January 21 United Meeting Update

Date posted here does not necessarily match the date minutes were submitted.

January 23, 2006 at 1:04 am
Curt & Linda Hoffman

Steering Team notes January 21, 2006

Great turnout for the meeting. I am including the contact list and responsibility list again for reference. Please let me know if there are any errors.

Status of United:
Hotel is booked
Riverboat contract is in hand and will be signed once budget is forwarded. Boat will include buffet dinner and will run approximately $35/person prior to any addl charge we might include for the club
Logo is set
Permits are in hand and will be submitted for parks and street

New business
Banquet-
We agreed to have a three option dinner versus a buffet. We will have a prime rib, chicken and pasta dish available. Cash bar will be provided. Costs are approximately #30/ person before 20% service charge and taxes. I will determine where the hotel will allow us to split off a children’s menu for our pricing.
We will need to arrange for podium, microphone and other supplies. Curt will see what we can get from the hotel before seeking donations from others. We will not have a reception before hand.

Concours
Dave Tiettmeyer and Dave Cherry own Concourse. Bob Sharkey has offered to coordinate judging and help with overall process. DaveTiettmeyer was asked to contact Bob to coordinate the activities and prework. I will send contact information to Dave and Dave’s information to Bob.
George and I are working the concours lunch so will have that detail not included in the work Dave will need to complete.

Parts Room- Ron Seeholzer will coordinate and work up space requirements and layout. He will work with Bill on determining the best tables to use, e.g. rectangle of round. I believe the hotel could do either but they will discuss with hotel. I will place a request in the newsletter and forum asking people interested in parts space to contact Ron for needs. We agreed to restrict space to reasonable sized and relatively clean parts. Very large and or very greasy parts will need to remain in garage and can be shown separately. Ron will coordinate with Bill Kaufman the split of space with hospitality, hour requirements, when to close independently, etc.

We agreed to do a damage assessment ahead of the opening of the parts area so we had a benchmark in case there was any damage due to parts that the hotel might want us to be responsible for.

Hospitality- Bill Kaufman coordinating- Bill will budget to approximately $15 per person based on previous Uniteds. We discussed likely hours, menu items, etc. I will discuss coffee maker with hotel but likely we will have hospitality look to borrow makers and go with that. In addition we will need coolers for the beer, soda, etc. The room has a wet bar so water shouldn’t be a problem. Bill will contact hotel for ice location. We agreed to not, at least at this point, install a VCR / TV. Didn’t seem to be much interest in that lately.

Thursday Evening. Curt will continue to pursue possibility of group dinner on Thursday evening but try to either run it separately or informally to avoid complexity. Worst case we will include on registration as separate unbudgeted item if we can get a fixed price from the restaurant.

Directions and such. I will get maps and such from the Northern KY Visitor’s Bureau. Mike will also include notations on where everything is and how to get there in the in the registration booklet.

Publicity- I will continue to send in newsletter items. We are now on the web site as well. Today I sent a note to the Tiger list. Mike will coordinate notifying the Alpine group. I will send Mike the note I used with the Tiger list and plan to use with CAT and STOA. I will also drop a small ad, hopefully free, in as many places as I can find as we get closer including Hemmings, Classic Car and others.

Registration- Mike is coordinating with Jack Sawyer. We discussed methods of identifying who has signed up for what, name tags, split of costs etc. I will provide the ultimate costs, once established to Registration for building the form. The registration fee will include all costs not separately signed up for, e.g. the boat cruise, and some allowance for the club. We agreed to have a daily fee for those coming in who only want parts and hospitality. This will likely be around $10. Last minute registrations will likely not be accommodated for the boat or the banquet due to the need to give longer notice to both on final numbers.

Autocross- Doug is still working this item. He and Hugh discussed and will continue to work to line up a group for our Sunday. We will need the cost for this event as well for our registration form.

