The March article is only being printed in the Gryphon this month.

It deals with the upcoming First General Meeting of the Saab Club of Canada.

Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

Dear Commissioner Fantino:

I am writing to you as I am a little concerned by what seems to be a standard behaviour exhibited by your officers while driving on the highways of late.

First of all, I am going to quote from the OPP web site, both from your personal page as well as the "Traffic Safety" page.

From your page:

"Traffic safety is a key priority for me and for this organization. The objective is to improve the safety of drivers on highways and roadways under OPP jurisdiction. Let me tell you briefly what this means.

First, traffic safety is now the responsibility of every OPP officer, every day, all the time, whether the officer is part of regular traffic patrols or not. Traffic safety is now a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, law enforcement priority. We are now proactively and strategically targeting high-risk drivers who threaten everyone’s safety on our roadways. Find out more in the section called "Traffic Safety"."

And from the Traffic Safety page:

"The Ontario Provincial Police is recognized throughout North America as a leader in traffic safety. The ability to analyze successes in traffic issues provides an opportunity for the organization to rise above the culture of status quo. The OPP will continue to demonstrate true leadership by embracing and incorporating the principles of the Provincial Traffic Safety Program into the core functions of every OPP member saving more lives.

The Provincial Traffic Safety Program is a proactive, sustainable approach to traffic safety directed at high-risk behaviours. Occupant restraint, impaired driving and aggressive driving behaviours represent the major causal factors in fatal and serious injury collisions. The focus of the Provincial Traffic Safety Program is to reduce injuries and save lives on Ontario’s highways, trails and waterways."

Further, let me quote the law as it pertains to Daytime Running Lights:

"(44) Every bus, multi-purpose passenger vehicle, passenger car,

three-wheeled vehicle and truck shall be equipped with two daytime running

lamps or, where the daytime running lamps are optically combined with the

upper beams of the headlamps, with two or four daytime running lamps.

(45) A daytime running lamp shall be white, yellow or white to yellow, in

accordance with sections 3.1.3, 3.1.2 and 3.1.3.1, respectively, of SAE

Standard J578, Color Specification (May 1988)."

Taken from the Department of Justice Canada web site, Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations (C.R.C., c. 1038) page.

Now that I have your attention, let me explain why I have quoted your web site.

The past few weeks I have had the occasion to come across a couple of OPP cruisers on the 407.

The first time was late in the day during a snowfall. The cruiser in question was traveling westbound coming up on Derry Road. The cruiser was traveling in the inside lane at speed … with no light at all on the vehicle.

The second cruiser was a similar situation (without the snowfall). Traveling in the outside lane (he was exiting further up). This officer was one of the better OPP officers I have encountered on the roads as he used his signals every lane change (something very rare in my 900,000+ kms of driving). However, this cruiser was the same as the previous one … no exterior lighting on at all.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not a lawyer nor am I a student of law, so there could very well be something that allows the OPP (or any other law enforcement body) to be exempt from the laws governing all other motor vehicles in Canada.

If that is not the case, I would strongly suggest that it is something that needs to be looked into as these cruisers have been altered in such a way that they do not meet the regulations set out.

Beyond that … the OPP should be an organization (as you have suggested it is) that promotes safety and should be setting the example by which all other motorists should be looking to. Driving on any 400-series highway at any time of day without some sort of lighting on is not a safe practice. Driving in snow or during low light periods without lights on is not only unsafe, but it is dangerous.

While we are on the topic of road safety, I would like to understand why your officers (at least some of them) do not adhere to the messages of safety that your organization is sending to the public. On more than one occasion I have witnessed OPP cruisers change lanes without signaling, drive while talking on hand-held cell phones, and speed without any emergency lights on.

In short, the OPP is falling a long way off of your target of "demonstrating true leadership by embracing and incorporation the principles of the Provincial Traffic Safety Program". I would encourage you to take a look at your officers and ensure they are in fact, leading by example … everyday, everywhere.

Until we meet again, Happy Saabing!

Scott

Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

First off, I wanted to pass a message along to everyone from Sweden, from Magnus. He says:

"Goodbye and I’ll see everyone again".

Magnus is heading up the Saab product team in Sweden, focusing on the sales and marketing aspects to ensure that Saab has the right current and future product portfolio, content, and execution. He has promised to keep Canada at top of mind as he settles in to his new role.

Magnus has been replaced in Canada by Marten Wahlstedt. I have dropped him an introductory note but have yet to hear back from him.

Marten, if you read this edition of the Gryphon before my e-mail, please look me up. I would like to chat with you. ;-)

At the end of August, I was lucky enough to attend SOC 07. It was quite an eye opener I’ll tell you, having never been to one before. Highlights of the weekend included having my $25 a piece brand new tires installed (bought the tires from the Saab parts tent at about 7:15am on Friday morning).

But the real story was Dmitry and his adventures in his convertible. Since that story has been told around the world already (on our own forum, on The Saab Link in the US, and on the Trollhattan Saab blog out of Australia, I won’t go over it again here. If you haven’t read or heard about what happened, feel free to drop me an e-mail and I will be happy to fill you in.

