2018 Year in review

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     Well this has been my first full year as President of the Piston Pushers and I want to thank all the members for your support and patience over the past year as I settled in, again thanks for your support for the 2019 Presidency. I feel we have had a very good year with bringing in four new members, Denis Jacob, Martin Rutyna, Ray Smith, and JP Boone at the beginning of 2018 and two new members for the 2019 year, Lee McAurther and Dave Takach, all new members have shown a great deal of enthusiasm with great participation over the past year, each bringing certain qualities with them that will ensure we maintain a strong club membership. Our Membership Committee led by Jim Harris has maintained follow-up with the probationary members so as not to disappoint the new members. We have five prospective members for the coming year, names will be announced a later date.     

    Our Social Committee lead by Ron Morley has done an excellent job of keeping all of us informed of the many functions involving both our racing members of the club, the car shows, and cruise nights in the area, the Social Committee was responsible for putting together a number of Garage Talk Saturdays over the year, thanks to Paul Arva, Jerry Campbell, Jerry Yarymchuck, Bob Devereux, Al Nutbrown, Nick Schira, Harold Assla, and Jim Harris, thanks for opening your garage for this event. A movie night was held at Ron Morley’s home, it was like going to the drive-in movies of old, as usual at our events much food was involved. We had numerous excellent road trips, some involving overnight stays while others were day trips, most of the events were attended with our wives or significant others some of the events were, the trip to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, the Chatham Trip to the Retro Fest, Ohio/Norwalk Trip for the Blue Suede Shoe Drag Racing and car show, the Wheels on the Bay car show at Belleville/Trenton, Frankenmuth Auto Fest, Elta Summer Bash at the Sparta Race Track, Poker Run in the Erie district ending with a barbeque at Rocket’s home. We also participated in the Waterford Pumpkinfest Parade, as well the ever fun and annual Labor Day Soap Box Derby where we as in the past ten years gave a trophy to a girl and boy that had the most in-put into their car, not necessarily the winners of the event, club participation for this event was over whelming this year.  

    We had the annual Remember When Cruise, after we had to cancel and re-book a rain date, however the cruise that so many looked forward to by many club and non-club members was a great success thanks, Jim and his committee.

    We had a great ending to the summer events with an overnight trip to Collingwood for a fall leaf tour, the weather didn’t exactly cooperate but that did not deter anyone from having a great time, all in all it was a busy summer and most certainly a great time was had by all at each event, we look forward to many more such events in the coming year.  Our Social Committee also deserve our thanks for the club picnic, we had great club participation and turn out, what made it even more special was the assistance of both the club members and their wives, doing the barbequing, and serving up those terrific deserts. The club Christmas Party again was very well attended, our wife’s and significant others had a well-deserved night out. 

    I want to especially thank you, the members, for your Wednesday meeting attendance every meeting is very well attended, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank our executive for the topnotch job over the past year, their dedication keeps our club healthy and well informed. I also want to thank Steve Welsh for his eight-year dedication as our treasurer, at the same time thank Jim Thompson for his acceptance as our new treasurer for 2019.

    Doug Woodley and Duke Snyder did an absolutely terrific job of putting together our 2019 calendar to commemorate our 2019 Sixty Fifth Anniversary and thanks to all who sent in pictures of your rides, more information will be forth coming as we piece together the Sixty Fifth Celebrations led by Ken Cook and his committee.

    On a more somber and sad note we lost five of our long-time members and brothers this year as well as one of very valued members spouse, let us all remember, Paul Epps, Harry Woodcock, Clare Fraser, Bill Ross, most recently Mel Musikov, and sadly Steve Comisky’s wife Judith.

    As we move into a new year being our Sixty Fifth Anniversary, please, please stay safe and join in with the number of club functions to follow this year, as participation is key to the clubs very existence and well being.

 

Regards, Brian Bowerman (your Club President for 2019)