Rally- Dave Cherry is coordinating. I drove the Augusta route we discussed last time. It is about 40 miles. If we do this route we will likely need to get out of the main area before heading East since it is a little busy getting through Newport, but doable. If we do this people would be left in Augusta and have the option to come back the same way or take the ferry over to Ohio and come back on the north side of the river. We would have to supply directions for this. Dave was not at the meeting but he had mentioned he had some other ideas for a rally so we will leave this to Dave to finalize. I will contact Dave later to ensure he is ok with this.

Security- given we have a locked garage we are not planning on security at this time. We will establish a lock up time for the garage that everyone using will need to honor. Likely we will do something like lock up at 11:00 and open up at 7:00 or similar.

We did agree the Concours group may have to look at a volunteer team to patrol the cars to protect them given we will be along a public street and could have families walking around unfamiliar with collector cars protocol.

Trophies – I am working this and received some ideas from George. I also have the other United info and some local places as well. I will visit a couple before deciding. We agreed to go with etched plaques containing our logo for our trophies matching our dash plaques. We will make the first place slightly larger then the 2nd and 3rd.

Shirts – I am working this area. For shirts we agreed to go with a polo shirt with a small logo on the front “pocket” area. The shirt may not actually have a pocket. We will go with a colored shirt versus white.

TAC process- I discussed with Tom Calvert and he is prepared to do TAC sessions at the united. I will solicit interest ahead of time through the newsletter so we have an idea of the number.

Car Wash- I will buy the supplies for this small item

Tech Sessions- we have the dyno session at Paul’s on Friday PM. Hugh is coordinating. Mike will discuss with Ian and others to see if there would be an Alpine or other session that could be put on at the same time since the dyno session would be likely of more interest to the tiger folks. I will also solicit input from the club on a general interest one for Sunday. We will not conduct one on Saturday due to the likelihood of MainStrasse being popular enough that we wouldn’t get people back in for a session. There wasn’t much interest in donating a top to Curt and having someone install it on his car as a tech session.

I will continue to work through email and we will likely set up another live meeting is a few months to ensure we are on track.

Other volunteers- For those not specifically assigned as an owner of an area, our hospitality area and registration area will need a good deal of help, particularly as we get into registration and the actual event. Please forward your name to Ron or Bill if you would like to help there.

Thanks for coming and helping with the work.

Curt

Area of Responsibility Leader

Overall United Coordination Curt Hoffman
Budget Curt Hoffman
Publicity Curt Hoffman
Accommodations George Meinhardt
Concourse Location George Meinhardt
Autocross Doug Jennings
Trophies
Design and purchase
Classes and numbers
George Meinhardt
Doug Jennings
Registration
Pre-registration
United on-site registration
Mike Phillips / Jack & Jan Sawyer
Logo George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman
T shirts, Dash Plaques (numbers to order with our logo) George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman
Awards Banquet agenda Curt Hoffman
General and Board meetings Curt Hoffman
Concours Dave Tiettmeyer / Dave Cherry
Tech Sessions Hugh Guynes
Special Event (rally, etc) Dave Cherry
George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman to help
Saturday special event George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman
Hospitality William Kaufman
Parts Room Ron Seeholzer
Security None
Trinkets and Trash None

January 23, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Fred Baum

Wow, you certainly have your ducks in a row! ?

United Meeting Update

January 23, 2006 at 1:04 am
Curt & Linda Hoffman

Steering Team notes January 21, 2006

Great turnout for the meeting. I am including the contact list and responsibility list again for reference. Please let me know if there are any errors.

Status of United:
Hotel is booked
Riverboat contract is in hand and will be signed once budget is forwarded. Boat will include buffet dinner and will run approximately $35/person prior to any addl charge we might include for the club
Logo is set
Permits are in hand and will be submitted for parks and street

New business
Banquet-
We agreed to have a three option dinner versus a buffet. We will have a prime rib, chicken and pasta dish available. Cash bar will be provided. Costs are approximately #30/ person before 20% service charge and taxes. I will determine where the hotel will allow us to split off a children’s menu for our pricing.
We will need to arrange for podium, microphone and other supplies. Curt will see what we can get from the hotel before seeking donations from others. We will not have a reception before hand.

