Audi would never be this stupid .... would it?

[Brett Dikeman]

On Jan 14, 2008, at 6:54 PM, Ed Kellock wrote:

> Audi has played similar games with the club and this very list.
>
> Originally, ACNA was name the Quattro Club.  Audi nixed that.
>

They wanted the club [to sound/be] inclusive of all models, and didn't  
like the club using their quattro trademark, supposedly.  AoA was  
supposedly also behind the big push for lots of "chapters", instead of  
regions.  They wanted dealerships to be able to say "Why yes sir, we  
have a chapter of the local club here in _____, bring your S4 to one  
of their events."  It is my personal suspicion that the effort was  
also motivated by a national club leadership's interest in reducing  
the size of the northeast region- which was something like a third of  
the total membership and thus could potentially wield considerable  
political power.

I remember Phil Payne complaining years ago that the UK club was doing  
little more than having wine and cheese with Audi execs.  Which is  
precisely what Karen Chadwick seems to do- fly down to europe, get  
wined and dined, and play with RS4's and the like.  Pull up the club's  
I-990 forms to see how much she pulled down for getting to do this, if  
you're curious....and sitting down.

I should postfix my comments by saying that this is all based on my  
memory from before I stopped doing things with the club.  Since almost  
exactly a year ago I haven't done anything with the ACNA or North  
Atlantic Chapter, and I've been all the better for it.  If you ever  
want to go into politics, take a trip through a chapter board of  
directors for a real introduction to what kinds of nastiness people  
are capable of.

Things weren't rosy on the national level either- a lot of the bylaw  
modifications that were proposed had specific personal political  
motivations the board didn't disclose, and the infighting was so bad  
that Johan de Nysschen wrote a letter  (http://frank.mercea.net/~brett/images/aoa_letter.jpg 
) and mailed it to (far as I know) every ACNA member last May...

> This list was called the Quattro List, and audi pissed on that as  
> well.


Not to the best of my knowledge, no.

Brett