RE Report by Benson Young, March 2008

     I can’t even begin to tell you about all the things happening in the club, but I’ll try to catch everyone up. Volunteers and your Board of Directors have bee quite busy taking care of business and putting on great events.
     The first thing I wanted to talk about is how the club operations are being done more publicly. This is a non-profit, volunteer organization, and our members should know what’s going on and why. This isn’t a new concept, as the club was run pretty openly in the past, based on old Deltagrams (more about that later). There’s actually a trendy business buzzword for it… “transparency”. While it’s not as overused as “synergy”, it refers to running your operations out in the open. The concept applies to open source software and wikis: everyone has access, and the final product becomes better as a result.
     Our new website continues to be very effective in getting our message and content out to the members, and it works well with the concept of business transparency. In fact, the web site represents a fundamental change in how the club interacts publicly. By using a blogging engine to power our web site, we are able to provide frequent, small updates about what’s going on. We’ve made huge progress in putting older content online too: all the 2007 events and Deltagrams are up on the new site. Older web content, going back to 2003-2004, will eventually be posted. The core structure seems to be exactly what we needed, and should provide a flexible framework for the club for years to come.
     The best way to drive people to your events and web site is by making it worth their while. Our events have to be fun, and our website useful, in order to keep and gain new customers. We currently have five contributors who can post to the web site with no special software and only a basic knowledge of HTML, so we can stay up-to-date with less effort.
     This also changes the nature of the Deltagram and how it will be used. Newsletters, quite frankly, are near extinction. We all know why: technology has made printed, mailed news virtually obsolete, if not cost-prohibitive. You just can’t beat the speed and cost of using email and the web. SCCA knows this too, and has measured a dramatic drop in paper newsletters put out by Regions. Getting the word out to people with stamps is, quite frankly, pretty primitive.
     Why was the Deltagram resurrected? After Katrina in August of 2005, our club communications were devastated. We simply had no resources to compose and produce a Deltagram. In late 2006, Delta Board Member George Bartlett valiantly started to put out small mailings to get the word out to our still-scatter membership. In January of 2007, I got a box of old Deltagrams from the 1960’s and 1970’s from former member Paul Johnson. It’s a long story that you can read on the web site (content is king, remember). I decide to finally take on that job as the publisher. The final product is something the whole club is proud of, and it helped to bring our club back together by letting everyone know that we are here and we are active (in marketing, its called a “leave-behind” piece, and helps establish your brand). It also reached those who weren’t online that much. People like to see their name in print or their picture, so the Deltagram helps play the ego-card.
     With a steady stream of content headed to the web first, the Deltagram takes on a different role, one that is consistent with those old Deltgrams: to document the history of the club. The Deltagram will often be bigger, up to 8-pages (which has the same postage cost as four pages), and sent out less frequently (at least one issue every couple months), which will save us money in postage (printing cost is sponsored). The content of the larger issues will be made up of more web content, repurposed for print. That means that you will get less news about upcoming events and more about what has already happened. That may seem a little odd, but there is good reason. One is cost: I’m trying to move us to a communication model that requires less direct-mail to get the word out about upcoming events. Going to a 1 or 2 month cycle means we can’t count on the Deltagram to build attendance before an event (though we will still try). I’m also trying to get us down to Presorted Standard Mail service at Non-profit rates, as opposed to First Class. We’ll save money, but the Deltagram will take more time to reach you. We can afford to send out more Deltagrams for less money, which will help build up events and club participation. I also now have more room for photos and results (ego-boosting again) and most importantly we get to sell ad space. Sponsorship will reduce our costs and let us do more for our members. We weren’t really organized before to take on the responsibility of fulfilling sponsor agreements, but the club is much better organized now and we’re ready to move to the next level of club service.
     If you frequent the web site, the Deltagram content will seem a little stale. That doesn’t mean that we’re creating any less content, just that the Deltagram becomes more of a final aggregator of our content instead of our leading communication tool. If anything, we’re generating more content that ever, with Treasury Reports, Event Results, Points Standings, Meeting Minutes and Board Decisions. The club and it’s operations are becoming more transparent, and our members will benefit from that.
     We had a great event in February, with 67 drivers showing up. Financially, we made some money, which we really needed to do after the last two Zephyrs events. Our treasury still needs a boost, but we’re defiantly moving in the right direction.
     Communications Chair Brian Harper is taking his role literally, and is the process of creating a radio station to keep our drivers and fans entertained during Solo events. Radio Free Delta will consist of an AM transmitter in the Timing and Scoring trailer, broadcasting a pirate signal of updates, times, penalties, endless smack-talk, and maybe even some lounge music to the local car radios tuned into our channel. We’re not exactly sure what the reception range will be, but in the finest tradition of Delta Region, it will probably be pushing the boundaries of what the FCC allows. In anticipation of fines, feel free to contribute to our legal defense fund.

-Benson Young, Delta Region Regional Executive, 2008