CHEVROLETTER March 2021
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CHEVROLETTER March 2021 Vol 2021 Issue 03.0 Director’s Report March 2021 Getting old really stinks…….I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise to many of our members. I am reminded of this fact often as I attempt to do things now that I have previously done in my younger days. Recently I noticed the brake lights were not working on my 1968 Corvette. I started diagnosing the problem hoping for a bad fuse or loose ground but no such luck. The next step was going under the dash to check the stoplight switch. For anyone who has worked under the dash of a Corvette you know that being a contortionist is of great value. At the age of 70, I no longer bend like I used to, require glasses to see what I am doing and get claustrophobic in confined spaces! To make this ordeal work, I removed the driver’s seat, door sill plate, steering wheel and disconnected the clutch pedal. After doing all of this I could see a bit of the switch….a one year only switch that is much harder to remove that the standard plunger style used in 1969! As of now, life took over…the snows came, the bedroom needed to be painted and the car still sits waiting for someone younger, more flexible with smaller hands to remove and replace the switch from hell. Car show and cruise nights are slowly starting to be announced as we enter the 2021 car season. The President’s council will be held soon and we will get a better view of the show season. The Long Island Street Rod club will have their Show and Swap meet on April 25th, the day before that the Town of Oyster Bay is hosting their event at Tobay Beach. We have had a club spot at the spring for a few years now. The spot is run by members to help recruit new people to the Long Island region. We can do the club spot again if I get a few people willing to stay there and talk to people. I realize with Covid still around not everyone may be willing to expose themselves at the booth. Anyone interested can let me know as we get closer to the 25th. The national VCCA put out an email recently asking for help in taking archive G+D articles and pictures and making them available on line. The cost will be around $5,000.00 and they are asking members and clubs for donations. As of the email, they were ¼ of the way to their goal of 5K. I have many old G+Ds and they contain many great articles but it is such a pain trying to find the article I need. This service would collate all these articles and make it available to all club members. A suggestion was made for us to make a donation to the fund so I am putting it out there to you. We could donate $100.00 from the club treasury with approval of responding members. The VCCA is trying to expand its exposure on social media in an effort to increase our somewhat stagnant membership numbers. You can go on youtube.com and enter the key words VCCA Spotlight episode 01. Doing this will bring up episodes one thru five, each one explains about various aspects of the VCCA. This might be a good vehicle to direct prospective members to so they can better understand what the club is all about. The VCCA also has a presence on Facebook that anyone can join. I registered as the Long Island Region VCCA but you would sign on as yourselves and our local region FB page continues to get views and likes. Oyster Bay has still not opened the meeting hall so we will be looking to hold outside event as the weather warms. Let me know if you have an idea for a meeting location, even if it is just for a month or two. I will keep people informed thru emails about upcoming events. Hang in there and hopefully we can return to some degree of normal in the near future. See you all soon, Chris 1 Meeting Highlights February 2021 Calendar Of Events March 2021 Due to Covid-19 restrictions, all Long Island Region meetings and activities are cancelled until further notice Once the pandemic has subsided to safe levels, our club meetings will start again on the second Monday of the month and our club breakfasts will be the first Thursday of the month. We thank everyone for staying with us during this difficult time and to reward our members and followers, we are offering free 2021 club membership to everyone who lives on Long island and owns a Chevrolet. Contact our membership chairman and he will send you a membership form. Tentative Club Events 2021 All Dates are Tentative and may change or be cancelled April 25th- Long island Street Rod Show and Swap- Long Island Region will have a booth. Confirmed April 30th-May 2- Rhinebeck Car Show and Swap meet August 1st – Long Island Region Summer Party August 9th- Long Island Region Open meeting and car display at Oyster Bay meeting hall October 5-9- Hershey AACA swap meet and Saturday car show. Many members attend this event and the club has a booth in the red field for members to stop by and relax December- Club Holiday Party Cruise Nights 2021 Thursday- Kings Park Key Food Shopping Center Indian Head Road, 5 pm-9pm Friday- Bohemia Old K Mart lot, west side Sunrise Highway, starts April 5th 5pm till dark see article As we move farther into 2021 dates will be added, moved or removed so feel free to contact the club Director for current information New Friday Night Cruise Location in Bohemia I recently saw a posting on Facebook for A Friday Cruise night in Bohemia. The event is sponsored by the Pharaohs Car Club and is held at the old K Mart parking lot, 5151 Sunrise Highway on the west bound side in Bohemia. The cruises start on April 9th and go from 5 pm until dark. These cruise events come and go so don’t be surprised if it lasts for a few weeks until someone does something stupid and they are kicked out. Keeping Our Name Out There Like the fate of many small businesses during the pandemic, some car clubs will likely not survive this long term of inactivity. It is important to stay in touch with our membership and also maintain our presence for others to see. We are lucky to have an excellent newsletter that keeps the members informed and assures them that we are still here. The club has a few internet locations where both members and non-members can check us out. One such site is hosted by Hemmings Motor News at clubs.hemmings.com/livvca/. I am the moderator of this site and it includes club history, officers, club cars, members’ stories and tech tips. All information has to go thru me to be added to this site. Take a look and see if you have anything to add to our club pages. This page comes up at the top of the search page when I google Chevrolet club Long Island. The Hemmings site is offered free to all clubs and gets quite a bit of views. We have an additional website that we pay for but when I went on it while writing this article; I could not access many of the pages. A number of years ago we established a club Facebook page which sort of got forgotten about. Over the last few years our page has been getting a steady flow “likes”. I know not everyone is “Facebook friendly”, but if you go on and search …Long Island Region VCCA…, you will see our page. You may have to click on a blue circle with our club logo to get to our club page. If you are a member of Facebook, you may respond and post on our page or add your own pictures or interesting Chevrolet information. Current postings let people know we are still alive and operating so feel free to comment or add a car picture or two for all to see. --Chris 2 Long Island Region VCCA Garage John Mahoney’s Woody Woodpecker in Chevrolet Wonderland 3 Long Island Region VCCA Garage John Mahoney’s Woody Woodpecker in Chevrolet Wonderland - continued 4 Long Island Region VCCA Garage John Mahoney’s Woody Woodpecker in Chevrolet Wonderland - continued 5 Long Island Region VCCA Garage John Mahoney’s Woody Woodpecker in Chevrolet Wonderland - continued 6 Long Island Region VCCA Garage John Mahoney’s Woody Woodpecker in Chevrolet Wonderland - continued To be continued next month !! 7 Long Island Region VCCA Garage This is a hood ornament quiz; I have 4 ornaments of different years the answers will be given later in this newsletter … this quiz was submitted by Chris Geiger hood ornament #1 hood ornament #2 hood ornament #3 hood ornament #4 8 Long Island Region VCCA Garage Nine nameplates used across multiple marques By Brandan Gillogly - 18 February 2021 Even back in the good ol’ days when a car’s alphanumeric badging actually told you what was going on under the hood, we preferred when cars had actual names like Eldorado and Falcon. Style and soul are important, and a name is part of that identity. Our favorite monikers evoke a feeling that matches the car, so once a brand has staked its claim to a good one, it resonates with the public and has equity.