MINUTES OF REGIONAL MEETING
September 28, 2002
The Regional meeting was called to order by RE Chuck
Heretta, at 10:15 AM at Esber’s, Canton, Ohio.
The following clubs and officers were represented:
Alan Moore, RCD Aurel
Ouellette, Fun Center, Gov.& RMD.
Chuck Heretta, Buckeye Corvettes, Gov., RE Bob Kuty, Mahoning Valley, Gov
Bob Thomsen, Corvette Cleveland, Gov Dick Downs, Competition,
Gov.
Deb Murphy, Tiretown, Gov. DeVaughn
Rader, Pioneer Corv. Gov.
Mark Thurin,Corvette Canton, Gov . Dave Clements, Medina, Gov.
Bill Wood, Kanawha Valley, Gov. Bob Schneider, LakeShore, Gov
Motion made by Bob Kuty to accept the secretary’s report as printed, seconded by Dick Downs.
Chuck introduced Dick Downs as the new temporary governor of Competition Corvette Club. (Dick address is 182 Parkway Blvd., Madison, Oh, 44057-3261.
East Ohio Region has the option of receiving their minutes electronically. If you would like them electronically please let Mickey know. See Mickey after meeting or let her know via email and then she can copy your email. You can also have national minutes sent electronically if desired. A form came with your last minutes to do this for national.
Treasurer’s report was read and accepted, Bob Kuty made a motion to accept, DeVaughn Rader seconded.
EAST OHIO CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES DIRECTOR: Bob Kirsch not available, dislocated shoulder.
He did send word to Chuck Heretta that the Website would be updated with all Champ Series information.
Regional points were not available. When they started to run them off they found a problem. They will send out the first of the week. Packets handed out, had flyers for last two weekends of the year, plus notification of cancellation of Central West Virginia two rallies. Flyers were not received. Everyone also had a copy of drag records, Ken Kessler and Doug Seredich set new drag records at convention.
National points are available contact Alan. Tiretown is sixth in the nation for clubs, Geoff Gott is 26th in the nation for men, and for ladies Deb Murphy is in 30th place.
Let Alan know if there is any event out of region you would like a flyer for he will get it to you.
In the region first place club is Corvette Cleveland, second is Tiretown. Denny Murphy is first in region and Chuck Heretta is second. Ladies first place in region is Deb Murphy and second is Elaine Heretta.
The 2003 convention will be in Hagerstown, Md., and will run from Thursday to Thursday. There is a ruling in national council that the weekend before and the weekend after convention a club can not have sanctioned events. But the 2003 would tie up 3 weekends doing this. The RCD’s decided to open up the weekend prior to convention to events.
CLARIFICATIONS:
1. “This rulebook is written in a positive nature and therefore should be used in that manner” question was does this wording apply to all sections of the rulebook? Answer, YES.
2. Can any gear ratio other than those that are stock for class be used in Group II Class E, F & G? YES, has to be stock housing.
There was a protest from a June speed event. There were 7 events on Saturday and 7 events on Sunday. It soon became apparent that there would not be enough time to give everyone two runs. A proposal was made that everyone only take one run, which was turned down because rules say you must have two runs. After the Group I cars completed their run the course was shortened, this upset several people because now the group I cars could not get an overall FTD. The way they started was you ran the first run of each event before the second run of each event. On Sunday, the person who was number one in the nation arrived about 4PM, and he was allowed to make his one run for each of the seven events. By this time several of the entrants had left for the day because they were finished and had been told they were the winners. This person was allowed to make the runs and was then declared the winner. With everything that was going on somebody decided to protest. The protest was upheld, the three clubs that hosted the events lost their points and all the members belonging to the three clubs also lost their points.
Because of the time it took to address the protest they were left with not much time to address rulebook changes. Jim Adrian wants the meeting to end by 11:00PM. Some proposals addressed they could not come to any conclusions on.
1. A sanction event may be held in a region other then the region the club belongs to only if written permission is obtained from the region the event is scheduled to be run. (Reason for this was last year West Ohio ran an event in the Indiana region, Indiana got upset because it took away one of their weekends.) Proposal was discussed quite a bit and will probably pass.
