Make no mistake, It’s About the People! While the cars are amazing, they are a means to the end of pulling us all together. For the past four years, as PCA zone rep, I’ve attempted to support our seven regions as they collectively cycled through about 10-15 sets of changes in leadership. In some cases, the new teams were fully prepared and needed little help. In other circumstances, “a deer in the headlights” might have been an appropriate description for new leaders.
This will be installment 47 of 48 “In The Zone” newsletters that I’ll get to write as your Zone 9 Representative. The zone representative appointment is a 2+2 year commitment. […]
The Virtual Zone Rep! Perhaps “COVID-19 decision guilt” is a real thing. It feels pretty selfish. This past weekend, I skipped out on one of my favorite annual events in […]
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.
Max, our Berne-doodle guard-dog, used to get mad when I’d head out of the house for a walk without him. He’d chastise me with frustrated barks as I walked out the door. Now he just lays on the cool stone foyer floor and picks up his head to acknowledge my departure. Too hot, he says. In fact, he’s probably sick of me as well, hoping I’ll spend less time in the house.
By now you all probably get that I like to write about more than current events. But I figure that in times of important changes in our routine of operating PCA regions, its probably a priority to err on the side of over communicating on the topic of “what’s going on”.
Back to “normal”?
Zone Reps meet on a monthly conference call with the Executive Council of PCA. Each month an agenda is organized by an assigned zone rep and presented in advance. The month of May was my month in the rotation to organize the agenda and manage the meeting. Needless to say the request for agenda discussion topics by zone reps, as well as the update portion presented by the EC, revolved largely around the corona virus. And specifically how PCA nationally, and regions locally, will prepare for re-opening in this new environment
I guess I shouldn’t be “that guy”.
Hunkered down is the term I’m hearing most. As I write this, my home city, Salt Lake, is the “hot spot” for Coronavirus in Utah. Hopefully we’re entering a plateau in virus cases. Perhaps by the time this monthly letter hits your computer or mailbox, we’ll all be in a phase that has us coming out of hibernation. For now, though, I like the term “couped” up. It sounds the same as being cooped up, but I like the comparison to our car models.
It’s hard to think of membership in PCA as a computer based pursuit. But I guess in these unusual times, it’s the right thing to do. Last month, I recapped all of the face to face, super exciting things we have in front of us for 2020. And as I’m sure you’ve read, most events in regions across the zone have been put on hold or canceled. Just an hour or two before wrapping up this month’s letter, I read the official notice that Treffen at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs has been canceled.
In the past couple of months, two well-known monthly printed car magazines have announced that they will no longer exist, or will be offered only in digital form. That got me thinking about trends in PCA. It is a pretty common trend across PCA regions, including regions in this zone, for newsletters that used to be in print monthly to move to a less frequent print schedule or to stop print completely and move to digital form.
