Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

Changes to the club operations team

I have a number of significant changes to the team of SOCCI members that make up the operation of the club.

First of all (announced in June), I would like to welcome Paul Stephenson to the team in the role of Social Committee Chair. Paul has been running events out in the Niagara area for his customers for a number of years and brings a great sense of what is needed to put together a successful social event.

Paul will be supported in this role by Guido Riccioni, acting as Vice-Chair. Guido has been an active vocal member of the club for several years and takes great pride in getting to know as many people as he can and has attended many different events over the years.

Martin Wojowicz has agreed to take over the role of Discounts Chair. Martin is a long time club member and owns 2 of the most sought after Saabs … and SPG and a Viggen. Between the support he will get from Fred as he relinquishes the role and his knowledge of the Saab and automotive communities in general, we will be in very good hands.

In exchange for taking on the Discounts, Fred will be taking over the distribution of the Gryphon.

I’m sure that Martin and Fred will get to know each other quite well over then next couple of months.

Along with these changes, we will be looking to Martin and Fred to combine Discounts with Advertising as we look to expand both our available discounts and our advertising revenues. I’m sure that we will be able to put together a program that will be attractive to vendors and members alike.

In doing this, we free up Trevor McAlpine from the Advertising role to work with a group of members on the newly formed Web Committee. This team consists of Trevor, Fred Hopper, Dmitry Platonoff, and me. Trevor’s knowledge of web activities and enthusiast clubs will allow us to enhance our site to better serve both our club members, potential club members, and our sponsors/supporters/advertisers.

I anticipate that we will see quite a few improvements on our members site this year, so please come back frequently to see the changes. One of the things that we will be changing is the face of the site to attract new members to our club and not just participants on the forum. You will also notice that we will be bringing back links to our club supporters and advertisers. Hopefully the increased web presence will allow Martin to sell more advertising space over time.

Another change is that Ken Pavri is going to oversee the organization of the driving schools. We have a very strong team (although could still use more help). Ken’s knowledge of the various aspects of the driving schools will help us along the way.

Lastly, Fred has stepped up and offered to take on the role of club Secretary, adding that to his current role of Vice President and now distributor of the Gryphon. Fred’s dedication to the club and to ensuring that we continue to move forward is very commendable. I have found working with Fred over the past 15 months or so to be very rewarding and I look forward to working with him in this expanded role.

With all of this change is bound to be a hiccup or two. Please be patient with all of us as we work through the transition.

I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage anyone who may be considering a more active role in the club to step forward at any time. As you can see by the significant changes we are making, not everything has to revolve around the AGM. The more time we have available to transition people into new roles, the more effective we will become for the club.

EDS Update

On Sunday June 24, we operated a very small driving school. When faced with the option of forfeiting our deposit on the Mosport Development Track due to apparent lack of interest or find another way to put together a school and offset our costs, we choose the later.

I would like to thank Ken Pavri and John Burnet in particular as they were the driving forces behind pulling this together. I would also like to thank Blake Nancarrow for being our sanity check as we got down to the wire. Our other volunteers included Fred Hopper and his wife Liz, "Mom" – Blake’s mother (whom many of you know), and my son Dyllan. Without their help and support at the track, we would not have put the day together nearly as well. Based on the comments received from the drivers that day, we put together a great experience for them and hope to see some of them back for the October school.

We are starting work on our October school the first week in July. If you are planning on attending, I would recommend that you get your applications in as quickly as possible … the October school has always filled up quickly and we would not want you to miss out.

We are also looking for more volunteers. This school normally runs between 35-40 students (which is about 4 times what we had in June), so we are going to need that many more volunteers at the track. We could also use additional help with the planning and execution prior to the school itself. I found helping organize the school to be very educational and lots of fun. If you are interested in helping out at any point in the process, please let either Fred or myself know.

Until we meet again, Happy Saabing!

Scott