Concours
Dave Tiettmeyer and Dave Cherry own Concourse. Bob Sharkey has offered to coordinate judging and help with overall process. DaveTiettmeyer was asked to contact Bob to coordinate the activities and prework. I will send contact information to Dave and Dave’s information to Bob.
George and I are working the concours lunch so will have that detail not included in the work Dave will need to complete.

Parts Room- Ron Seeholzer will coordinate and work up space requirements and layout. He will work with Bill on determining the best tables to use, e.g. rectangle of round. I believe the hotel could do either but they will discuss with hotel. I will place a request in the newsletter and forum asking people interested in parts space to contact Ron for needs. We agreed to restrict space to reasonable sized and relatively clean parts. Very large and or very greasy parts will need to remain in garage and can be shown separately. Ron will coordinate with Bill Kaufman the split of space with hospitality, hour requirements, when to close independently, etc.

We agreed to do a damage assessment ahead of the opening of the parts area so we had a benchmark in case there was any damage due to parts that the hotel might want us to be responsible for.

Hospitality- Bill Kaufman coordinating- Bill will budget to approximately $15 per person based on previous Uniteds. We discussed likely hours, menu items, etc. I will discuss coffee maker with hotel but likely we will have hospitality look to borrow makers and go with that. In addition we will need coolers for the beer, soda, etc. The room has a wet bar so water shouldn’t be a problem. Bill will contact hotel for ice location. We agreed to not, at least at this point, install a VCR / TV. Didn’t seem to be much interest in that lately.

Thursday Evening. Curt will continue to pursue possibility of group dinner on Thursday evening but try to either run it separately or informally to avoid complexity. Worst case we will include on registration as separate unbudgeted item if we can get a fixed price from the restaurant.

Directions and such. I will get maps and such from the Northern KY Visitor’s Bureau. Mike will also include notations on where everything is and how to get there in the in the registration booklet.

Publicity- I will continue to send in newsletter items. We are now on the web site as well. Today I sent a note to the Tiger list. Mike will coordinate notifying the Alpine group. I will send Mike the note I used with the Tiger list and plan to use with CAT and STOA. I will also drop a small ad, hopefully free, in as many places as I can find as we get closer including Hemmings, Classic Car and others.

Registration- Mike is coordinating with Jack Sawyer. We discussed methods of identifying who has signed up for what, name tags, split of costs etc. I will provide the ultimate costs, once established to Registration for building the form. The registration fee will include all costs not separately signed up for, e.g. the boat cruise, and some allowance for the club. We agreed to have a daily fee for those coming in who only want parts and hospitality. This will likely be around $10. Last minute registrations will likely not be accommodated for the boat or the banquet due to the need to give longer notice to both on final numbers.

Autocross- Doug is still working this item. He and Hugh discussed and will continue to work to line up a group for our Sunday. We will need the cost for this event as well for our registration form.

Rally- Dave Cherry is coordinating. I drove the Augusta route we discussed last time. It is about 40 miles. If we do this route we will likely need to get out of the main area before heading East since it is a little busy getting through Newport, but doable. If we do this people would be left in Augusta and have the option to come back the same way or take the ferry over to Ohio and come back on the north side of the river. We would have to supply directions for this. Dave was not at the meeting but he had mentioned he had some other ideas for a rally so we will leave this to Dave to finalize. I will contact Dave later to ensure he is ok with this.

Security- given we have a locked garage we are not planning on security at this time. We will establish a lock up time for the garage that everyone using will need to honor. Likely we will do something like lock up at 11:00 and open up at 7:00 or similar.

We did agree the Concours group may have to look at a volunteer team to patrol the cars to protect them given we will be along a public street and could have families walking around unfamiliar with collector cars protocol.

Trophies – I am working this and received some ideas from George. I also have the other United info and some local places as well. I will visit a couple before deciding. We agreed to go with etched plaques containing our logo for our trophies matching our dash plaques. We will make the first place slightly larger then the 2nd and 3rd.

