What is MCA doing for young mustang owners and or future youth mustang fans?

[ReddingerJT]

From my point of view.... Some Regional Club are better than others. I was briefly a member of one club and found it to be a nothing but a good old boys club. I sent the membership dues to them twice and never received anything. I had to show up at a meeting to get them to do anything! Is that how you treat a new member? It turned out that they didn't want to ground, didn't want any new members, and wanted NOTHING to change. At that time I was the youngest paying member, meaning that I wasn't riding on my families membership. I was in my late 20's at that point with a 2007 Shelby GT that had a little work done to it. That club was considered to be the old mans club with the older cars. A few of us grow tired of thing not changing and decided to start our own club, which in the end worked out better for myself and the MCA. For that simple fact that we grew! Adding member's to our membership as well as the MCA's membership. We had people that were active as board members and wanting to do thing in our town and in neighboring city and states. The club grow and within two years we were able to join our club to the ranks of the MCA. We had older cars and new cars! Last but not least, we have members of all ages, even into the teens.
Now that I have moved on from that area of the Mid South I find myself in a new city with another MCA Mustang club here. I have emailed EVERY board member twice and received no response. What kind of message are the regional club sending when they won't even return a simple email. I'm not going to join another club until after I check it out right and find out if it's what I'm looking for and will be good for myself and family. I'm not wanting to join another good old boy club ever again! I want my kids to grow up around mustang like I did growing up and hopefully one day getting one of their own.
What worked for us at my former club, I shouldn't say former member. I'm a charter member of that club but due to a transfer I had to move but will always be a member of that club. We had a membership committee that went out and looked for members of all ages, with ANY type of mustang. We came up with membership package that laid everything out and let the person know who we were. This has worked really well for us over the years.
What it comes down to, the older generation has to change and be will to change. There are a lot of other mustang clubs out there that are going with the younger generation. The website is a start! Now you need to get people using it! There is not a lot of traffic on here.

[probkauz]

I know exactly what you are saying, Jimmy, seems like the older group of members have a death grip on the local clubs, very opposed to new ideas and change. With our new officers, we are planning different activities than before, such as movie nights, etc. instead of the same old thing. A club cannot survive on going to eat and show & shines. There must be exposure and recruitment. We have added Track Day to our schedule. Twice a year we book a local road course track, and spend the day, cook out and have a great time. There are many younger people who own Mustangs, and I'd love to see more of them in our club, if only we can make the club more fun. And the competition from other Mustang clubs, that are not MCA affiliated, is stiff. These clubs plan road trips (which the older set doesn't want to do), have get togethers, cookouts, etc. They just hang out together as friends, where as some of our members only see each other at the monthly meeting.

[Blubyu06]

I would also like to see some kind of promotional program in order to get more young mustang owners and fans involved in the national mustang community. That is one of the reasons I have yet to join my regional club. A lot of the members tend to be in the older crowd. I don't mind that for the most part, but it would be nice to see more young people that I can relate with. It's hard enough being a girl. lol.

Leilany,
We have a good group of young people and us girls like to get together in our group as well. Please feel free to join us at one of our events. We have a great group of young people that love there Mustangs and take pride in them. I'm pretty sure after a hanging out at with us you'll be hooked. I envite you to join us at our next car show or meet.

Thanks.

[Blubyu06]

At the January Board meeting i presented the Youth Program thatthe MCA is going to use to get more young mustang owners and enthusiast to join the Mustang to help make sure it is here for another 35+ years and to make sure that the mustang is going to be around for another 50+ years. Below find the programs that we will be using to get this completed. More information will be in the March issue of the mustang Times.

- The Colt Membership
- The Young Patroit Membership
- A Model Building Contest
- Parent Child Garage

The Colt membership be the stepping stone to help grow the membership and to make sure the MCA is continue to grow.
Requirements:
-Two age groups
- 8 and younger
- 9 to 13
- 14 to 18
-Must be a Mustang enthusiast
Benefits
- Get an understanding of the Mustang hobby
- Preserve the future of the hobby and the Mustang
- Take the MCA to next level
- Quarterly newsletter
- Custom designed decal and membership card
- Ability to participate in on-line discussions
- Learn the ways of the MCA

Young Patroit Membership - geared to the young men and women that are in our armed forces (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard), as well as ROTC (high school and college). This allow these individuals who give up thier time to fight for our freedom a chance to participate in the MCA.
-Requirements:
- Must be serving in one of military branches
- 15 to 25 years of age
- Mustang entusiast

