Club support from Piaggio

[nocattle]

I joined a Chicago Scooter list by accident, kinda. But in reading the correspondence between Chicago Scooterists I read something interesting...

Bryan Bedell (VCOA magizene designer) wrote, There are still a lot of things I'd like to see happen with the club,
but there are some really good people involved and it's improving every
day. I just hope Piaggio shutting down the FIV and starting the VWC
means they'll be giving us MORE support, rather than giving us less
support and making more demands of us. I'm a little nervous their
intention is to turn all the national clubs into unpaid PR machines,
but no one involved in VCOA has any intention of letting them do that

Any comments? Roy? Delia?

[Roy]

Bryan voiced the same concerns that many of us had (still have?) after we heard that Piaggio formed the Vespa World Club to replace the FIV.
However, a lot ot this was speculation, since we did not know nbetter and had not heard from the Vespa World Club officially.

Since then, we have received the charter of the Vespa World Club, plus I had a couple email excahnges with the Secretary of the Vespa World Club. Just recently our membership application was processed and the VCoC is now a full member as a Natiuonal Club of the Vespa World Club.

What this means is that we have full voting rights together with the other National Clubs. Also, if you look at the organization, I definitely think it is positive to have the Vespa Club of Italy Presidint at the helm of the new organization, plus the Vespa Club of France and of Germany as Committee members. So we as National Clubs should be able to voice our opinions and ensure that the Vespa World Club is not just a Piaggio PR outlet.

It is all very new still and time will tell...However I will remain positive and in touch with the Vespa World Club.

We have said very early that we as a National Club would not provide information about our members unless the members authorize us for it. So far nobody has requested any membership information from us.

One last comment... If the Vespa World Club at one point makes decisions that we are not willing to support, we always have the choice to opt out at that point.

For now I would say give them a chance to show us what they are up to and how they are going to support us. Think positive and I will definitely give you updates in the future on the situation.

By the way, the Vespa World Club did invite me to join the Gala Dinner for the Club Presidents at Eurovespa, which I think was nice of them. They were also very helpful when I asked them to extend the invitation to one of our members who has been a regular Eurovespa participant (since I was not able to attend myself).

So don't think of them as the Evil Empire...from what I have experienced they are interested in working closely with the National Clubs.