Shirts – I am working this area. For shirts we agreed to go with a polo shirt with a small logo on the front “pocket” area. The shirt may not actually have a pocket. We will go with a colored shirt versus white.

TAC process- I discussed with Tom Calvert and he is prepared to do TAC sessions at the united. I will solicit interest ahead of time through the newsletter so we have an idea of the number.

Car Wash- I will buy the supplies for this small item

Tech Sessions- we have the dyno session at Paul’s on Friday PM. Hugh is coordinating. Mike will discuss with Ian and others to see if there would be an Alpine or other session that could be put on at the same time since the dyno session would be likely of more interest to the tiger folks. I will also solicit input from the club on a general interest one for Sunday. We will not conduct one on Saturday due to the likelihood of MainStrasse being popular enough that we wouldn’t get people back in for a session. There wasn’t much interest in donating a top to Curt and having someone install it on his car as a tech session.

I will continue to work through email and we will likely set up another live meeting is a few months to ensure we are on track.

Other volunteers- For those not specifically assigned as an owner of an area, our hospitality area and registration area will need a good deal of help, particularly as we get into registration and the actual event. Please forward your name to Ron or Bill if you would like to help there.

Thanks for coming and helping with the work.

Curt

Area of Responsibility Leader

Overall United Coordination Curt Hoffman
Budget Curt Hoffman
Publicity Curt Hoffman
Accommodations George Meinhardt
Concourse Location George Meinhardt
Autocross Doug Jennings
Trophies
Design and purchase
Classes and numbers
George Meinhardt
Doug Jennings
Registration
Pre-registration
United on-site registration
Mike Phillips / Jack & Jan Sawyer
Logo George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman
T shirts, Dash Plaques (numbers to order with our logo) George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman
Awards Banquet agenda Curt Hoffman
General and Board meetings Curt Hoffman
Concours Dave Tiettmeyer / Dave Cherry
Tech Sessions Hugh Guynes
Special Event (rally, etc) Dave Cherry
George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman to help
Saturday special event George Meinhardt / Curt Hoffman
Hospitality William Kaufman
Parts Room Ron Seeholzer
Security None
Trinkets and Trash None


January 23, 2006 at 1:31 am
Curt & Linda Hoffman

I sent this email as well- but just in case I missed someone

Board of Directors

There are a few items we do not have costs on yet, but there are a few items where I will need to spend some money.

I have to pay a $50 permit fee for the park where we will have our Concours. I will pay with a personal check for now but I cannot wait beyond this week to get it in or it expires. If there is an issue with this please let me know right away.

Another problem area may be the boat cruise. I have to work that this week. The contract they sent states to pay money now. I will see if I really have to do this and if so, how much. I am assuming some type of deposit should hold the boat.

Beyond that, it looks like our budget for known items now based on a preliminary look will be approximately:

Trophies: $12 – $15 each approx 30 total = $450
Dash plaques- 100 @ $1.00 = $100
Shirts: 100 @ $15 $1500
Banquet: approx $32/ meal + 20% service fee + tax approx $40 for 125 people = $5000
Dinner Cruise- 125 @ $37 = $4625
Concours lunch – 125 @ $25 = $3125 (don’t have any estimates yet- this was last year’s cost)
Hospitality- 125 @$15 = $1875 (last year’s cost)
Other supplies like printing, car wash, registration materials, etc. still need to be estimated.
Autocross-no idea yet- have seen numbers like $25 each for maybe 40 people= $1000
Publicity- maybe a few bucks if necessary for an event ad but hoping for all free

More to follow as things get final.

Curt

Concours Rules

Date posted here does not necessarily match the date minutes were submitted.


October 6, 2005 at 6:30 pm
Bob & Judy Sharkey


This message is to all the BOD members. As the current Concours Rules Chairperson I would like to have a few questions answered before we continue this project.