- Benefits
- ability to participate in on-line discussions
- ability to participate in on-line car showsuil
- communicate with other MCA mebers and board of directors
- quarterly newsletter
- custom designed decal and membership card
- preserve the future of the hobby and mustang
- learn the ways of the MCA

Model Building Contest - this will enable those with creative ideas to have them expressed through their model instead of a car. This will include metal and plastic models and pine wood car derby cars as well.
- Requirements
- parent or model participant must be an MCA member
- must a mustang model
- can be any year and model
- will be judged on: originality, workmanship, quality
- will be judged by popular vote

- Parent Child Garage - this is will be a section on the website and in the Mustang Times that the parent child teams that are restoring a Mustang tell their story. This can be a stock, resto-mod or cool daily driver. This can be any year and model Mustang. Progress pictures and updates are highly encouraged so the Mustang world can see the progress. This will hopefully energize other parent child teams to post their story.
- Requirements
- parent child team (can be mom/son, dad/son, mom/daughter, dad/daughter, grandfather/grandson, etc)
- story on how they decided on the build
- story on how they acquired the mustang
- must be a mustang
- progress pictures must be submitted

- Benefits
- build the parent child relationship
- energize other parent child teams to take a build
- build the understanding of the mustang and the importance of the hobby
- carry on the enthusiasma of the hobby

These programs will not only benefit the younger individuals but also the MCA.

There will be more details and examples of what we are looking for in the March issue Mustang Times. If there are any questions about this please do not hesitate to contact me and we can discuss this in more deatil.

Chris,
This sounds like MCA is on the right track to reaching out to our youth. I'm eager to help be apart of what sounds like a great step in the right direction for MCA, Ford and our Regional Clubs.

[probkauz]

Mustangs aren't just for boys anymore! I'm the only girl on our race team, and they treat me special, help me with my car, let me change in their trailer, and still expect me to win. It's like having 8 brothers, I love it. But I don't take advantage of it, I check my lugs, do my own car work, for the most part. Love the track, the smell of burning rubber, the noise, the rush of that 3rd gear "scratch" and my pink and black fire suit.

I've been kicking around an idea for our club that would be like Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Have our seasoned Mustang owners mentor a young Mustang owner by donating time and mechanical help with their resto projects. Also working on a proposal that would award a high school student who is building a Mustang a small scholarship to help with parts, as well as giving up a Saturday to help them install the parts. Bringing the older generation together with the young drivers would be such a bonding experience for them both.

[mustang_fan]

Sandra you are on the right track with the new events you are coming up with. it funny to hear you talk about these ideas. young mustang owners in our club express the same ideas. we are working on trying some of these ideas. I have mentioned this before but i will say it again. I would love to see the high schools have a car show events or competitions between schools not only with the car, but sharing knowledge that can help any young car owner. Knowledge is power! This can go to a national level and be fun doing it...

I am sorry that Sandra and Jimmy have had to experience the "good ole boy" mentality of a mustang club. I hope that all members would want to embrace young mustang owners? This is how the clubs and hobby will stay alive. I would like to see Ford Motor Company get involved as well.... This way we can put a couple more car lengths on Goverment Motors!

[probkauz]

I wouldn't say I've had a bad experience, we just need to work to "marry" the two generations better. And that is the nutshell, right there, older generation tenacity and younger generation vivacity together, instead of the huge drift between the two worlds.

[mustang_fan]

I like how you are thinking! Keep pushing new ideas at club meetings, Try to get all of the members of your club to embrace your ideas. I am excited to see how the younger members of MCA will utiliize the new ideas that Chris has came up with....

[mustang_fan]

Chris will you have any of the tri-fold brochures ready for the first national show? If so I would like to picksome up for our regional club while i am out there.....

[Roddster]

My point of view: Young owners classes: OK with me
Parent/Child groups: And what of the grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, older siblings? Maybe this should be changed to "Mentors"
I do like the idea of a quarterly newsletter for the younger folks, age appropriate.

If the old codgers do not reply to a newer members voice or ideas, start a new group that is more agreeable to the new voices. If there is some MCA rule about not having two clubs in the imediate vicinity, time to change the rule. I was not an MCA member until about 3 years ago because of the idea of no-modified-cars. Gee, I like them all, and so it seems so does the MCA.