October 5 Enhanced Driving School

For those of you not aware, our club is hosting our second driving school this year at Shannonville on Friday October 5, 2007. Cost for the day is $245 and includes coffee in the morning, lunch, and a very educational day of learning how to drive your own car.

Spots are filling up quickly and it is first come, first served. There is no preference for SOCCI members over any other paying driver, so be sure to get your applications in ASAP to lock up a spot at what has typically been the best attended school of the year for us.

And if you know anyone who might be interested, call them right away. We would prefer to fill this up as quickly as we can.

If you are interested in our schools but would like to see what they are about first, we are always looking for volunteers to help out during the day. It is a great way to see what happens, what people can learn. And you can see how the drivers out there improve from the first time they hit the track, to their performance mid day, to their last run. It really is very noticeable how much people can improve in one day.SOCCI Sponsorship

I would like to wish Ken Pavri and John Burnet best wishes and good luck as they embark on another adventure in Newfoundland in September. They are participating in their second Targa event.

As SOCCI is sponsoring the B&D Racing team this year, we have a link up on our main site to their site (that Blake was kind enough to help out with). The B&D site follows each day’s events and they are posting pictures when they can.

So far, it has been quite an adventure, just getting to the event itself, never mind driving in it.

On behalf of the entire club, I wish you good luck Ken and John … I’m sure you will make us all very proud.

Until we meet again, Happy Saabing!

Scott

Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

It is August and that brings us to SOC 07. By the time you get this in your hands, some of you will have spent the evening listening to Paul Stephenson talk about (and show pictures from) previous SOC events. He has been to quite a few of these in the past and has entered his 1992 900 Convertible into many competitions and I don’t think there are many people more qualified to talk about SOC than he is.

I will be heading down to SOC on Thursday, hopefully early in the day but that is going to depend upon how early we hook up with the folks driving in from Ottawa and Quebec. I’m hoping that we can collect those folks together with everyone from the GTA that is going and then grab those in the Hamilton/Niagara area and then pick up everyone else along the way … that would be quite a sight to see a large group of Canadians all show up in Troy together!

The SOC will also be the first chance that most of us will get to see the 2008 9-3 in person. I for one can’t wait!

Update at Saab Canada

August also brings other changes. Closest to us is that Magnus Hansson will be leaving Saab Canada and going back to Sweden. As of this moment, I don’t know who his replacement will be or exactly what their background is, but I do know that they will be coming directly from Sweden.

Hopefully we will see someone else with Magnus’s passion for the Saab brand in place.On behalf of The Saab Owners’ Club of Canada Inc, we wish Magnus and his family the best of luck and a safe trip back to their homeland.

Magnus will be once again working for Saab in Sweden in product development. I think Magnus will bring a Saab-ers perspective to the product team like few others could possibly do given that he has spent the past 2 years talking not only to customers (and a lot of new ones at that), but also given the amount of time he has spent with the fanatics like us. ;-)

EDS Update

We are also fully engaged in preparing for the October 5 Enhanced Driving School at Shannonville. But there is still a lot of work to be done. If you would like to help out, even if it is just a little, we would be happy to welcome you on-board our little team. There will also be lots of help needed the day of the event at the track, so if you are looking for an excuse to take the day off work, you’ve got one – just don’t tell them about all the fun you will be having, hanging around with other car people, taking about your hobbies all day long, sitting around over (free) lunch talking about how the students are improving … you get the idea. ;-)

Let myself, Fred, Ken, John B, or Patrick know if you are interested and we’ll set you up. Who knows, we might be able to set up the volunteers with a couple of laps around the track in one of the instructors cars (as a passenger of course).

Club Update

I would like to take a moment and welcome all of the new members to the club. Our numbers have been steadily climbing over the past 12 to 18 months and I attribute this to the existing club members letting others know about SOCCI. Please continue to spread the word … the more members we have in the club, the more activities we will be able to have and participate in and the less work it would be for those involved (yes, we are always looking for more help – I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that before).

I would also like to encourage all of the members to keep their eyes open for businesses that you think might be interested in working with the club, either by providing our members with discounts at their businesses or by advertising in the Gryphon/on the web site. Please contact Martin directly at discounts [at] saabclub [dot] ca or any of the Directors and we’ll be happy to look into it further.

SOCCI Sponsorship

I would like to wish Ken Pavri and John Burnet best wishes and good luck as they embark on another adventure in Newfoundland in September. They are participating in their second Targa event. This year brings a different approach to their competitive thoughts.

For those that don’t know, they are B&D Racing (as in Blind & Deaf – yes, that is correct, John is blind and Ken deaf). Last year they drove a black Acura Intergra with B&D Racing across the windshield. This year, they are running a bright orange and red Intergra with Blind & Deaf Racing very clearly spelled out (they are the attention seekers in the club afterall). The idea is simply to attract as much attention to themselves as they possibly can.

Another change for 2007 is that SOCCI will be one of their sponsors. That’s right, we will have our name and club logo on the side of the car for the whole world to see … and I can’t think of a more fitting car (well, a Saab would be great, but I digress) to have our logo on than one driven by a couple of our long standing members.