2. Proposal made to help eliminate the manipulating of rules at speed events, change rule that you must have three (3) or more entrants in a class or group to get 10 points. This would probably penalize the women entrants. This proposal was tabled.
3. Proposal to allow some modifications to C4 cars and still be able to run Stock class. (Examples: minor customizing, fender lift flair’s, removable of emblems, non-functional cosmetic only high rise hoods, stock Corvette non adjustable rear spoiler, updating to a later model interior (ground effects not allowed)). This proposal was also tabled.
4. Proposal to change rule to allow C3’s to use 50 series tires, presently the are restricted to 60 series and they are getting hard to find. This is also tabled.
Denny Murphy asked when were the RCD’s going to get serious about running of events. He stated we are about the only region that runs the correct way. Anyone that runs out of their region finds it customary to run like Michigan. Alan said there were going to be proposals at the next meeting to address this. Chuck Heretta asked is a maximum of four (4) events per day being proposed. Alan did not think so.
Alan has a booklet of proposed rule changes for all governors to pass around to your club members. He would like you to make comments in the back. Put your name if you make a comment so if he doesn’t understand he can contact you for clarification.
There is a section in the back on drag racing proposals, the RCD’s are looking at buying equipment at a national level to properly check a car if it sets a drag record.
When you get your points sheet please check over thoroughly and make sure you agree with it.
The convention dates for next year are August 15 through August 21, 2003.
Handed out reports for EOR membership, NCCC membership, FCOA membership, and active club membership list. Please verify that the active club membership is correct especially that names are correct and addresses since renewals are coming up.
Current membership for East Ohio is 937. All clubs have paid their $2.00 membership for new members since January.
There is a potential for two (2) additional new clubs for the region, one is East River Mountain Corvette Owners and another in the Huntington area has asked for membership information. Bill Woods said he would be glad to contact people in Huntington and work with them.
NCCC membership is at 16,651 about 700 ahead of last year. About 26 clubs may qualify for the Kumho tire incentive this year.
A sample of the 2003 membership card was shown, it will have a 1953 and 2003 model of Corvette on it.
St. Louis was voted as the meeting site for years 2004, 2005, 2006.
So far 99 people have applied for the MBNA credit card for National Council. They are looking for incentives to get people to apply for this card. A recommendation was made that maybe the regions should get part of the monies given back to them. They will not be allowed to divide monies up proportionately by region depending on the amount of people who sign up, it would be a flat amount to each region. The reason being privacy laws.
NCCC officer positions up for election are:
President - Roger Mitchell
VP Membership - Gail Dawley and Bob Bowen
Treasurer - Jay Hommer
Director of Public Relations- Jerry Limpach and Judy Yanko
Parliamentarian - Roger Thomas
All governors will be receiving their renewal packets early October, it will contain 51% sheet, 2 club member list, and a sheet requesting a list of club officers for the next year. Please follow the instructions on how to fill out and return. A club check is required made out to NCCC for membership renewal, and a club check for $2.00 per NCCC member for East Ohio region. On dependent members national is asking for their date of birth on the membership form when filled out, they want to keep track of when dependent member turns 21. Chuck asked how will this be accomplished for dependent members already in the club? Aurel said this information on a sheet of paper will be fine, you do not need to fill out a new membership form for each dependent member just to show date of birth.
If you have any questions on your renewal packet contact Aurel via phone (419-529-2423) or email aurel@richnet.net. If you do not have your renewal packet by third week in October contact Aurel before October 31, 2002 so he can follow up on it. Remember anyone who signs up between September 1, 2002 and December 31, 2002 are automatic renewals.
All renewals are requested to be to RMD (Aurel) by December 1, 2002. He needs to have to national by December 15, 2002. Any renewals after December 15, 2002 national is requesting they signup as a new member and pay the new member rate. Rich asked about his daughter since she is now 21 and NCCC really hasn’t addressed these dependants allowed to drive parents’ car. It was suggested she sign up as a primary member, she will not have to pay the new rate she is only changing her status from dependent to primary. Chuck asked if Aurel will accept renewal packets at the December 7, 2002 meeting, Aurel said he will, but preferred as many as possible before because of December 15, 2002 national date.
