Howdy Folks,

Sounds like last Saturday’s Microbrewery cruise was another great time. Thank You to Leroy and Judy Anderson for putting this event together.

Coming up quickly on the weekend of June 5th and 6th is the GGuys All American Get Together in Pleasanton. This will be our 8th year as their host club. Sign ups have been strong and it looks like another year of record attendance. If you would like to participate and haven’t signed up, please contact me asap. As always, sign ups are much lighter for Sunday. If any of you that are coming Saturday only are able to return on Sunday, we would appreciate it, Please let me know asap. Full details in last two newsletters. Please note the map in this issue showing our new rendezvous point. We will meet here both days at 5:30 a.m. and leave promptly for the fairgrounds at 5:45. This should make it a little easier getting us into the fairgrounds in an organized and timely manner.

Also in June on the 26th, is Run Through the Canyon VIII. We have been invited by the Nor Cal Chevelle Camino Car Club to participate. This is a benefit event for the Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Full details are in this newsletter. The following day, June 27th, is the East Bay Cruisers car show in Pinole. Please contact Jim Lent for additional information about the Pinole show.

GGG now has among our membership one 04 only GTO owner. At our last meeting, we acknowledged the need to decide if late models are to be allowed in our club. The decision was made to hold off until our Fall meeting rounds to decide on this, giving us adequate time to think it through. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on this subject. FYI, I am told that 3 new GTO’s attended last Saturday’s event. This will be a hotly debated topic, that is for sure. That being said, let us decide this in a cool and calm manner. There is no benefit in folks getting stressed and bent out of shape over this. As we have always done, this will be decided by majority vote. More details to come. Right now it looks like the voting will be done at the Sept. and Oct. meetings to get the maximum number of member votes. One vote per member, duplicate votes will not count. The board is discussing putting a hold on any late model  applications we receive until this issue is resolved. The goal here is to be as fair as possible to everyone. Thanks for listening, your cooperation in deciding this issue is appreciated. For now,

I suggest that those of you that wish to discuss this use yahoo groups and please be nice. That covers everything for now………..

Have a fun and safe Memorial Day Weekend and See ya in the fast lane;

John

MEETING MINUTES

Date: Wednesday, May 5^th, 2004

Note Taker:  Barb Davis

Location:     New Englander Pub, San Leandro

1. The GGGoats won the Club Participation Award at the Benicia Classic Car show April 25th. Stuart Cole was the event coordinator. 

2. Deidre Stipanov talked about the Steppen’ Out with Stipanov’s 3rd Annual Wine Event, on April 17th. It was a great weekend for all that attended. John Mekisich read the Thank You poem that Jim Wangers sent to the club. 
   

3. Leroy and Judy Anderson discussed the Micro Brewery event in May for Saturday May 22nd.. We will meet at the North Gate Mall area in Marin County at 10:00 for the cruise. Then on to the Marin French Cheese Company to taste cheese and tour the factory. Nest stop will be Lagunitas Brewery for a tour and tasting. We will end up at Moyland’s Brew Pub for dinner at 4:00. The Anderson’s need a head count for the restaurant. Jim Lent will send an e-mail to see how many plan on attending.

4. June GoodGuys is June 5th and 6th. Our club will sponsor the event. Sign up sheet was passed around. We talked about changing the meeting place in the morning to Main Street in Pleasanton. There is plenty of parking. We will meet at the south end of town, park on either side of the road. We will leave at 5:45 to enter the fair grounds. Work a shift and get a free GoodGuys T-shirt. Tom Stanger volunteered to barbeque Saturday and Sunday. Please bring a side dish to share for the barbeque.

5. Carol Sakamoto gave us a flyer on the “Run Through the Canyon VII” cruise. Join the Nor-Cal ChevelleCaminos club on Saturday, June 26th, 2004 for a cruise down Monterey Peninsula and the 17 Mile drive. Proceeds go to the Children’s hospital in Oakland. Poker Run, Picnic and Raffle Prizes.

6. Jim Lent shared information on the car show in Pinole on June 27th. If you are interested let Jim know by phone or e-mail. Application in the newsletter.

7. We discussed Cherry’s Jubilee event in September. You need to make your room reservations soon. 

8. Jim Lent read the letter from the computer museum. 

9. We had a discussion about owners of the 2004 GTO joining our club. It was motioned to table the discussion until the September meeting. Skip Hendricks seconded it. 

10. Russ Louthian talked about the Vendor Discount Program. We let the vendor advertise in our newsletter and GGGoats members get a special discounted club rate. If you know of anyone that might be interested, please contact Russ.

11. Please sign up for the CAR OF THE MONTH articles. Send them to Jim Lent/News Letter Editor.

12. NEXT MEETING WILL BE Wednesday, September 1st AT The Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood, CA 7:00 PM

UPCOMING EVENTS

As many of you already know, Golden Gate Goats is the host club for the Good Guys 11^th Summer Get Together at the Pleasanton fairgrounds. This has proven to be one of our largest event to date with 70+ GTOs in attendance last year. Our club has become one of the largest GTO clubs in the nation with approximately 200+ current members. The enormous amount of exposure we get at this show has played a large part in helping us increase our membership. Good Guys management was very happy with the job we have done as well as the fact that we pretty much blew 'em away with our

level of participation! They invited us back for this year’s show during last years show! For a niche club such as ours, the opportunity to host a show of this caliber is a really big deal!