On behalf of the entire club, I wish you good luck Ken and John … I’m sure you will make us all very proud.

Until we meet again, Happy Saabing!

Scott

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

Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

June … the beginning of another summer.

And an event packed summer this one shall be.

As I am typing this, the International Saab Owner’s Convention and Saab Festival in Sweden is wrapping up.

The SOC 07 is coming up at the end of August just outside of Detroit … close enough for a lot of us to get to. Make sure to get your hotel room and event registration done sooner than later. You don’t want to miss out on the premiere Saab Owners event in North America.

Saturday July 7 will bring us the 3rd Annual SOCCI Niagara Region Winery Tour (see insert for more details). This event grows with each passing year and 2007 looks to be no different. Please either send me an e-mail directly at president [at] saabclub [dot] ca or post your plans to go on the forum. I need to make arrangements with the some of the wineries and they are going to be very interested in how large a group we are going to have.

The weekend of July 14/15 will be the 3rd Ohio get together of Saab owners. Most of these people know each other through sites like www.SaabCentral.com and www.SaabLink.com. I have been to both of the previous events and it is a lot f fun – a little camping, a lot of talking, some things cooking over an open fire … lots of fun had by all. It is held at Findley State Park and you can contact me if you have any questions.

On top of these events, there will also be many days at the track for the JL Racing – Saab team and I’m sure that we will have plenty of support, both as official SOCCI events and as individuals (don’t forget to cheer for John Burnet and Ken Pavri while you are there).

Now, with all of these things going on, I am happy to say that we have managed to fill one of the vacancies within the club operations.
Paul Stephenson will be taking on the role of Social Committee Chair with Guido Riccioni acting as Vice-Chair.
Together they will pick up the task of arranging our social get-togethers and ensuring that the club members know what is going on. They will also be keeping the calendar on the web site up to date with not just our own activities, but will add in whatever they may run across in their travels that may be of interest to our members.
Welcome aboard Paul and thank you both for helping out.

We are still looking for a Discounts Chair.
Without having someone step forward to take on this role, we will no longer be able to arrange discounts at dealerships, tire shops, etc for our members.
Since this always ranks as one of the main reasons to join the club, I have to assume that everyone feels this is an important part of SOCCI.
I am going to make the appeal one last time (and not nearly as eloquently as Fred has done it) … if there is anyone out there who has a couple of hours per month that they would like to put to good use, please contact Fred Hopper right away. This is an area of the club that could be quite exciting and will only demand of you what you are will to put forth in effort.
As Fred has said in the past, working with discounts has allowed him to become known to a lot of the shops we deal with and in doing so, ensures that he gets great service whenever he deals with them (it is the key position into the club from their perspective after all).

We are also still looking for a club Secretary.
This is not a position that we can just dissolve. Our club must have a Secretary per our by-laws.
As we have discussed, this person is accountable for any minutes that are taken at regular club meetings – that does not mean that person is required to take the minutes themselves. They are however, required to attend any and all Board of Directors meetings and record the minutes of those meetings themselves. At most, the Board meets once per month for a maximum of 2 hours.
If you are interested or if you know someone who might be interested, please contact either Fred or myself immediately and we will be happy to speak to those people.

Onto a topic closer to everyone’s hearts … Saabs!
I’m sure everyone is following the information flowing out of Sweden almost on a daily basis. The new 9-3 is ready to hit the streets this fall with an upgraded, well, just about everything. The Aero will be putting out an additional 5hp, the front and rear ends of the car have gone under the knife and have developed quite an aggressive look, and of course, the XWD will be available on the 9-3 platform in the new year (it will not be available when the 2008 models debut). And we are all waiting for official details on the "Black Turbo". Of course, no one is talking about that car except Saab owners and enthusiasts … and Saab employees are deflecting questions about that product like the wax on our cars deflects water!

Until we meet again, Happy Saabing!

Scott

Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

Well, the AGM took place and, surprise, surprise, there were no surprises! ;-)

We have refreshed the Board of Directors and I take pleasure in welcoming Patrick Turner and Bob English to the Board for the next 12 months. Guido, Fred, and I were all reinstated as Directors. Fred was also re-elected to position of Vice President.

Great Scott—The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

When you first get to read this article, we will likely have just finished our Annual General Meeting and I will not be President. That is just a matter of due process though and not desire. At each AGM, all of the elected members will either stand for re-election or step aside. As you know from last month’s Gryphon, I will be standing for re-election, both to the Board and as club President.

Preparing for the AGM

by Scott Hutchings, President

I wanted to give everyone a quick overview of how SOCCI operates. Considering that the AGM should be considered the most important meeting of the year for the club, it only seems fitting to me that everyone have a basic understanding of how we operate.

Great Scott - The President Writes

by Scott Hutchings, President

Another year gone.

Or looked at another way, another year is here.

Surprisingly enough, for a country known for having just about every climate imaginable, our winter this year has been a lot less than we would have imagined. Having said that, as I sit here typing this, parts of Southern Ontario from Newmarket to Barrie are being hammered by the worst storm of the year.