There were some discussions on the Duntov award, there has only been one award presented and that was to Tiretown. They felt this was needed to be reviewed as far as procedures were concerned, many of the clubs that qualify either don’t have the paperwork or do not know the process. The RMD’s felt it was their responsibility to get this information out to the clubs.
The FCOA has 1580 members, East Ohio has 118 members. Pat Kelly reported that 126 newsletters were returned with no forwarding address. Please be sure if you have an FCOA member that you send change of address to Pat Kelly at FCOAKIDS@AOL.COM. Change of addresses are not given from the membership committee. Aurel has a list of those who did not get their newsletter.
Hall of Fame: Applications were handed out. Bob Kuty has two (2) nominations as of meeting date. Nominations are required by December meeting.
Hall of Fame nomination forms attached for those I mail minutes to, those who get email minutes see the website for a form.
Whoever types up the Hall of Fame information, need to have added that in addition to a dinner for inductee and guest at regional banquet inductee also receives a Hall of Fame pin.
Question was asked if you want to nominate a couple, is it one or two forms. Bob Kuty said to do separate sheets to nominate them.
Their Friday night meeting dealt mostly with by-law changes. Among these were changing word from principal to just operators of Corvette. This is under qualifications of members for National Council. Want to change to “Members shall be limited to owners or operators”. This could mean you could let a neighbor drive your Corvette and they could become a member. Comment was made this would dilute the organization and its membership. It is taking away the uniqueness of the membership. Aurel was asked if he had any comments since this came out of membership. They had discussed enthusiast but that was not acceptable. The idea was a family member should be allowed to join since they could drive the car without owning. The membership committee did not limit it to family members, they limited it to anybody.
The next was dealing with Patron members, that deals with corporations and businesses. They want to delete Patron member.
The next dealt with spouse members, they want to change to spouse/companion and will have same privileges of primary membership. A primary member may have only one spouse/companion at a time.
It does not say the companion has to be at the same address.
Question was asked why doesn’t NCCC look at some type of family membership with a primary no matter the age?
Also are talking about rewording Member At Large membership.
There is also one about only being able to hold one (1) appointed or elected office. It would be down to one person one job.
The meeting site for years 2004,2005, 2006 will be in St. Louis.
National Council is looking for new Blue Bars editors, Doug and Mary Hansen had to resign. They will be doing the last issue, which is the convention issue. Contact Dick Yanko if you have any interest.
There are two bids for the 2004 National Corvette convention they are: Las Vegas, Nevada and St. Cloud, Minn. St. Cloud is in the normal time frame in July and Las Vegas is in June. You will be asked to vote for these in the packet being mailed out. Both sites have their problems, distance factor for St. Cloud and heat in Las Vegas in June, plus lost $30,000 last time went to desert. If you have any questions contact Deb Murphy or Bob Thomsen they are on the convention committee.
Convention 2003 is in Hagerstown, Maryland. For more information you can go to East region website.
Convention 2002 is somewhere around $6000.00 to the good.
There was a motion on the floor at end of NCCC meeting that NCCC become a Lifetime Business member of National Corvette Museum through donations. The West Ohio region donated $500.00 to get this started. A total of $2500.00 is needed. Once this figure is reached they will turn the money over to museum to make national council a lifetime business member. They challenged anyone else to aid in this. Alan Moore made a motion that East Ohio put $500.00 into this fund, seconded by Deb Murphy. Dick Downs asked what recognition would the regions get that participated. Alan explained what happened at National Council about a year ago, the clubs turned it down. Motion passed. Chuck will contact Jerry Limpach and let him know we will donate $500.00.
Mary Bellamy is asking for regions and clubs to sign up for munchy challenge in 2003. You don’t have to bring stuff you can donate money to help out. Think about this and decide if you would like to help out.
