President’s Column, March 2007
by Bob Morin
Our only event since my last column was one of our biggies, the Annual Dinner/Election Meeting. Special thanks go out to jerri Wiley, and some help from Willy too, for putting this event together, especially after our original location notified us that they were going out of business, necessitating some last minute scrambling to find a new location. The Manor Inn turned out to be quite a good location and we had a great crowd. Roger Chartier did another great job of lining up some terrific doorprizes and every attendee took home a prize. We also raffled off a $500 gift certificate which raised $561 for the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. Michael Mitchell was on hand as our guest speaker and he kicked off our Street Survival effort. The BMW CCA Foundation is instrumental in organizing these schools and we returned the favor by raffling off a Limited Edition McLaren F1 print that Michael was kind enough to bring along as a doorprize. Between that, and selling some remaining doorprizes, we raised another $266 that we donated to the BMW CCA Foundation. Michael’s talk must have drawn some interest as we are sold out in our first effort to organize one of these teen driving schools and we also generated some great volunteers from the evening, including Malachi Blandon, who has lined up a UPS tractor trailer for our use for the day. You’ll have to come out to see how we use it! Of course, the second half of the Annual Dinner is the election, and by now any of you who receive our e-mail bulletin already know the election results. Our members-at-large for 2007 will be Rudy Basztura, John Bisset, Roger Chartier, Frank Giacalone, Nancie Giacalone, newcomer Bill Mellot, Sheila Morin, Dave Rich, jerri Wiley and Mike Zarolinski. The four officers will be Bob Morin as president. Willy Wiley as vice-president and then it got interesting. If you were paying attention, you know that we had no candidate for secretary and two candidates for treasurer. Gary Ross, the incumbent narrowly defeated his challenger Lisa Mellot and after many write-ins, Jim Hurczyn accepted the secretary’s position. I would like to thank Ev Newton for his service to the board, most recently as the secretary and Marsh Wilson who was a member-at-large. Both decided not to run for the board this year, but have been great assets this past year. Lastly, we drew one ballot from among those who voted and Georgia Stauffer will be awarded a one year extension of her membership. It was a great night and thank you to all who helped make it possible. Our next events come rapid fire. First, we have the Driver’s School opener at Lime Rock Park on April 6th. Then on April 28th, Jim and Maria Hurczyn will host the Wine & Cheese at their home in Bristol, CT, followed the next day by the aforementioned Street Survival School in Simsbury, CT. Then on May 5th, our second Lime Rock Driver’s School and also in May, on the 20th, Mike Zarolinski will organize a repeat of his successful Bring More Wax Show & Shine event at Wickham Park in Manchester, CT. Hopefully, you can find something that appeals to you in that group. By the time you read this, the F1 season will have begun and things are looking a little better for BMW Sauber. In testing, they have been closer to the front runners on the timing sheets than what you would see on test days last year, so maybe they can continue their climb back up to being a contender. Maybe not realistically this year, but they need to at least show progress. With all the drivers that moved to different teams and Michael Schumacher’s retirement, I should think it will be an interesting season. Finally, in News From National, membership eked out another tiny increase and grew 1.13% to 76,050. This is the first time in two years that membership has exceeded 76,000. BMW CCA and Sprint/Nextel are working together to bring huge savings to BMW CCA members. Sprint has increased the monthly service discount to 15% and has added several new promotions to provide members with additional benefits. Until next month… |
