. With the AGM coming up later this week, hopefully I'll have the time in the next day or two.