REGIONAL BANQUET: Jack not available but sent information to Chuck. A preliminary cost will be about $35.00 person. Will get more details later and the agenda is subject to change. Question was asked is there anything that can be done about the pay to park. They have worked out a way to pay the people back you are going to pay but you will get part of your money back. It is a secure lot, and there is Valet parking in addition to you can park it yourself. The parking lot sets right by the hotel.
DeVaughn and Chuck spoke to a gentleman, Doug Bergan who is a teammate with Bob Johnson and years ago they drove the Rebel Corvette. Doug Bergan has raced at Sebring and other places, he has given talks at the Corvette Museum and offered to give a talk at our meeting. Chuck said we might be able to work out something where they can give a talk in the afternoon of the banquet or at the banquet.
Denny said he and Bill Quine discussed with Tiretown and Tiretown would like to donate dollars toward a raffle drawing at the banquet. They would like to do this in appreciation of the region helping them out.
OLD BUSINESS:
There has been a fund established to help governors get to meetings in St. Louis. There is about $700.00 in this fund. When this fund was established we never set figures of what could be spent. Chuck would like to come up with a way to put more money in this fund in order to keep it going. This money is there for any club governor or representative to use one time, please make use of this fund. Denny Murphy said he will do another drivers school sometime in April 2003, and drivers had mentioned to him they had never done a matching time or funkhana. If possible he would like for clubs that do not use all their sanctions to sponsor an event on Sunday after drivers school on Saturday so drivers can get some experience in this. A low speed event would be good also. The money could go to the governors travel fund. Chuck said since we never set a limit on this we should discuss one, flight to St. Louis is about $80.00 and a room is $82.13.
It does not have to be a governor if you want to send a representative instead we will subsidize their cost. Bob Kuty made a motion to set limit of $150.00, Aurel Ouellette seconded. Question was asked how often this would be done, it will be one time per club. Motion passed. The November meeting dates are 8,9 and 10, 2002. You will not be given the money ahead of time, if you show up at the National meeting bring your receipt for flights and hotel room, Mickey is usually there and will write you a check. There is plenty to do and it is a good experience. Let Chuck know if are going to the meeting and would like to take advantage of the regional rebate.
Timing and computer equipment: We now have the specifications on this and Denny Murphy was asked to request John Taube look at them and give feedback to region. Denny was contacted by Jerry Werner and he would like to look at building a timing system. He told Jerry to contact Chuck Heretta.
Bob Thomsen brought up we may also need to consider adding regional headphones or headsets. These are really a necessity. Dick Downs asked about FCC ruling on some headsets. If system is under 4watts you do not need a license. This system will be made available to all clubs in region and a timing group is being looked at that can also train others to use and be at events to assist. Dick Downs suggested that all clubs that want to use it be required to get training and place a deposit. This is to insure that the equipment comes back in its original condition received. All this needs to be discussed and set up once we decide on system.
Some of the questions asked to see if the system could handle were: Can we see one in operation before we buy it. Check to see if we can mix events, since we do have cars that need to cool down. Do we have to put all the numbers in at one time? Can you change class?
Question was asked about the website security system. Bob Kirsch had checked into this and the system is only as secure as the people using it. Plus this is not an in-expensive system.
NEW BUSINESS:
Ballots for election of officers were counted by Donna Williams and Bryce Goodwin. Officers for East Ohio Region for 2003 are:
Regional Executive - Chuck Heretta
Regional Competition Director – Alan Moore
Regional Membership Director – Aurel Ouellette
Championship Series Director – Bob Kirsch.
Proposed changes for Championship series:
Two were presented 1. Eliminate the Overall Club portion of Championship series.
2. Eliminate from Championship Series all Club champions (Overall and the three (3) categories).
Review East Ohio By-laws and Standing Rules: Deb Murphy asked about the standing rule on the order we bid events, by how clubs finish in region. As a region we are very accommodating to clubs. Is there any way we can make sure clubs get the dates they need due to sponsor from dealerships and when racing areas are available? Chuck said it was placed in the Standing rules to keep clubs from being stepped on. Suggestion was made to have clubs submit the dates ahead of time. Alan said he could do this, he is asking the clubs that whatever dates you really must have be submitted to him by November 10, 2002. He will then get this information out to all clubs before the meeting so they can see if clubs are able to work around these dates for bidding. Clubs will still have to bid for events in December.
