From the President May 2012

Now that spring is here most of us have spiffed up our Porsches and have taken at least a brief run. The Porsche season is upon us and so are the club’s activities.

After a very successful Mid-Winter Party, we followed up with our All Member dinner welcoming our new members into the club. My congratulations to Judi Sieler for and thanks for a superb job of chairing this event. We had thirteen new members who were magnificently initiated into our club the Porsche cape and driver’s helmet guru – George Patterson. After the initiation I spoke with many of the new members. Most were surprised at the upbeat nature of the dinner and the great welcoming gifts that were handed out. As usual, I’m still confused as to why we don’t have more new members at this affair – especially when they receive a free dinner and prizes worth up to $400. Also, I must apologize to many of my long time friends who I spent very little time with, because I feel very strongly that this event is important to make sure the new members are welcomed and that they are comfortable with our club’s environment.

We now start our activities in earnest. You can see the schedule of events on our website – arpcca.com. We sometimes have extemporary activities and will send you an email blast so make sure you have your updated email address to Earl Seiler (our Communications Director).

I recently attended the annual PCA President’s meeting. Nothing really earth shattering (as usual) which is good. Some bits of news: next years (2013) PCA Parade will be in Travis City, Michigan which should give us a easy travel to PCA’s largest event; this year’s (2012) Escape will be in Eureka Springs, Arkansas (11/18 to 11/11); this year’s P2O (now called Porsches to Ohio) has been moved from Oxford, Ohio to Granville, Ohio; PCA’s nation wide growth for last year was 3.5% — 2.6% growth for our zone (sorry I don’t have our regions growth rate, but I’m sure it’s higher than the zone growth – we are the second largest region in our zone. PCA will be sending our surveys to about 15% of the clubs membership. If you receive a survey, please take the time to complete it and return it to PCA. Many of the club’s decisions are based on the results of this survey.

This meeting was actually a two part meeting – with the second half of the meeting centered on our Driver Education events. Fortunately (for me) our Chief Instructor – Bruce Graham was able to attend. The biggest topic was the elimination (by PCA) of “Taste of the Track” rides. All regions in our zone were opposed to eliminating this activity. Some of the regions (and we were one that was going to implement this activity) were rides given to some of our “Wounded Warriors”. The reason given by PCA was that our insurance carrier did not want to take this risk. Tom Gorsuch (PCA”s national Treasurer) listened to our objections and said he would bring this subject up at their executive meeting. It is hoped that we can find a solution to this situation. I will keep you informed.

Again, I would like to encourage you to consider advertising in our first class, quality newsletter. If you are involved with a company or know someone who can benefit by advertising to an upscale demographic, please contact Paul Nickoloff.

I hope to see you at many of our upcoming events and business meetings – we need your input, suggestions and ideas.