I'm writing this as a CTZCC member, without the knowledge (or consent) of any CTZCC officer.
With the announced retirement of our Club MerchandiZe Guru Keith, it occurs to me the Club is losing its primary source of income for awhile. Keith has provided a growing income for the *NO DUES* CTZCC for more than 8 years. He has choZen some very good quality items and arranged for them to be embroidered or printed for us. He carried all the siZes he saw us needing, shopped judiciously, and advance-paid hundreds of dollars for the inventory out of his own pocket. He never made any personal profit from all his work; he simply took back his own investment and passed all the profit on to the Club Kitty. He did all that, without pay or profit, because he loved you (and because it made him happy to see a parkinglot full of members wearing our Club merch).
His items have become priZed possessions and made great gifts during holidays and birthdays. I know more than a doZen CTZCC members who've received nifty shirts or jackets for their birthdays over the years and worn them proudly until they just couldn't get any more mileage out of them, then they bought another.
So we finally wore Keith out, and it will take awhile to find someone else willing and able to carry on this tradition and train them to do it. In the meantime, there will be no income for the CTZCC and our Club Kitty will become an orphan, subject to taking loans from China.
Why do we need ANY income for a free Club? Because fun costs money and it's not fair to ask our volunteer officers to keep digging into their own pockets to pay for our great website, our trophies, our name tags, our dashboard plaques, our free event shirts, our raffle tickets, the raffle table priZes, our piZZa, our hotdogs, chilly and soda, the Annual Fall Outing, memorial wreaths for our fallen members and the like. So if it takes us a number of months to find a replacement for Keith, we're not making any money for the Club during that period. And this will be our first Holiday Zeason without the option of buying some CTZCC gear for our family member gifts too, so the revenue those Zeasonal sales normally made for us won't happen this year. The expenses of the Fall Outing picnic will be the final activity for the CTZCC Kitty and, until the car show next summer, might well be the last income she sees.
I decided it might be time for me to give our dear Z Club a Christmas gift of a small check, and I suggest you consider doing the same. The timing couldn't be more perfect; we have no income for the immediate future and it's the time of year when we send a little something to those we consider important in our lives. Over the course of a year the Club occasionally receives spontaneous donations for operational expenses from grateful members, often anonymously. While I was an officer I witnessed how carefully and transparently every Club dollar was accounted for and each donation, large or small, was recogniZed and reported monthly by a professional CPA (Ross, who worked for free). 100% of anything you give the CTZCC goes straight back to our members for their fun and enjoyment. No officer ever makes a nickel for all the work he does; they are strictly free volunteers. Thus be it ever.
Don't donate for recognition; this Club protects your privacy in ernest. If you want members to know you gave something to help keep our Club running, you'll have to tell them yourself. But the officers will know it and be grateful for our help, and literally everything we donate will be used directly for operating expenses. I suspect this might be the ONLY place you can be absolutely sure that 100% of your donation goes directly to the cause. You might get an EMail or a PM thanking you for your gift, and when you zee any CTZCC member smiling next Zeason, you can feel you personally contributed to that.
WHAT TO SEND?
Whatever you feel happy giving. $5, $10, $500; it's all more than the Club had before your generosity and will help offset our merchandiZe losses.
WHERE TO SEND IT?
Mail your donation, however small or large, to:
CTZCC
97 Christie Hill Road
Darien CT
06820
Mine is going out in a cheap THANK YOU card with some kind words of gratitude about the fun this free Club provided me during 2016, but I think it would be cool to send it in a Christmas card as well.
'Tis the zeason.
Any takers?
