[Rzeppa]

Originally Posted by canucksafari

Seeing that Jeff's post was an issue he was helping clarify for our club - I'll put my 2 cents in.

Like Jeeper Ron, our club has a few members who do not own Toyota Land Cruisers (or any Toyota 4WD). Myself I have a couple Nissan Safaris (Y60 Patrols) - one was what i could afford and the other was too good of a deal to pass up. What all our club's non-TLC owners have in common is a love of the Toyota Land Cruiser. If I ever manage to get the Safari in my garaged cleaned up, registered and sold, I may be able to realize my dream of owning a Land Cruiser.

The way I see it - it is like the Amature Radio Club I belong to. I don't own an amature radio and I don't hold a license to operate one; but I am welcome into the club because I am interested in amature radio. As the rules stand, i can't belong to the TLCA. I accept that. If I could, I would gladly pay a TLCA membership - just so I could get the magazine. Every year I have purchased a calander and it is prominently displayed on our kitchen wall.

Some people like to focus on the letter of laws. I think any decent organization focuses on the intent of the laws - those are based on your mission statement.

It is not so much *like* to focus on the letter as much as we *must* follow them. And we should honor their intent. If the letter doesn't make the intent clear we can change it.

We do have a process to change our bylaws.

And we do change them from time to time. For example, we changed them a few months ago to add an International Individual Representative (elected officer with full voting privileges) to represent the interests of TLCA members who live outside the USA. That is a plank of the platform from which I ran for President: recognise (notice the non-American spelling :-) that there is a whole Land Cruiser world outside the USA, and until now, our members who lived outside the USA did not have an advocate within the TLCA board.

So, we might consider changing the bylaws to allow anyone who was interested in Toyota 4x4s to join, rather than requiring ownership. You have an excellent point, and I will bring this before the board. Thanks and happy cruisin'!