After conducting the Concours event at the United this year, I need to understand the reason the club feels that the Concours rules/judging sheets need to be changed. The direction I received before the United was to try and convert TE/AE Concours rules/judging sheets to the style of the Alpha club Conours. The Alpha style is good for Stock car classes, but I don’t think it will work for our Personalized class.

First, can someone tell me what the reason is for changing the rules/judging sheets? Second, if we convert the Stock class rules/judging sheets to the Alpha style we will have two different sets of Concours rules/judging sheets and does the club want this result? Third, did anyone that attended United XXV here of problems with Concours event rules/judging?

I would like to get some information/direction before we invest a lot of effort in Concours rules/judging sheet changes that do not reflect the direction the club really wants to go.

Thanks for your help,
Bob Sharkey



October 7, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Anthony & Susan DiBattista


Bob,

I will leave these discussions to the BOD. I do not have enough experience with this issue to be of assistance at this point. I feel we need no changes to the Judging sheets, Awards, or Classes.

I did not hear anything negative about the judging of United XXV. I only heard positive comments about your dedication and the dedication of your Judging crew.

I think just adding more technical references to the bottom of the judging sheet as we discussed is the key.

I want to thank you for continuing your efforts to help TE/AE be the best Sunbeam club in the USA if not the world!

Best Regards,



October 12, 2005 at 11:57 pm
Eric and Bonnie Gibeaut

Hi Bob
I thought the concours went very well this year-you did a fine job organizing it and recruiting judges and help from a diverse group! It has been a few years since I helped judge any cars and I enjoyed it. I can’t remember just why a change to the Alfa Romeo Club’s rules was recommended-can anyone refresh my memory? Thanks, Eric.



October 13, 2005 at 1:38 am
jim-morrison

The reason we were considering the Alpha rules was that it was a good objective way of judging stock cars. We never got our arms around how to do Personalized.

I have run the Concours or been a judge for as many years as I can remember and because of this have not seen all the cars at any show in years. I am not alone in this either. One thing to seriously consider is to make it all Popular vote and let the 20 people who are consumed by the Concours actually get to enjoy the event. It is the same folks every year.



October 23, 2005 at 5:58 am
Tom & Joanne Ehrhart

Bob, this is response to your Oct 6 query regarding reason for rules/sheet changes.

I believe it is to improve objectivity of the judging process. It was being done in two ways.

1. Reducing the subjective influence of the judges “impression” in each section which represented approximately 25% of the overall score in each section.
2. Add more measurable or specific points to judge.

As you know, we reduced the points for judges “impression” at this last United. It was a small step. Nothing has been done about # 2. The Alfa standards came along and has been embraced as a good standard to follow.

I suspect the next issue for the BOD to determine the directions it wants to take on this issue.

That is,
1. Adopt the Alfa standards.
2. Judge or not to judge personalized.

You have done a lot of work with the Alfa manual and much needs to be done for sure. I’ll be glad to help and perhaps we could recruit some others too should we decide to adopt.

With respect to Personalized, I realize the same people typically judge at each United and miss out on the activities of the moment. In other words it is work. It is easy to use this as an excuse to not judge personalized. But I consider this the wrong reason. We need to decide the value of judging personalized based on merit in the marque. The reality is that most Tigers fit the personalized class as do many Alpines. I proposed a judging process in 2002/2003 era that allowed for objective judging of stock and personalized using virtually the same judging process.
So what do we do next?



October 26, 2005 at 2:43 pm
John & Gwen Logan Sr.

I will agree with Jim M. “One thing to seriously consider is to make it all Popular vote and let the 20 people who are consumed by the Concurs actually get to enjoy the event. It is the same folks every year.”

I don’t think there is enough time enlighten the judges during a United to have the knowledge or respect of modifications to personalized cars. Some tend to judge personalized modifications as though they should be stock.



November 7, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Anthony & Susan DiBattista

Officers and BOD,

I thought there would be more discussion on this important issue. If we do decide to change the Concours rules it will take a good amount of time to implement the changes. If we do change I would like to use the new rules at United XXVI.

