We are just finishing the 2024 year for MAC and in November we are still by no means done. As I write this, we still have two Christmas Parties coming up, one in the North and one in the South that promise to be a great holiday get together for our members. Never in January when I took the reins as Chairman could I have anticipated the activities to come throughout the year – both the challenges and blessings. We started with a Judging Meet at Zip, and had to say goodbye to David Walker, former President of Zip, who’s family had been a presence with NCRS nationally, father and son, for decades. But the great loss was David’s grilling expertise (lol)! We’ll miss you, Dave.

This year we also pushed membership drives, and all the coordination it took at Carlisle and the National Convention, and our members responded setting up equipment, staffing shifts, and recruiting new members with remarkable success. In fact it became a contest who could recruit the most and when I procured some Corvette Promos to join MAC there were many takers. We learned a lot from those exercises. Our Judging Event at Lindsay in May solidified to many of us that it was crucial to encourage senior Master Judges from other chapters at our meets, and we support their meets, to have the depth and quality needed for our Chapter Judging events. I want to thank both the Mason Dixon and DelVal chapters for their support, particularly Marvin Burok and Guss Tsamouris for their expert sharing of judging expertise, and we will continue and strongly encourage an exchange of judges to support all our NCRS activities because it works! And I want to thank the sponsors for our meets, Zip, Lindsay, and Turner, for their generous support of the MAC Chapter repeatedly over the years. In the same vein we owe a great debt of gratitude to our Vice Chair John and his wife Kelley Essepian for opening their house, garage, and home so many times throughout the year in support of our chapter, and in some cases individual Corvette activities. And our proactive approach to the National Convention yielded many positive results and lessons. The Bob Weber family opened their home for a “MAC Night Out” that featured Author Richard Prince an NCRS Hall of Fame member. It was a wonderful evening and which was a rich experience for all. Our MAC recruiting table at the NCRS Convention served many purposes as a gathering place for old and new MAC friends, and we recruited 6 new members there. It was well worth the set-up. But I want to take a moment to stress the accomplishments we enumerated at the Annual Meeting on Nov 2nd:

• Our MAC Financial position ended in the black (less spent than earned in 2024)
• Our MAC account with Union Bank and earn 5% interest on $36K in CD’s
• We recruited 10 % more members
• We Spent more for charity
• We did 3 Zoom online meetings to reach more members, over 40 in the last one. 
• We led an automation initiative (John Essepian) to initiate our Wild Apricot website, reaching more members reliably, with easier reporting, and expanded communication. 
• Our Pop-Up Judging event was very successful, proving spur-of-the-moment scheduling through the National Judging Chair can work.
  

In addition to the above involvement, I went all in and did the National Road Tour prior to the National Convention to get the full experience. That and my recent experience at the Frisco Regional helped me re learn the biggest lesson in all these activities: that we have many wonderful NCRS members throughout the country and our organization who are always willing to pitch in and help anyone anytime.

I’ve been privileged to be a MAC Vice Chair for 2 years and Chair completing my first year and it’s never ceased to be an amazing journey. Thanks to all our members and the Board of Directors for making these great accomplishments come to realization, and I look forward to another successful year with all your support!

                                    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’ll see you at our Christmas Parties….