New Member Social

By Bruce Russell

Shenandoah Region’s leadership team hosted a New Member Social on Saturday morning, July 8 at Euroclassics Porsche in Midlothian, VA. This social was not publicized on the Region’s website, but individual invitations were sent to all our new members who had joined PCA in the last 24 months. The management and staff of Euroclassics were very gracious hosts for this event. They had the showroom full of new Porsche models for us to climb into and admire, and they had a big screen HDTV which was televising live the qualifying sessions for the F1 Grand Prix of Austria. The Region provided the food and drinks; the food came from Wegman’s Catering and was excellent!

The only negative of the day was attendance from our invited new members. We invited 48 new members that had joined Shenandoah Region, and PCA, during the last two years. We had one new member attend this event. As a bit of background, Shenandoah Region is trying to strengthen our relationship with Euroclassics Porsche and we thought this social would be a nice gesture towards that goal. We did not expect a large turnout because we realize Euroclassics is located in the far eastern section of our region; we had expected more that one new member to attend.

I have been in PCA since 1986 and have been a member of seven different regions. One common trait that all regions experience is very low participation from new members. PCA leadership constantly struggles with the age old question — why? Why don’t we see more new members at our events? I have some ideas, because I can remember back to when I was a new member. We would like to hear from our new members. Tell us what you like and what you don’t like. Tell us what we can do to attract you to some Shenandoah events. My email is russell911@comcast.net. Seriously, I would like to hear from you.

In the meantime, there will be another New Member Social at Flow Porsche in Charlottesville on Saturday, August 19. Invitations to our new members will be going out soon, so watch your email. Hopefully, we will see you there!