History

The first club meeting was August 31, 1995

There were lots of rumours about how we got our name (e.g. they first met in someone's basement, etc.). The actual reason is that back in 1995 all clubs were sanctioned by the Miata Club of America (MCA) and this included the Trillium Club in Toronto, Ontario. The founding members did not want to follow the rules of the bigger Miata club bodies, and in this sense, were 'underground' or non-sanctioned. Actually, the name went through an interesting discussion on Miata.net back at that time. UMN was one of several names put forward for the club that people liked. The full list of names originally suggested, and thankfully not endorsed, included:

• Underground Miata Network
• United Fugitive Miata Owners Association
• The Peoples' Front of Miata
• Shunned Miatae Of Ottawa-Carleton Heretics(SMOOCH)
• Norm Garrett Resistance League
• Quasi-Religious Armed Fanatics of Miata
• People's United Paramilitary Miata Jihad (Judean Chapter)
• Flatulence-Powered Miatas of Canada

The club was incorporated as the Underground Miata Network Association Inc. on September 28th, 1999 when John Fry was president. As a corporation, we are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario as they relate to corporations and officers of corporations and by a set of bylaws.

The Underground Miata Network Association Inc. (UMN) is legally incorporated in Ontario as a non-profit organization. That means we have to limit the amount of money we carry over from one year to another. This is good news for those who come out to the Xmas party where we spend our way back into non-profit status with lots of fun gifts to the club members.