| These are the tentative rules of the club. Version 1.3 as of 11/22/2002.
As I get questions, I will add them with my answers at the bottom. The rules are rather long, and the questions & answers might give you an idea much quicker if you don't feel like reading it all just yet :-). For those who've already read a previous version, you can jump to the update section. The club is a non profit organization. There are many Goals of the club: - social experience - outlandish experience driving a $253K car, and turning just about every head that is in the vicinity - philantropic experience once the club generates some revenues that are given to charities - providing a financial break to the Founder while he licks his wounds All members agree to abide by the rules of the club. In case of conflicts, solutions will be subject to vote. If a tie or major dissension occurs, the president will get the right to decide what is best for the club. Financial risk: small. The car will be insured. The shares are re-purchasable by other members so you can get your money out. No additional interest will be disbursed to members. This is a non profit club. Resources of the club will be used to maintain the car, provide a new car if necessary, and give excess funds to charity. To reduce operating costs, the club will be cyber-based. A physical location may be maintained later on if the club's funds permit. Yearly gatherings are a good idea that will be implemented when possible. Every member of the club must maintain a Paypal account and an email address. The Paypal account is needed to pay the one time membership, buy other members' shares, and receive refund when leaving the club or selling shares. Should Paypal go out of business, a similar service will be chosen to replace it. An electronic bulletin board system and email will allow members to stay in touch. In exchange for his 10 virtual shares, Jean-Remy Facq will design a custom computer system to keep track of share allocation, schedules, usage credits, etc. Funds generated by the club's activities are spent on insurance for the car, storage and maintenance of the car, and transportation of the car between showrooms. The club will decide which amount it needs to operate smoothly. Some money should be set aside to provide a new car after the original car can no longer be driven. If the funds of the club should exceed the amount it needs, the funds will be disbursed to charities elected by the members. It is one hope that this club will be successful and generate a significant amount of money to help charities. The club will market goods with the Car's image Christian Riese Lassen as the Artist, and Jean-Remy Facq as the Founder, are irrevocable members as long as the club exists, with 10 virtual shares each of voting power. The club will not accept more than 250 members. 250shares+20virtual shares makes 270. This leaves 94 days out of a 364 days year for transportation, maintenance, exhibition. Lotteries will be done within club members to allocate extra days of use. 250 members paying a one time $1000 membership makes $250,000.00 of funds for the club. No new members will be accepted once the club is created. The value paid by Jean-Remy Facq for the car was $253,000.00. $103,000.00 for the initial purchase of the new car in 1999, and $150,000.00 for the paint job in 2000. A 7 year, 100,000 miles warranty has been purchased from Dodge for the car. The car will be sold by Jean-Remy Facq to the club for the fair value of $200,000.00. The $50,000.00 remaining will be the club's seed money to operate until more funds are coming from promotion of the car and sponsors. We all hope to be able to structure the club's activity in a sustainable way. Club President: shall be determined by who owns the most shares on Jan 10th of the given year. Jean-Remy Facq will be president for the first year. The 10th is chosen instead of the 1st to allow some business days to trade shares. Should 2 owners or more be tied as having the most, the oldest (and hopefully wisest!) of them will be chosen as president. Usage of the car: obviously, the club relies on the car being in good working condition, and above all, on its bodywork to remain free of any dent and scratches. In exchange of the 10 virtual shares, and the constant promotion of his work through the club, Christian guarantees that the minor touch ups will be done by him every year, and that the club owns the right to market reproductions of the car's design. Each member gets one guaranteed day of use per share of the club owned. The unused days add up over time. Members buying multiple shares are guaranteed that they can use these days consecutively. The club's scheduling computer will do its best to make it so that everyone gets to use the car for the number of days they have accumulated. But if for example everybody saves their days for the first 3 years, and then everybody wants to drive for 3 days, that will be 750 days and that does not fit in one year... so the days saved are not always guaranteed to be usable anytime, only usable overtime and perhaps in multiple chunks. The moral of the story is if you want to drive weekends, you should buy 7 or 8 shares to guarantee there will always be 2 weekend days in a row. Members of the club: must be a continental US resident. The club will manage transporting the car to the north states during the summer, and to the south states during the winter. The members will be responsible for their own transportation costs when travelling from their home to the location where the car is brought in their state. Of course we will do our best to pick the closest locations to the most members. Based on geography, and preference, members can elect to belong to a different club-state to make the trip shorter. If there are no members in a state, obviously the club won't bring the car there. Because the weather cannot be controlled by the club, members in states renowned to