Raconteur
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NHRA Sacks Museum Director
- Thread starter Raconteur
- Start date
Boy, Am I confused!!!!!
In my opinion Tony brought a combination of passion , skill, and knowledge to the leadership of the Museum. Keeping such a entity above water is no easy task, his relentless efforts seemed to be taking the Museum to higher levels each year. I was there this afternoon for the send off party for Bernie Partidge and was admiring the professional appearance of the exhibits and surroundings. There is always something going on, that creates more awareness of the Museum and Wally's legacy. A big Shelby event was preparing for the weekend . If this decision was strictly a cost cutting process, I think the upper management really "stepped on it" this time. Tony will land just fine and I am afraid that upper management will see that this lay off was an ill conceived decision
In my opinion Tony brought a combination of passion , skill, and knowledge to the leadership of the Museum. Keeping such a entity above water is no easy task, his relentless efforts seemed to be taking the Museum to higher levels each year. I was there this afternoon for the send off party for Bernie Partidge and was admiring the professional appearance of the exhibits and surroundings. There is always something going on, that creates more awareness of the Museum and Wally's legacy. A big Shelby event was preparing for the weekend . If this decision was strictly a cost cutting process, I think the upper management really "stepped on it" this time. Tony will land just fine and I am afraid that upper management will see that this lay off was an ill conceived decision
Paul
Nitro Member
The NHRA has to be hurting pretty bad financially this year as the overall attendance appears to be pretty down this year.
Unfortunately there likely will be more layoffs coming.
Even more unfortunate is that the current management has cleverly constructed a "legal moat" around their job status which means that they will be the last to go as the ship sinks to the bottom. They'll be able to watch this process from the conning tower, that will be the last part to go under water.
Over the years of observing them, this legal moat they set up is the only thing they have done that has really impressed me.
They took a non-profit company that was originally designed and intended to be controlled through voting rights of its members and cleverly sucked that control away from the members, step by step over time without the members realizing what rights they were supposed to have and what was happening to those rights.
On top of it they managed to make the vast majority of the members believe that they somehow owned the company and thus could run it any way they want to. In fact I think even the majority of the posters on this forum still even believe that, they've done a great snow job on this.
Just to clarify things, here's what the situation really is:
The NHRA is a totally free standing non-profit with zero private interest, there are no private owners of the NHRA, including the current board members and there never can be, this would be illegal given how the NHRA was set up.
The NHRA is totally controlled by its board, which was originally to be periodically elected by its members. However the NHRA board pulled a fast one and stripped these voting rights away from members many years ago.
The board now sets its own salaries and hiring policies and thus now totally controls their own destiny, this is the "legal moat" I mentioned. There are still limits on what they can do with the company (see below) but they have infinite job security, at least until all the money runs out.
There are very strict limits on how the NHRA can be sold. It actually can't be sold as a whole, it can only be disbanded and then its assets can be sold.
However there strict limits on how those assets can be sold, any revenue from those asset sales has to used in a manner consistent with the original charter of the NHRA, which was to advance the sport of drag racing for its members.
Fortunately none of this revenue can go in the current board members pockets. These limitations are ones that will be very hard for the board to try to skirt and they were a serious factor in their previous effort to "sell" the NHRA falling apart.
Its totally unhealthy to have a large company run with no "checks and balances" in place that provide a mechanism for board members to be replaced if the company is not doing well. In a publicly held company, if the company is not doing well the stockholders can vote to have the board members replaced.
That was the original intent of the NHRA, but since there isn't any ownership the voting was to be done by NHRA members rather than stockholders.
I believe that if NHRA members banded together that it would be possible to make a legal challenge to attempt to restore those voting rights. However given the very diverse nature and interests of NHRA members it would not be easy to get this group to move together as a whole.
However things might get bad enough over the next few years to motivate the NHRA members to stop acting like sheep and get their rights back, if people get fed up enough this could happen. Its how this great country got started.
Unfortunately there likely will be more layoffs coming.
