President’s Report May 2016

Wow, Spring is really here, and we have an outstanding list of events planned. Both T.H. and Edward has gone out of their ways to put together a fun and interesting list of Drives and events for this 2016 Driving calendar. I just want to thank them for spending the time and effort to put this list together and especially for taking their personal time away from their families to head up these Drives each month. Next month is our Spring DE and by the time this letter is read by each of you the event just may be completely filled up. But check anyway. It’s aways a great time, weather it’s your first time or 100th time. The fun, food, driving experience and the friendship is second to none. There are 71 Regions across the country that holds DE events each year and the numbers are growing. And I would put ours up against anyone’s as the best. And as always, we want to deeply thank Bluegrass Motorsports Porsche Dealership, Randy Biery and the entire Bluegrass team for their continued support.

On March 19th I attended the Zone 13 president’s meeting in Springfield, IL. Caren Cooper (National president) and Greg Halverson (National Tour Director) attended. The theme of the meeting was to review National changes and to review each Region successes and challenges. I do have to say after attending several of these meeting in the past years this was the best and most informative meeting ever.
I want to take a few minutes to highlight items concerning National and the behind the scenes actions that go on with PCA North America. Hopefully you’ll find this of interest.

What is the PCA 10 year Plan

1. To provide a professional evolution of the National Office to support the growth and expansion of the Club. ( By 2020 PCA will have 100,000 members with an operational budget of $10 million)
2.  Communications in all directions to be consistence. And using all forms of digital communications with a common look and style including all print forms as well. Hiring professional in these areas for support these efforts. (i.e. the Panorama chief editor and publisher was Excellent Magazine editor. He now works for PCA with 6 other professionals).
3. Dealing with the Club’s aging membership. (more then 60% of the membership are over 55yrs of age) Plans of bring new, younger people to become members and developing plan of getting them involved.

Other bits of information

Porsche Club of America as of the end of 2015 has 73,000 members. 144 Regions with an annual budget of $8.4 million. On average 60% of all new members sign up online. The National office has 14 employees and will be expanding with in the next several years requiring more office space. That’s why they are purchasing additional offices next door to the existing PCA office condo.

The Raffles, they are a PCA event but is not PCA budgeted. It is held solely on its own merits. If the Raffles were stopped today it would not affect the running of PCA at all. Cars are not purchased until the money is in hand. So if they over sell they add additional cars. That is why there were 6 cars given away in 2015. These Raffles are a big success and will continue with special car being put together by Porsche AG for these Raffles. All extra moneys are going back to each Region in forms of rebates.

One other note the younger generation uses Twitter and the newer forms of instance communications. They consider facebook for old people and email is seldom used if at all by them. The newest members found out about PCA through friends. So it is very important that we all represent the Club is a favorable light when you meet other Porsche owners and encourage them to join.

PCA is growing and is one of the largest car clubs in the world. We should be proud of the Club and the people who run the operation because 90% of them are volunteers. If there is anything you would like to see or do here in the Kentucky Region please let us know. So we can help make this your club and one that’s worth belonging to.

That’s all for now, See you at the next meeting.

Regards,
Steve McCombs (2016 president)