|
|
|
This past Saturday Jan and I and about 22 other Jersey Late Greats Members met at Wild Flowers Too Restaurant for this years Annual Banquet. Al Bernotas, Mike Berry and Steve Calandra arrived early to set things up. Steve provided the Audio, Mike provided the Video, and Al coordinated all the arrangements with the restaurant and made sure everything went smoothly.
Wild Flowers Too provided a wonderful buffet style dinner. They even had chicken parmesan, a club favorite. After everyone had their fill, we took time to recognize our club officers who do a tremendous job every month keeping the club running smoothly. Thank you.
This past year the Jersey Late Greats hosted the International Late Great Chevy Convention in Princeton, New Jersey. As everyone knows, the convention was a great success. We had a tremendous turn out of members to help work the convention. The success of our Princeton Convention was truly a result of the combined effort put forth by every member that attended. Weather you were there for a day, the week, or worked on the CTCC committee, every contribution helped and was appreciated. In addition to hard work, it takes a strong leader to pull off an event like an International Convention. Our club is fortunate because we had two leaders heading up this event. Co-Chairpersons Mike Berry and Maureen Humphreys. Mike and Maureen were presented beautiful hand crafted commemorative clocks inrecognition for their hard work, dedication and outstanding leadership put forth in the 2005 Jersey Late Greats Princeton Convention.
An Annual Banquet would not be a Jersey Late Greats Banquet with out the “Gag Awards”. This year was no exception. John Dennery never fails to amaze us with his creativity and clever delivery of these awards. These awards have become a tradition with the Jersey Late Greats. And for me, they are my favorite part of the banquet. Keep up the good work John!
Another tradition of the Jersey Late Greats is to recognize one member who during the course of the year has contributed to the club and hobby above and beyond what is expected. The Jersey Late Greats Member of the Year is always a difficult selection for the Board to decide upon, because there can be only one. This years Member of the Year Co-Chaired the Princeton Convention, worked on a number of committees, managed to publish the club newsletter every month with out dropping a beat, and avoided being thrown out of his house for spending to much time on the car club. I am please to announce that this year’s Jersey Late Greats Member of the Year goes to Mike Berry.
Okay, enough about the banquet. What’s coming up that you should mark on your calendar? Our next meeting, March 12, will be March Model Madness at the Bordentown Community Center. Have you ever wondered how some guys can build model cars that look so realistic? Well here is your chance to find out. Jim Thackray and Mike Berry will be conducting our next Tech Session “March Model Madness”. Be sure to check this out.
The Jersey Late Greats Annual Junk Yard run is March 24th and 25th. Please contact Mike Berry if you are planning to attend. The restaurant and bar we have lined up for Friday night also has a comedy club. I believe there will be two shows Friday night. We saw some previews of this fantastic Junk Yard in Mike’s photo presentation at the Banquet. Interested? Call Mike. 732-291-7668.
We will be making plans at our March meeting for the Englishtown Show and Flea Market. The club plans to set up and man a Membership Information table. We hope to promote the club and get our information out to people that may have an interest in joining the Jersey Late Greats. Also at our March meeting we will begin discussions about expanding the Jersey Late Greats to include Chevrolets from 1958 to 1972. If you have an opinion about this, and I know you do, please plan to attend the March meeting. We want to have as much input as we can get on this subject, so please come out and let us know what you think.
Well that’s just about all I have to write about for now. I thank everyone for coming to the annual banquet, and hope to see you again at one of the upcoming club events. Until then …