be rainy or with inclement weather are encouraged to elect to be part of a different state nearby that has better weather. It does not seem manageable to grant rain checks for foul weather so there won't be any rain checks. Members unable to use their days due to weather will be eligible for a double chance of winning days at the next year's lotteries. All the rules will be more detailed when the members can have an opportunity to give their input. Officers of the club: secretary, accountant, legal counsel, promotional agent, webmaster, BBS admins, mechanics, transporters, etc. - are volunteer members. Elections held if more volunteers than spots. - if any expenses are incurred in the exercise of club duties, like fuel and truck rental for example, these will be paid by the club. - term of 1 year. - at the end of term, if they accomplished their task in good faith and to the benefit of the club, they are rewarded with 5 extra days of use. The car won't last forever, although we can count on it still being around for another 4 to 5 years. When the mechanics say it's no longer safe, the car will be immobilized and for show only. If the club's funds permit, a new car will be purchased and commissioned and the fun will continue. Dissolution of the club: - when someone purchases all 250 shares, they will own the car, and the club is dissolved. - if for any reason the car is destroyed, be it by accident, or act of God, the club is dissolved. When the club is dissolved, the club's assets are liquidated, and the money left is divided by 250 and each share is refunded to the members through Paypal, up to the $1000 per share amount. If excess, it goes to charity. If an insurance claim generates a payoff, the money will be put in the club's fund to repair the car, or if the car is totalled, to refund the members. The virtual shares get no refund. It is thus agreed by all that the car is meant to show off and not to be used for racing or high speed driving. Prior to be allowed to drive the car, members will be required to go through a safety driving class or similar racing class, or demonstrate that they have had such training. Members already owning a viper for 6 months and who drove 1000 miles in their car meet the requirements for driving the club's car. Because every car is different, no other equivalent will be granted for other types of sports car. Non viper owners will also need to rent a regular viper for 3 days from a rental company to experience what the driving feels like, without endengering the club's car. If this proves impractical for some, we will find creative ways, like pairing up with another experienced member, to accomodate everyone. Driving experience: the goal here is to address the fact that Vipers are special high performance cars, and some experience is required before driving them. For example gassing the car in a sharp turn is likely to make the back come lose and cause the car to swing out of control, into oncoming traffic or the curb. To keep everybody in line, any member getting cited for speeding, reckless driving, drunk driving, or similar offenses, while in charge of the car, will lose their membership and their shares will be voided (reducing the original 250 number). Car abuse: because of the limited time allocated to each member, the car is expected to be in similar conditions between before and after use by a member. Some wear and tear is expected over time, and the club will put its resources to use to remedy and restore the car to it's original shape. In case of flagrant abuse, member will be responsible for the fees to restore the car, and possibly could be dismissed from the club. The shares will go toward the repairs and any left over will be refunded to the user. The shares will then be voided. The member is the driver. Nobody other than members of the club is allowed to drive the car. No valet, nobody. Only members and agents of the club (for transportation for example) are allowed to operate the car. The member is responsible while the car is in their care. When the club resources permit, a chaperon will be hired to watch over the car while the member enjoys themselves at a restaurant or other function. When resources permit, the car will be equipped with a cellular anti-theft device giving the car's location and allowing remote shutdown of the engine. Such devices are available from Alpine. Process to Setup the club: - first come first serve - wanna be members register with Paypal and pay the number of shares they want, to the club's account. (by increments of $1000.00) - when a count of 250 shares is reached, registration stops. People registering after 250 and before we shut down the registration will be refunded. If the last member tried to purchase more shares than available, the excess will be refunded. - as soon as $50,000 is available in the club's account, the current lien holder Bank of America will be paid off, and the car transfered to the club. - when the remaining $200,000 are received, $150,000 will be transfered to Jean-Remy Facq (50K +150K makes $200,000 and pay him off). The $50,000 remaining will be the club's money to operate. - the club will first start operating by email and through the meteoriteviper.com web site, and then on the BBS as it becomes available. When all the rules are finalized, and proper insurance secured, the members will be able to start using the car. Note, action items: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - Christian Riese Lassen has not yet been notified :-) we hope he'll agree to the deal. - some research into legality of the club is needed - more thought from business folks about the club's means to generate operating money. Sponsors, sales of goods... - franchises, for other one of a kind cars? - some research into the way to structure insurance is needed. - cleanup & organize this document and make it more pleasant to read.
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