Awards are just as real, even when delivered virtually!
MOST of the planned 65th Porsche Parade didn’t happen. PCA merchandise sold out quickly online as soon as the cancelation was announced. Perhaps this was as a future collectible, since next year’s Porsche Parade in French Lick Indiana, will now become the “65th”. But there was ONE element of the 65th Porsche Parade that actually did happen. And it was one of the most important events. The event was a virtual alternative to the highlights of two banquet nights normally held at parade. This was the presentation of all of the awards, including website, newsletter, and other awards, as well as the four coveted National Awards. The presentations were held “live” on PCA’s YouTube channel earlier this week. As I write this, you can still go to PCA.org and navigate to a full video of the presentation ceremony. Kudos to PCA’s Executive Council and to Michael (and Lisa) Soriano, National Awards Chair (and first-award lady) for making lemons out of lemonade.
Zone 9 regions, while NEVER awarded to the degree that we all would like to see, were well represented during the ceremony. Here’s the rundown-
At the National Award level, the Alpine Mountain Region received honorable mention in the PCA Charity Award. Great recognition. Website and Newsletter awards are based on the size of the regions from 1 through 5 for websites, and 1 through 6 for newsletters (I know….don’t ask why).
Our own West Texas region took 2nd place in the class I website category. And the Roadrunner region took two awards, a 3rd place for their “Ramblings” newsletter and a 2nd place for their website, both in Class IV.
As one who gets quite involved in pressing region leaders across the zone to submit nominations for all of these awards, I have to say that every year I come away proud and disappointed at the same time. You see, I get to read all of the nominations as they get sent to the awards committee. Despite the fact that the number of nominations this year was way up, I’m surprised that some of the nominations did not receive a National Award. The time taken and quality of the write ups from the volunteers who wrote the nominations was top notch. The contributions by the folks who were nominated, were beyond anything you would ever expect from volunteers to ANY organization. However, I trust the process. And all that can mean is that if our non-winners came in second or lower for each of the four National Awards, then that means that collectively PCA is even better than I imagined it could be. Not winning in this case, doesn’t mean losing. I’m as proud of the contributions of our “non-winners” as the contributions of those who won awards. Nominees, you PROBABLY know who you are. And I’ll leave it to individual region presidents to decide whether or not to share the actual nominations that were made, as this information may be considered personal and in light of not being the ultimate PCA National choice, may also be a sensitive issue.
Hopefully by next year, we’ll be able to have a face to face Porsche Parade at French Lick Indiana. Beginning in December, I’ll be chased down again as an outbound zone rep, to ensure that regions are submitting nominations for the four big National Awards for the year 2020 (Public Service, Enthusiast of the Year, Family of the Year, and Region of the Year). And given the current challenges in running our regions during this unusual time, I can help but think that next year’s award nominations will represent some of the most creative accomplishments that we’ve ever seen within PCA.
Rich Sanders