Radio Free Registry

[MMW]

One more question, would you be willing to join up/piggy back with a vw event or just keep it only 356? As Erik says he is the only 356 in his area & I'm sure there are many others like him. For just a day trip you might only get a handful of 356ers attend, unless your in socal.

[bbspdstr]

The Canadian Holiday panoramic shot shows I was there, but I did not drive my car. A friend with a 310 was seeing his Toronto girlfriend and Martha and I flew up and back with him from PHL...so it was basically a lucky long distance long weekend.

When there was an annual picnic for 356ers in the Philadelphia area, folks began to spread the word and soon attendees from NY, NJ, DE, MD and VA ....and a few even further away would attend....a 'one day event'.

You put it on, people will attend...unfortunately the classic "a few do the work for the many." (and it's usually the same few)

A short (1-1.5 hour) scenic drive would precede and end at the picnic location; someone's home with plenty of space, later a county park with an old mill building on a creek and our last one at a grass strip airfield with antique planes, 140 people and 70 cars.

We'd solicit 356 parts vendor 'door prizes' to raffle away, the money going to the rather unstructured '356MidAtlantic' treasury to help with extra costs and the food was catered but 'at cost'...usually around $12 for a LOT of great food and drink.

Tents and canopies were donated, sponsored or personally brought along with chairs and often we'd have background music...a fiddler friend of mine and/or a hammer-dulcimer friend of his would entertain.

Add a day or two to the above, an informal 'Concours,' a 'tech session' and maybe a small swap meet plus a modest 'registration fee' for a sit-down dinner and a T-shirt...and that was an early Holiday or what is being ironically recommended now for "betterment." Like the throw-back GA events and a few others. Hummm....they seem to be successful.....

It's been an exercise in balance, and there ain't no Wallenda in the Registry. More to do over more time may mean more attendees could justify taking a longer trip in time and distance, however, overdo that and the cost goes up for every facet of the event.

The added complexity means more time and effort for the volunteers that put it on, so each year it gets more difficult to justify a big event but if kept simple, people yawn and think "been there, done that" and lose interest.

Rock, meet hard place.

So yes, I would say evolution has become a problem in the Registry...just as politics has become a problem....and both topics are not very comforting even outside the Registry as attendant 'things' become too big and too cumbersome.

Still, if I am correct in thinking of at least one cure for 'all of the above'.......if we fix apathy, we have a better life, government, car club and about everything else we can think of. It's being INVOLVED that counts....so yes, host something, anything, see what works and get a few others to help.

There are more people in the Registry; ~100 times the number of when I joined...and no more being offered (other than the Internet which we did not have 38 years ago ...and look at the ruckus over that recently!).

That said, a renewal of the Philly area 356 picnic is September 29. Please contact me for more info; Bruce Baker, bbspdstr@aol.com
(send me your phone number if you wish to speak about that in person) The usual gang still involved in things 356 are tired of waiting for someone else who is asking about an event to be the one to host it, so yeah, here we go again.....bring something, suggest something to make it interesting...drive your 356, VW or your Yugo. It's time to get more people together in person and just use the Internet to let people know about where and when. Yes, I'd be happy blending with any other car group....especially the VW crowd.

[merbesfield]

Bruce, you are a gentleman to pickup the torch so to speak and keep running. Wish I were closer, and had a running car, haha. My car is so close, but that is another story. Erik, you are close to me in AL, do you ever come to Atlanta? Bruce, how many people do you expect will attend your event? Does anyone know how many folks attended the casual event in Hellen, GA? I would love to host a small event at our mountain home, but I have a limited amount of space and would not want for it to turn out too large and not have enough parking space.

[bbspdstr]

"Bruce, how many people do you expect will attend your event? "

Actually, we don't know or care (yet), but at least 25 interested people have connected with the area's winter gathering's host, Bill Cooper, and the Phila. area's club head, Dan Haden. We pool our information, so my guess is about 35 so far have committed. Bill Shea, Eric Wahlberg and a few others spread over about a 100 mile radius are involved and an old friend and 356er has offered his great property for the space. He and his wife live in a converted stone barn and have offered a little-used horse pasture on their property for the cars.

