Letter from the President 2009
Post date: Apr 25, 2010 7:18:22 AM
Sep 2009
British Columbia Interior Region (BCIR)
Porsche Club of America (PCA)
Updates and New Strategies
Hello fellow Porsche car owners,
There are several announcements and communications I wish to make to all Porsche
car owners in the BC interior region, BCIR-PCA members and non-members. BCIR is
going to be casually making some updates and changes over the next few months. I have
summarized these changes and ideas for you over the next several paragraphs.
New President
It was a unanimous and mutual decision between Dwayne Armeneau and myself to
let me have a shot at running as your BCIR president. I would like to greatly thank
Dwayne for laying down the foundation of BCIR and I look forward to further building
on that.
I have been an active PCA member for 9 years; 3 years in the Red River Region and 6
years in the Upper Canada region. I also worked for Porsche Engineering Services for
approximately 5 years in the Detroit area, contracted to Chrysler’s SRT division. I
definitely am a massive car nut, Porsche being my utmost favourite of course.
New Structure
One of the biggest challenges that BCIR is faced with is the sparse and scattered
population densities of Porsche owners throughout the region. This makes coordinated
meetings and events very difficult and often interest is lost by many individuals. From
what I can tell, most of the p-car owners reside in Kamloops, Kelowna, and Nelson, with
several cars tucked away in smaller towns and remote areas. My proposed solution to
this is to have several Vice Presidents. One VP situated in each of the more densely
populated areas of the Porsche demographic.
My idea here is to set up a region that is made up of multiple smaller modules, each
with its own VP as the primary event coordinator. We would maintain a traditional
officer assignment for the entire region, ie, Treasurer, Safety Chairman, Secretary, etc.
Since I currently reside in Nelson, I would be looking for people to volunteer as VP’s
in Kamloops, Kelowna, Penticton, and perhaps Cranbrook. If any of you are interested in
a strong active part of this new structure, and are willing to volunteer a small amount of
time to help coordinate the BCIR activities, please do not hesitate to contact me
indicating your area of interests.
Operation, Strategy and Execution Plan
Typically PCA regions will hold many different types of events, from Driver’s
Education (DE) events, road tours, tech sessions, barbeques, etc. Once we have the new
structure in place, and designated executive board has been appointed, I would call upon
a meeting of all executive board members to create a detailed calendar that would cover
the 2010 driving season. This calendar will then be posted on the BCIR website.
One item on this calendar is the Porsche Escape 2010. BCIR will actually be more
involved in the Escape 2010 because we are actually hosting it in our very own region.
Escape 2010 is mainly organized by the Canada West Region because they already host
an annual event up at Sun Peaks Resort, with support of all other regions in Zone 6
including BCIR.
New Website
The website has been updated already. Please visit this webpage at your convenience
at http://bci.pca.org. This is something that will be kept simple, but functional. I feel the
website will be key communication tool because of the scattered demographic that BCIR
has. For now, it includes our quarterly news letter, calendar of events, pictures, contact
info and basic links to relevant websites. This letter is also posted on the website.
Memberships and Participation
You may find the application to PCA memberships below:
http://pca.org/Membership/JoinPCA.aspx
I will never enforce memberships upon people who want to attend and take part in
events held by BCIR, but I do however highly encourage you to join.
There are many benefits to PCA memberships. Panorama magazine is one of those
benefits. I personally enjoy this monthly subscription for a few reasons. It keeps me up
to speed with what our fellow Porsche engineers are up to in Weisach with the latest
products and concepts. Panorama also keeps me up to speed with any Porsche racing
going on around the world. From the classifieds at the back to all the exclusive Porsche
products advertised, Panorama is something you can look forward to every month.
Additional benefits from holding membership is that you will be officially recognized
as the owner of your vehicle via your VIN number by any Porsche affiliate across the
world, whether it’s the PCNA or PCA. This would give your car additional history,
record tracking and security via networking of PCA.
PCA does also provide additional insurance for events in case of unintentional
incidents. Something I hope we will never need to call upon.
All this being said, I feel it is key to keep BCIR very fun and simple. I have already
met many enthusiastic Porsche owners who are willing to help grow BCIR-PCA. I will
always welcome help, constructive criticism and suggestions from you. And I will
simply try to facilitate what people want to do with their Porsches.
Please do not hesitate to contact me at any time at dinger928@hotmail.com or via
voice at 250-505-6076.
Sincerely,
Gord Heidinger
BCIR-PCA President
250-505-6076