Myself along with Jim Lent & John Phillips will be the event coordinators. I will be the pre-show contact and the three of us will be working together during the event like we did last year. We will

be spending whatever time is required, at the next two club, meetings to plan for this event. 2002 will be our sixth year as the host club. The previous events went off without a hitch as I am sure this year’s event will as well. Like fine wine, we are improving with age. It takes a lot of member involvement to make this work.

I would like to thank all of you that have worked the previous shows for all your hard work. I am sure all of you will want to participate again this year. Let’s make it our goal to make this our largest

event ever. One of the many benefits we receive as the host club is our choice of where we want to park. Plan to come on out and work the show, you will have a GRRR8 parking place for the day!

Let me go back to early 1997 when our club was but a few months old. Club member John Phillips was at the right place at the right time and was instrumental in introducing us to the Good Guys.

John also belongs to the P-Town Pushrods, the club that hosts many Good Guys shows each year. He found out that P-Town was not going to be hosting he upcoming Muscle Car Nationals as they were already doing three shows and their members are heavy into rods. John called me immediately and we were able to get the "gig" so to speak. Without John’s help, we never would have been given this opportunity. Thanks a lot, John and I hope I got the facts close to correct!

Those of you that have not yet participated must be curious as to what "hosting" the show entails. Here is what is in store for ya! Our day begins early. New rendezvous area will be determined at our April meeting and publicized in our May newsletter.We leave promptly for the fairgrounds at 5:45 a.m. We drive to our club parking area near the museum and park the cars. The fairgrounds are very quiet until the exhaust note of 20,000 GTO horsepower fills the air, along with blipping throttles as we back em in. Unless you plan to cruise the fairgrounds, this will be your spot for the day. Good Guys event personnel will meet us here and outline what we need to do. We have done everything in previous years from helping with the special areas to directing traffic inside the fairgrounds. Whatever assignment we get is always a good time. Our level of participation determines how long we each need to work. I anticipate one hour per day per person. Those of you with cars in progress, come on out and join in the fun! As more information comes in, we will do a work schedule and post it via e mail and on the website so each of you knows exactly where you need to be and when so you can maximize your fun at the show.

1) Complimentary admission both days to members that work the show

2) Reserved parking at one of the best locations in the fairgrounds. Every participant will see your car as they register at the GGuys Gazebo! Literally thousands of people will come by to drool over your car each day of the show!

3) One complimentary event T shirt per worker and additional shirts can be purchased at Good Guys cost ( $10.00). Our club logo will be in color. The shirt will have last years big winners and is always very colorful. YOU MUST SIGN-UP WITH JOHN MEKISICH ON OR BEFORE THE MAY 5^TH CLUB MEETING IN ORDER TO GET A FREE SHIRT! THOSE SIGNING UP AFTER THIS DATE WILL NOT RECEIVE A FREE SHIRT!

3) BBQ hamburgers, hot dogs, chips & fixins are provided for members and their

families each day. (This year we need volunteers for the BBQ for both Sat. and Sun.)

Just bring a side dish, or dessert and your own beverages of choice.

Those of you that will be at our April meeting can let me know then or you can sign up with me via e-mail immediately at MITYGTO@aol.com. We cannot have too many volunteers to work the show. My final deadline to get everything back to them is May 3^rd, just after our May meeting. Once again, if you are working the show you do not need to register (pay) as you get in complimentary. You can work either day or both days. I will have a work schedule for each day. Don’t be shy, let’s really pull out the stops and make this our best turnout ever. If any of you have questions, or want to volunteer you can call me at (650) 349-2095 or e mail me MITYGTO@aol.com or better yet, let me know at a meeting. The sooner you let me know, the easier my job becomes. PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME IF YOU CAN ARRIVE AT A LATER TIME. WE ALL NEED TO BE THERE EARLY AS IT IS THE ONLY WAY WE CAN MAKE IT WORK!

Thank you for your understanding and support. To those of you that don’t attend many club functions, this one has evolved into the BIG DADDY of them all so to speak. As I mentioned, it is a two day show and we are there both days so if you are busy one day, you have the other! It is impossible to talk this show up too much! To my knowledge, this is the largest muscle car oriented show on the west coast. We may be the only GTO club in the country hosting a show like this. I urge all members to come on out and join the fun!

Once again, we will be discussing this event in great detail at the next two club meetings. With our April meeting in Redwood City and our May meeting in San Leandro, we will have a great opportunity to pre-plan for this event. We got a jump on this at our March meeting by beginning sign ups there. Lots of room for everyone. This hopefully will result in a record number of cars along with a new attendance record. Let us set an aggressive goal of 100 cars to attend. I will be e mailing all the car mags letting them know that we are coming out in force. They are always looking for GTO's to do articles on and we have some mighty fine examples of the ORIGINAL MUSCLECAR!

Hi Everyone,

Here is an old recipe my Grandmother used to make. I like to call them the comfort cookie. If you like pineapple you will like these.

Pineapple Drop Cookies

2 cups flour
1 tsp.. baking powder
1 tsp.. salt
1/2 cup butter room temp (Grandma used shortening)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar packed firm
1 teas cinnamon
1/2 tsp.. nutmeg (freshly grated if possible)
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 egg
2/3 cup drained canned crushed pineapple
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (toasted)
Preheat oven 375.
Sift flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, egg until creamy. Blend in pineapple, nuts then flour mixture. Drop rounded spoonfuls of dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

Enjoy.

Marsha