January 19, 2006 Hello, and Happy New Year to all members, I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and New Years. Certainly, the weather has been more co-operative if you like the outdoors -- although we could use more ice, and less slush! It's even been tempting to get the favourite car out; but one look at the salty roads brings reality back quickly. Time now to get the ball rolling, and advise you that our first meeting of the year will be on Thursday, Feb. 02, 2006, at the Comfort Inn, 7:00 PM as usual. I have received quite a bit of e-correspondence, which I have not forwarded yet. (I thought we could all use a winter break) On the agenda will be our year end finances, some requests to set up booths at Carfest, and the first of the summer's event announcements. Dryden and Fort Frances seem to be getting more pro-active in advertising their events, which is great. It means we now have good shows in every Northwestern Ontario city. March is traditionally our elections month. This year, the positions of President and Secretary expire; plus we are currently running without a V.P., due to the resignation of Mike Godding last fall. I regret that I will be stepping down as Secretary at the end of my term, and giving up all my duties, except to sit on the Carfest Committee. I have accepted a full time job at Walsten Air Service, as their Operations Manager, and I expect that this will be quite a learning curve, especially for the first year; so I need to clear the decks. Please give serious consideration to standing for a position, as the club needs YOU. We have come a long way in the last few years. Everything is in place for the club to go forward smoothly and improve on an already great summer schedule of Show 'N Shines and other events, but it needs YOUR participation. See you on the streets Rick ============================================================ March 3, 2006 Ladies and Gentlemen, Last night's meeting was very successful. We now have a full slate of officers and a good commitment on the part of everyone to proceed "full steam ahead". Re-elected to the position of El Presidente is Peter Olson, for a 2 year term. Elected to the position of Vice-President is Richard Turcotte. (Initially, for a 1 year term, to regain our staggered expiry) Re-elected to the position of Secretary is Rick Lovelace, for a 2 year term. Maintaining his position of Treasurer is Chris Dexter. (for the balance of his 2 year term) We agreed to separate out some of the duties that have evolved to the Secretary, thus making the position more agreeable. More on that later. We agreed to renew our liability insurance ($918.00) for another year, at which time NAAACCC expects that they will have insurance available in Ontario, and for unincorporated clubs such as ours. We agreed to renew the lease on our mailbox for another year. (P.O. Box 616, Kenora, Ontario, P9N 3X6) We collected several membership renewals, which are now due; and gave out new membership cards. Congratulations to the new executive, and to the members for their positive contributions last night. Rick ============================================================ June 2, 2006 A quick update to all... Last night's meeting was well attended, and we started to talk Carfest, in spite of ourselves. We moved things along, and got people to commit to tasks, so we are underway. Lots of good car talk, and John Karwacki is doing a great job of organising our Wednesday night cruises. We met some new members, so welcome to Pierre Dufresne, and to Lloyd and Marilyn Froment. Rick ============================================================ July 8, 2006 Hello to all... Well, last Thursday's meeting was eventful and productive. The important news is that we now have a new Secretary. Irene Harder has reluctantly agreed to take on this important function. As you know, the former secretary has been falling down on the job recently, so this will be a welcome change, with some new energy and ideas! On another, less important note, Rick Lovelace was elected to the position of President -- one step above his level of competency! I look forward to leading the club through the next year or two, and hope to continue the good work of the last few years; during which Peter Olson managed to grow the club from about 12 members, to its current 35 -- 40. Well Done, Pete, and Thank You for your contributions. Pete has also left us with a meticulous list of things to look after in organising Carfest, and this list will form the framework of the show going forward. We were able to assign some key jobs to many volunteers, and I would like to thank them for taking on these duties. I am already getting emails and "cc's" that indicate they are hard at work. Speaking of which, I have to get to work, so I'll cut this short, with more to follow. See you on the streets. Rick ============================================================ August 24, 2006 Well guess what people, I'm sure not as efficient as your last secretary, but I will try and keep you as up to date as he did. We have had a great time this summer, thanks to the hard work of a certain Johnny K. He has taken us hither and yon on our Wednesday night cruises. We have been to Redditt for a great pickerel supper, to Sioux Narrows for a treacherous game of mini golf and a cruise through Rushing River Park which the young campers sure enjoyed. We had a great barbecue at the Passion Pit and a lot more. It has been fun to see so many of the spouses out which certainly adds to the social time together and hopefully this will continue. As for the SHOW at Harbourfest, you couldn't beat it! Thank you to all the volunteers and there was certainly a lot of them, including many new members. The barbecue afterwards was a great time (thank you Bill and Be) -- the food was delicious! Welcome to all our new members and it is certainly fun to see you take part in all our endeavours, please keep coming out. There is so much more which has gone on in this last month, but I have just given you a taste of it. At this time I would also like to thank Theresa and the gang for the burgers, etc. at the car show -- your food was great! Thank you also to the gang who keeps our web site up to date, especially Mark. It's great to go on and see all the cars on display. Remember, cruising time may be short, but we can still have fun all winter, so let us know what your ideas are. Our social time should continue all year round... the Christmas Parade and party included. Perhaps this year we could have a dance at our Christmas Dinner and really get know each other? Get your thinking caps on. Our next club meeting is September 7, 2006 at 7:00 PM in our regular room at the Comfort Inn. Please come and join us. Check out the web site for all current cruises and shows. If you are interested, we are going to Beausejour on August 27, 2006 and several of us will be leaving from McDiarmid's parking lot at 9:00 am sharp. Have fun cruising, Irene ============================================================ October 31, 2006 Well guys, here is another newsletter, just to keep you dreaming of cruising next spring. Mother Nature sure threw us a loop this month, but we can think of warmer times. The last cruise of the season was a great time with twenty cars making the cruise to Rushing River. There was a slight hitch in the plans, but it worked in our favour and we all ended up back at Haps for a great social hour. Thanks again to Johnny K. for organizing another great outing. On that note, Johnny was presented with a trophy at our October meeting -- First Place 2006 -- for the best events guy. Congrats! Of course this means he has to continue doing the same for next season as he did such a great job this year. On another note, don't all of you tuck your cars away just yet. We need a vehicle for the Santa Claus Parade -- any volunteers? If you decide you would like to use your vehicle please let Rick know ASAP. Volunteers are also needed to put the float together -- the more the merrier, hope to see you there. The time and date will be posted on the web site sometime in November. I know the goblins and witches haven't visited yet but we have a date for the Christmas party -- December 9 -- make sure to keep that date open. Last years meal was great! I will post ticket prices after the next meeting. There is another thank you due at this time. Dean Brennan has updated the winner's plaques on the Ron Lowes Memorial Trophy -- thank you so much. For those of you who didn't know, the winner this year was Bob Johnson from Manitoba. He sent a thank you note to the club with pictures of his beauty. Just as a matter of interest, the club finances are healthy so we are able to make a few donations back to the community. $500.00 dollars was presented to Triple Play on October 10th on behalf of the club. Hopefully this helps out some of our young admirers. We will be making another presentation to the Miracle Marathon in November and we still have another $500.00 to donate which will be decided on in November. Thank you to all who have participated and made these donations possible. Remember there will be no meeting in December (the parade and Christmas party should keep us busy enough). Hope to see you at the November meeting on November 9th at 7:00 pm at the Walsten Hanger at the Kenora Airport. That's it for now. If you have anything you would like in the newsletter, please give me a call and we'll see what we can do. Happy Halloween, Irene