Even more unfortunate is that the current management has cleverly constructed a "legal moat" around their job status which means that they will be the last to go as the ship sinks to the bottom. They'll be able to watch this process from the conning tower, that will be the last part to go under water.
Over the years of observing them, this legal moat they set up is the only thing they have done that has really impressed me.
They took a non-profit company that was originally designed and intended to be controlled through voting rights of its members and cleverly sucked that control away from the members, step by step over time without the members realizing what rights they were supposed to have and what was happening to those rights.
On top of it they managed to make the vast majority of the members believe that they somehow owned the company and thus could run it any way they want to. In fact I think even the majority of the posters on this forum still even believe that, they've done a great snow job on this.
Just to clarify things, here's what the situation really is:
The NHRA is a totally free standing non-profit with zero private interest, there are no private owners of the NHRA, including the current board members and there never can be, this would be illegal given how the NHRA was set up.
The NHRA is totally controlled by its board, which was originally to be periodically elected by its members. However the NHRA board pulled a fast one and stripped these voting rights away from members many years ago.
The board now sets its own salaries and hiring policies and thus now totally controls their own destiny, this is the "legal moat" I mentioned. There are still limits on what they can do with the company (see below) but they have infinite job security, at least until all the money runs out.
There are very strict limits on how the NHRA can be sold. It actually can't be sold as a whole, it can only be disbanded and then its assets can be sold.
However there strict limits on how those assets can be sold, any revenue from those asset sales has to used in a manner consistent with the original charter of the NHRA, which was to advance the sport of drag racing for its members.
Fortunately none of this revenue can go in the current board members pockets. These limitations are ones that will be very hard for the board to try to skirt and they were a serious factor in their previous effort to "sell" the NHRA falling apart.
Its totally unhealthy to have a large company run with no "checks and balances" in place that provide a mechanism for board members to be replaced if the company is not doing well. In a publicly held company, if the company is not doing well the stockholders can vote to have the board members replaced.
That was the original intent of the NHRA, but since there isn't any ownership the voting was to be done by NHRA members rather than stockholders.
I believe that if NHRA members banded together that it would be possible to make a legal challenge to attempt to restore those voting rights. However given the very diverse nature and interests of NHRA members it would not be easy to get this group to move together as a whole.
However things might get bad enough over the next few years to motivate the NHRA members to stop acting like sheep and get their rights back, if people get fed up enough this could happen. Its how this great country got started.
Dry Hop Doc
Nitro Member
As always, Paul ... couldn't agree more.
I have a theory that the idiotic distancing the NHRA has put into play with their "We run the show, and if you don't like it, tough" is backfiring. People don't want to belong to any "club" run this tyrannically, and they are leaving for exactly that reason.
Removing voting rights etc., also effectively removed most of the membership's interest in the organization they helped to build. The Association has never addressed this resentment because they simply don't care about anything except themselves.
We have literal low-rent versions of Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein running everything around them into the ground. And amazingly they're paying themselves extremely well to do so. Sound familiar? *Cough* Wall Street *cough.*
Now the whole thing's falling apart, and it's about to bite them in the butt. And it's not the economy doing this; it's the attitude in Glendora. Money being tight is just speeding up the fall.
Doc
I have a theory that the idiotic distancing the NHRA has put into play with their "We run the show, and if you don't like it, tough" is backfiring. People don't want to belong to any "club" run this tyrannically, and they are leaving for exactly that reason.
Removing voting rights etc., also effectively removed most of the membership's interest in the organization they helped to build. The Association has never addressed this resentment because they simply don't care about anything except themselves.
We have literal low-rent versions of Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein running everything around them into the ground. And amazingly they're paying themselves extremely well to do so. Sound familiar? *Cough* Wall Street *cough.*
Now the whole thing's falling apart, and it's about to bite them in the butt. And it's not the economy doing this; it's the attitude in Glendora. Money being tight is just speeding up the fall.
Doc
StockersRock
Nitro Member
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