Shaded by trees, surrounded by woods, we will still have canopies, tables and chairs IF we have enough who let us know in advance that they are coming....but this restart will be 'no frills.'

Getting a head-count last month was difficult and disappointing, but these things are historically last-minute decisions, so come September, we will get a rush. The property owner wants to see us hire a BBQ caterer friend of his, a local, and invite PCA people who like the 356 but may show up in a GT3. That will add another dimension but could be fun. Yin and Yang.

It's all about FUN, no?

Hey, the Georgia 2 years ago was GREAT and Tom McCoy lurks and posts here and may tell how many attended and how many they expect this year.
My wife and I drove from Philadelphia to Savannah for the PCA Parade (towing a 356) and again in the same month (again towing a different 356) for the Helen event (about an average of 15 hours of towing each way for both events). Vastly different from each other, but also vastly different from other events in our past...and that's the whole idea!

I am extremely disappointed that a family 'must do' is keeping us from Helen again this year, but we will at least see how our local picnic works out....about a half hour from our home.

Hey Mark, run something up the proverbial flagpole and just limit the event to your space. That's how our picnics started and we just moved the venue to suit the growing number of interested 356ers.

On this topic, anyone have a clue as to why Felix Macaluso (newest Registry trustee) reported that "2 trustees are mentoring the WCH"????

[356JAGER]

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[bbspdstr]

'Mentoring' or 'Manipulating' ?

Actually, the word I heard from a local was "meddling"...but any or all words are still curious, as others (and I) who had some experience hosting Holidays had kicked around forming a Registry committee to 'assist' subsequent committees or chairs of various Holiday components....and I never heard anything from then on.

The words used back then included 'why reinvent the wheel every Holiday' and the like. It's like my business acumen.....I am much better telling someone what NOT to do than what to do to make money in restoration.

I can only hope the trustee 'mentors' have actual Holiday organizational experience themselves....and also honestly explain the "one way" financial part of the contract.

[356JAGER]

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[Bill Sampson]

The Registry gets top billing for the WCH. See:
http://westcoastholiday.org/content/registration

Felix is a registrar, a task he regularly performs with wife Jeanne at Porsche 356 Club events here in SoCal. So I guess Felix is one of the "mentors." I'd guess, but it's only a guess that Liberty is the other "mentor" since he is avidly and widely campaigning to be prez of the R.

[bbspdstr]

"Felix is a registrar"
Well, Felix may be a glutton for punishment, as that is the most demanding task involved in a Holiday, 100 attendees or 500.

Of course, Bill, you say "a" registrar. There was usually just one, assisted by a "registration committee." So maybe Felix is a helper registrar or registrar's helper.

(Edit: Felix and his wife Jeannie are apparently co-registrars. I followed the link AFTER I wrote, sorry...and gee, I see I'll miss another golden opportunity to chat with the trustees! I missed Newport, the Lit meet and now another Holiday and I'm only an average of 3000 miles away!)

My wife Martha was the Registrar (of course with occasional help from friends) for the 2008 ECH and it was, according to her, "a second full-time job." She began to stress in the beginning at the amazing number of carelessly incomplete registration forms that arrived. Then the back-n-forth about those and the inevitable, continual changes. Then the confirmations. She became the de-facto treasurer with money in and out of a special bank account. Spreadsheets for correlating the PCConcours for the Chair of that, who trailered and needed special parking, who had dietary concerns for meals, who signed up for everything, nothing extra or in between. She had to check to see if a registrant's membership was valid....the tasks to be organized seemed endless, but she mastered it, to the penny.

To put the Registry into perspective, we opened registration in January and were (over)booked by March for the early September event and still, Martha had to refund money to a few who had to deal with the death of a spouse. Sad, very sad, but good news to the next on the wait list...enough unfortunate cancellations that almost the entire wait list was included in the event.