Suggestion was made that maybe we should try and not build multi-event dates. This year we had to run 29 speed events in five (5) weekends. Denny stated if we limit speed events per day we should limit concours, car shows and rallies. But DeVaughn and Bob Schnieder stated you can get nine (9) points per event in a speed but you can only get three (3) points in a car show. You cannot limit those to only one or two a day because people will not come for three (3) to six (6) points. Most have to drive about 100 miles.
National is working on a database for membership, where you can go in electronically and update membership. It will be based on password and depending on your responsibility in region will depend on whether you get to update or use a view only.
Aurel said he has asked membership to develop some type of professional video for membership. He feels this will really help membership.
Denny Murphy asked do we need a code of conduct for the region that should be read at events by chairperson. Dick Downs suggested a suspension period after an entrant has had so many warnings. Alan said this can be done with NCCC rules. After some discussion it was decided we should read something at the events. Alan will develop some type of statement to be read as a statement of conduct, we will discuss at December and March meeting so it can be implemented by time season starts.
Patches: The region ran out of regional patches about 2 years ago. Chuck has checked with Dennis Patrick about prices. The patch will be downsized some.
1 - 200 $2.50
201 - 300 $2.25
301 - 400 $2.15
Do we need patches? Governors decided yes. If yes, how many?
These patches are used for new members and regional awards. Since we haven’t had patches for a while some guide lines of how to disburse to those who did not get them needed to be set up. It was decided if you were a member in 2002 and renew for 2003 you would be given a patch if you had not received one in the past.
Bob Kuty made a motion to order 500 patches, seconded by Dave Clements. Motion passed.
Regional Round Table: Bob Kuty said he liked Aurel’s idea of a professional video or at least of membership video of some type. He would like to have one just to show his club of some of the things that go on in the region.
Bill Wood said not to forget his October 19 rally. Sunday’s events will start in Charleston, WV. And end somewhere around Logan, Ohio. He has blocked 20 rooms at the hotel and thinks most of them have been booked. Please check out this hotel and let him know what you think about it. If you like it he would like to think about hosting a regional banquet there.
Rich Brooks said he went to Mid America and they are putting all but three Corvettes on the auction block in January. They are getting into Porsche and after market stuff.
Bob Thomsen stated he had been checking out the specifications on the timer and it does have an input and an output for a display monitor. He also asked would the region be interested in working with another car group in putting on low speed events. The region was in favor of this.
Bob Schneider said he supported the idea of promotional video and felt it was really needed to support and build membership.
Dick Downs stated this was a needed item also.
Alan mentioned that workers are not signing the waivers and they need to in order to get their points also. He also mentioned that a club this year offered you the choice of an award or money at their event. He stated only two people opted for the award and this was after all the discussion last year about having to offer awards.
Mickey said that the NCCC charity raffle car this year will be a 50th anniversary car.
Chuck announced that the December 7, 2002 meeting will start at 9:30 AM. Come prepared to bid your events. We will also be setting next years meeting dates. Also at this meeting we will vote on Championship series proposed rule changes.
Chuck asked do we want to continue holding meetings at Esber’s. The concern being is if the region keeps expanding we need to consider the southern clubs and if their needs are being filled. Maybe we could hold one or two meeting a year in their area. Dick Downs asked if he was considering alternating sites, at this time Chuck is not really considering anything he is trying to find out what the region feels. Come to the December meeting with ideas.
Membership dues for the region are due at this meeting, $2.00 per NCCC member as of November printout sheet.
Also $20.00 per sanction event will be due.
Membership renewals will be accepted at this meeting but should be to Aurel by December 1, 2002.
Bob Kuty asked about K&K insurance, only new governors will get a packet but all governors will get a new certificate sometime in the spring.
Bob Kuty made a motion to adjourn at 2:15, motion seconded. Motion passed.
Respectively submitted
Mickey Ouellette
Secretary/Treasurer