President’s Message
Steve Dierks
 
The Contemporary Nature of the MBCA
 
The consultants to the Mercedes-Benz Club of America (MBCA) in their 2009 recommendations to our leadership stressed the importance of delivering a beneficial experience to the full range of membership. That means that MBCA benefits and activities must be relevant to every demographic of our membership. In short, it means that the organization must be contemporary in nature.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a contemporary organization is “up-to-date, of the present time and state-of-the-art.” Certainly each of these definitions characterizes the automobiles that we all enjoy. Mercedes-Benz is the recognized leader in automotive innovation and engineering excellence: It has consistently set the standard by which other manufacturers measure themselves. The products Mercedes delivers to the marketplace are in tune with the 21st-century automotive consumer. Mercedes-Benz is a very contemporary organization.
In the past few years, your club has implemented several initiatives that characterize a contemporary organization. As part of the MBCA’s re-imaging, we have launched a user-friendly interactive website that encourages Section leaders to share information about upcoming and past events. The MBCA website hosts the club forums, electronic versions of The Star and a searchable database of past Star articles, including technical information. The website continues to evolve and gets better each month. It is a very contemporary means of giving a global presence to local Section activities.
MBCA continues to build its presence utilizing contemporary social media sites. The club has a Facebook presence, with more than 3,700 likes, and the club’s Linkedin site has more than 1,500 connections. An MBCA smartphone application is coming soon.
According to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in his biography, for “[l]ocally relevant [events], to resonate, [they] must be invented and executed by local talent and leaders.” Your local section and region activities continue to provide contemporary activities for participation, including road rallies, fun concours, social gatherings, technical sessions, first-Sunday drives and many more. At every level, your MBCA is up-to-date, of the present time and state-of-the-art.
The MBCA Education Foundation (MBCAEF) will introduce the “Safe Drivers, Safe Families” program during StarFest® 2012. The program is being developed through the efforts of a dedicated MBCAEF team and focuses on a major component of contemporary motoring circles; young and inexperienced drivers. A significant contributor to the “Safe Drivers, Safe Families” program was Werner Fehlauer. A long-time member of MBCA and Mid-Atlantic Regional Director, Werner was an enthusiastic participant in all-things MBCA, and a dedicated leader at the Sectional, Regional and National levels. Werner recently passed away. The club is better for his contributions and we will miss his leadership.
Let’s drive ‘em,
                                                       Steve