I’m sure you have all read Jim Anderson’s letter printed in the Rootes Review that covered this issue and others. If there is no more discussion on this thread then I will call for a vote on “do we need a Concours rules change?” If it’s “NO” then its a dead issue. If the vote is “YES” then we must discuss ideas for the changes. At this point I do not know what else I can do as this discussion has stalled.

Please give me your thoughts. If there are no new ideas introduced by 11-12-05 then I will call for a vote on the above issue. If discussions continue and a course of action is laid out then I will delay the vote.

Best Regards,



November 7, 2005 at 8:08 pm
jim-morrison

Anthony,

A suggestion…….since we will have two new Board Members as of a few weeks from now and because this is a very important topic, I suggest you postpone the vote and discussion until the new folks are on board.

We should get the views of the new folks who will have to live with and by the decision.

If you want to proceed, I understand and will vote and discuss.



November 8, 2005 at 2:41 am
Steve & Carole Halbrook

We’ve only attended two United events and thought that the judging was very well done at both. I thought that I had learned quite abit about Tigers over the years, but Robert Jaarsma taught me a few new items at the recent event.

My suggestion is to recruit more judges. It is true that you don’t get to spend as much time visiting when you’re judging, but you do get to spend some real quality time looking at each car. Carole and I were trained in Central Florida to judge open car shows several years ago and enjoyed “studying” the cars we judged. Why not seek volunteers, develop a standard inspection sheet (if the current needs improvement), train them and try to come up with a smaller judge to car ratio for the events?

Steve Halbrook



November 8, 2005 at 9:03 pm
John & Gwen Logan Sr.

To Clarify what I said before, I don’t think there is enough time enlighten the judges during a United to have the knowledge or respect of modifications to personalized cars. Some tend to judge personalized modifications as though they should be stock.



November 9, 2005 at 11:51 pm
dan-fitzgerald

I thought the judging went extremely well this past year. Kudos to Bob and crew for this.

As most of you know I am a purist and like the stock class and also believe that the Personalized class should be a popular vote. But what I would like to see in the Stock class is more Alpine/Tiger experts helping those with improving their cars for the next time.

Dan



November 11, 2005 at 3:44 pm
Robert and Mariet Jaarsma

I agree with Dan, the importance of the concourse is NOT to get that first prize, but to learn more about the cars. This will give participants ideas for the future. This is particularly important for novices.
Robert



November 12, 2005 at 3:15 am
Tom & Joanne Ehrhart

Gee, I like Steves approach. Standardized judging sheets and lower judging to car ratio. It has merit.

I believe we have standardized judging sheets in the making. Our present sheets are good in concept but need refinement so less skilled but yet qualified judges can make objective decisions. Actually these sheets have been proposed in the past but have not been used. Adoption of the Alfa rules would be a great help here.

It may be easier to recruit more judges if the workload was parceled out and sheets were more objective.

Judging only stock certainly reduces judging workload. But I do believe there should be some form of judging for personalized. While pop vote is certainly warranted and has value, there are too many cars in the Personalized class to pass off to the masses. The value of an award can be increased if their was objective judging by a select group of experts in the marque. The award would have more credibility and prestige than a pop vote.



November 12, 2005 at 4:54 am
Chuck & Wanda King


The problem with judging the personalized classes is, by definition a large component of it has to do with whether the changes from stock are appealing to the person viewing them. If a change was instituted with great care and precision, but looked like crap (in my mind), it wouldn’t have appeal, and in my opinion shouldn’t have points for greatly executed crap. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What I may not like, many others may.

The stock classes can have true concours judging because they have absolute standards. Anything outside of that, no matter how well executed come down to whether it’s deemed to be pleasing or appropriate to the person viewing or judging it. For that reason I feel that anything outside the stock classes should be by popular vote, even if they’re not “worthy” of judging them.



November 12, 2005 at 6:01 pm
Anthony & Susan DiBattista


Officers, BOD, and Regional Representatives,

Keep the discussion going. I will NOT call for a vote at this time. I hope we will be ready for that next step at the BOD meeting.

Best Regards,