Greetings Fellow HCP Club Members,
The past month has indeed represented unprecedented times for us and most importantly I hope that you and your families are all staying healthy and doing well!
Our club continues to be good citizens complying with NY State’s PAUSE (cancellation of non-essential gatherings of individuals of any size for any reason e.g. parties, celebrations or other social events) which has now been extended through May 15th.
Nonetheless, I would like to report on a few items that have occurred:
- The HCP Executive Board and Chairpersons held our monthly Board meeting on April 6th
- PCA Zone 1 held its Spring President’s meeting this past Saturday.
- Both of these meetings were held by teleconference.
HCP PCA key items to report:
- Want to help or do you need help?: The club is extending an offer to club members who may need help at this time with small safe errands such as shopping, medication pick-up, etc. We will need volunteers to pair up with people who may need some assistance. Volunteers and those needing help are to send an email to hcppca1959@gmail.com letting us know if you want to help, need help, where you live, your phone number, etc.
- Social Activities: Our next planned event is June 21st which will be our Cars & Coffee at Saratoga Auto Museum followed by a drive culminating in our annual Picnic at Saratoga Spa State Park. In the event that the Covid-19 situation improves before June, we do have some other activities lined up that we can activate quickly to get our club back together.
- Driver’s Education: Our “Cups & Saucers” Advanced DE event on May 6-7 has been cancelled. Very fortunately for us, Watkins Glen racetrack initiated the event cancellation due to NY PAUSE and, as a result, we will receive our $9500 deposit back in full.
- Autocross: Our first autocross originally planned in June is of course pending.
- Treasurer Report: We started March with $43,507 and ended with $42,280. Major expenses in March were the new member’s luncheon, 2019 tax preparation services and the June picnic pavilion deposit. Obviously, our expenses remain modest at this time and we are expecting the $9500 refund from Watkins Glen soon.
- Membership: As of today, we have 396 primary and 252 co-members. Since beginning of March, we have had 6 new members join.
- May General Club Membership Meeting: I am considering that we do a general club monthly meeting on May 4th. This would be by teleconference. Confirmation of this meeting and details will be forthcoming.
PCA Zone 1 President’s Meeting:
- Yesterday Mike Bryan, our PCA Zone 1 Representative, convened the Spring 2020 Zone1 President’s meeting which brought together the presidents of all of 17 regions within Zone1.
- In 2019, PCA added 3913 new member and Zone1 added 508. PCA has a total of 135,000 members and co-members altogether.
- In light of Covid-19, PCA has cancelled the Apr 29 – May 3 Treffen at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- Additionally, PCA has also cancelled this year’s June 21-27 Porsche Parade in Palm Springs, CA.
- The various regions in Zone1 discussed how they were managing through the Covid-19 situation and shared ideas for things they were doing during this shelter-in-place time. The HCP Board will discuss some of these ideas at our next Board meeting. In general, all driving and social gathering events have been cancelled across the entirety of Zone1 – we are not alone or unique in this regard.
- Our own HCP region member and PCA National secretary Aaron Ambrosino gave us all a refresher on insurance and risk management. PCA is very fortunate to have excellent and very cost-effective liability insurance largely due to PCA’s excellent safety record and comprehensive guidelines for all of the activities within PCA.
- As of now, the “Zone1 48 Hours at the Glen” HPDE on June 12-14 is currently open for registration on clubregistration.net . If you are looking for a great DE at Watkins Glen, please register! In the event of cancellation by the track or the event hosts, all registrants will receive a refund. Please take note of the policy for cancellations made by the individual as these will be subject to the event’s refund policy if the DE event does indeed occur.
- The “Zone1 Autocross” held in mid-Sept is currently up in the air as all autocross events at Devens Airfield in Ayer, MA have been suspended until further notice. More to come on this as the year progresses.
Anyway, I hope you find these items of some interest to you – at least something to read quickly. Our club will survive this current situation and hopefully soon, we will be able to safely gather again and enjoy our Porsches and each other’s friendship.
Stay Healthy!
With best regards,
John Pellerin, President HCP (and his 2 raring-to-go Porsches)