And people wonder why I push the 'youth' thing......and have no time for trustees who want to believe they are immortal and also that no one else could fill their (cement) shoes.

[Bill Sampson]

Hey Bruce:

They have $600 rent a cars in Santa Fe as well as in Sedona. So come on out for the WCH. I plan to buy an ad in the program or whatever they put out if they're selling them.

For those interested here is some brief video from a 4 day long car event that had NO registration, NO pre-event sign ups, NO charge to enter and GAVE everyone that came with a car a 1 in 180 chance to win a $1000 surfboard. Rosemary's car is the second in front of the "camera" car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-IiXj59ED0&feature=youtu.be

[S.J.Szabo]

[Bill Sampson]

Rosemary's March/April 2013 issue of the Registry mag (her May/June issue arrived but is presently in the possession of a friend) lists "Regional 356 Clubs" on page 4. At the top of page 4 is the Trustees' statement: "These independent groups each offer activities, information and fellowship for 356 enthusiasts in their area." [Italics added.] One of the groups listed is Zia 356, the actual sponsor (I think) of the 2013 WCH.

I note also, since I was looking, that the magazine states, at the bottom of page 5: "Porsche 356 Registry is the official publication of Porsche 356 Registry, Inc. . . . . Porsche 356 Registry, Inc., is a non-affiliated, non-profit, educational corporation, chartered under the statutes of the Stat of Ohio." [Bold and italics in original.] There is no corporation with that name in the State of Ohio. There is, however, a corporation named 356 Registry, Inc., for which its treasurer, Fred Nielsen, filed a Certificate of Continued Existence on April 22, 2013. Mr. Nielsen advised the state that 356 Registry, Inc. is still in business and further advised the State of Ohio and the public that the principal place of business for 356 Registry, Inc., is located in Columbus Ohio. Members may be gratified that unlike on several occasions in the past the Trustees filed this document in a timely manner.

[S.J.Szabo]

That's interesting. I never noticed that before, but a random selection of the last 2010 issue (the last with a published "financial statement") contains the same mis-characterization of the type of corporation.

Do you suppose no one in the Board room knows what kind ("social club" according to the IRS and the State of Ohio) of corporation the Registry actually is?

After all, every where one turns, there seems to be evidence that the Leadership is not particularly interested in the legal requirements of running a car club.

Is that Sinatra singing "My Way" wafting from the Board room?

[Meissen540]

Bruce,
you asked how many attended the 2011 DY356 event in Helen.
We had right at 150 people from about 17 states if I recall accurately.
This year we expanded it to 200 people, which we sold out in about 4 weeks. All but a few (< 10) are from out of state in 2011 and 2013.
The event was born out of 3 of us drinking a beer and talking about the need of a grass roots type of event. Nothing fancy, no award dinners, no big hotels in a resort or metropolitan area. Just a small unassuming down home type of event. We were careful in telling everyone to not show up expecting to be waited on, but to show up with the intention of helping with what was needed, icing the beer, or organizing an impromptu drive.
There were no problems with people not having fun, or being disappointed. 100% of the input we got was that we need more of these types of events.

Tom
Atlanta

[bbspdstr]

"The event was born out of 3 of us drinking a beer and talking about the need of a grass roots type of event."

Tom, thanks. Good luck this year!

When Registry events were small(er), there was one outside of NYC, Suffern, NY,(not succotash) early '80s, hosted I believe, by the late Jack Magraine.

Parker Tyler and I were conscripted when we got there to be 'concours chairs' so we got ourselves a beer and went to the parking lot and sat on the curbing to decide what to do.

We saw all the various 356s in different conditions parked everywhere and we decided then and there...to get another beer.

After a couple of those, we decided the best way to handle it was to declare all who drove their 356 there to be a winner, to hand each one a medal and a beer, shake their hand and thank them for showing up.

How did we go so wrong since then?

Truthfully, I don't remember what we REALLY did after that, but that's a true story.....as is that I have cut wa-a-a-y back on drinking to 'rarely.'