JANUARY 21, 2016- Fourteen of us began the first meeting of the New Year with a small prayer at 7:04 p.m. Lory Wolf read her 2015 treasurer’s report. We then discussed our newly designed website and gave consideration to maintaining it ourselves or having our web designer do it for a modest fee. Several members expressed their approval of POCI’s monthly magazine, Smoke Signals with its new editor, Tim Dye.

Maryann Schwedhelm brought two different weight sweatshirts as samples to help us decide upon our new hooded chapter sweatshirt. We agreed that we will offer a blue full zipper hooded sweatshirt with our familiar logos on the front and back in two different weights. The 8 oz. version will range in price from $ 25.00 to $ 29.00 depending upon the size and the 9.3 oz. version will vary from $ 30.00 to $ 34.00 . Some of us put in preliminary orders and a special order form will be included in our newsletter. Maryann also gave us an inventory of our chapter apparel. We decided to order more T-shirts in a variety of sizes and to take orders for our popular black, red and white short sleeve sports-style “dress” shirt. Members will be able to order these snazzy shirts on the same order form as will appear the new hooded sweatshirts.

It was suggested that we increase our yearly dues from the current $ 12.00 to $ 15.00 to help cover the cost of color printing and postage of our newsletter. We will consider offering an e-mail version of Metro News in addition to the regular paper version. A survey of our members will be taken.

We talked about future chapter activities such as a trip to the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the America on Wheels Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Lyndhurst Castle in Tarrytown, New York and the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Several members said they were looking forward to our next wine-making venture on Sunday, March 6th at Your Own Winery in Riverdale, New Jersey. Lory Wolf who once again made all of the arrangements for this very popular activity mentioned that it was not necessary to RSVP. We may just “show up”.

Our Fall car show date was set for Sunday, October 2nd.

Our next meetings will take place on Thursday, February 18th and Thursday, March 17th – Saint Patrick’s Day !

Our meeting was over at 8:19 p.m.

Eleven members began the last meeting of the year with a brief prayer at 7:05 p.m. Dianne Lennox, our chapter president, read the treasurer’s report. Our members currently total 73 strong. Our new website is now live for us to explore. The domain is : gardenstatepoci.org . Dianne also brought in flyers announcing our After-the-Holidays party on Sunday, January 17th. After some discussion, it was decided to modify the flyer slightly prior to mailing it out and then including it in the next newsletter. Sunday, March 6th has been chosen as the first day of our next wine-making adventure. Details will follow in our November-December newsletter.

We discussed other future activities such as a joint trip up to the Rhinebeck Aerodrome with the Long Island and Nutmeg Chapters. Additional possibilities would include a trip to the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania and the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Holmdel, New Jersey.

MaryAnn Schwedhelm provided an inventory of our chapter apparel. We talked about offering a hooded sweatshirt. MaryAnn will bring sweatshirt material samples to the January meeting for our consideration.

We spoke about Don Keefe’s new magazine, Poncho Perfection. Don is the former Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director of Smoke Signals, POCI’s monthly publication. We all wish Don many blessings in his new venture.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, January 21st  2016. As our time together drew to a close at 8:05 p.m. , we exchanged many best wishes for a blessed and happy holiday season.

Steve Sanguino

Secretary

Fourteen members began our meeting with a small prayer at 7:12 p.m. Lory Wolf read her treasurer’s report and announced that our membership now numbers 73. We briefly discussed our fall car show and everyone thought that our newsletter editor, Bill Wolf, and his staff, Brittany Wolf, did a superlative job with our last “Metro News” featuring photos and results of the October 11th rain date show.

Our website is being upgraded and redesigned. This will enable Dianne Lennox, our president and webmaster, to work more efficiently. As such at 8:00 p.m. an accomplished website designer and cordial guest speaker arrived at our meeting to explain the process and present the various options of redesign available to us. John Schwedhelm, one of our directors, who along with his wife, Linda, is instrumental in  registering cars at our annual shows, suggested that in the future car show entrants be able to check our new website for last minute show date changes brought about by inclement weather.

Maryann Schwedhelm, wife of director Ray Schwedhelm, kindly made reservations for our annual After-the-Holidays party at the Dolce Novita restaurant in Moonachie, New Jersey for Sunday, January 17th  2016 at 3:00 p.m.  We decided upon Dolce Novita because it is convenient for many of us, has ample parking and although it is not a BYOB, the fare is hearty, delicious and reasonably priced. We have dined at Dolce Novita individually and as a club before and everyone seemed pleased. There will be a mailed notification of our party as well as a reminder in the next “Metro News.”

The next meeting will be held on Thursday, December 17th. Our meeting was over at 8:40 p.m.