THE GOAT CONNECTION

Vol. 5 - #5 Monthly newsletter of the GOLDEN GATE GOATS 

MAY - 2000

Member Organization GTO ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

CLUB MEETING Wed., May 3, 6:30 p.m.
Harry's Hofbrau, Redwood City

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE  

GOOD GUYS SUMMER GET TOGETHER JUNE 3 & 4  

GOLDEN GATE GOATS CRUISE TO THE WINE COUNTRY  

NEW MEMBERS  

 

 

 

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

 

Hello all. Had hoped to attend this weekends Nostalgia Drags at Sears Point. Was raining here on Saturday morning so stayed home. Am writing this as I watch the Talladega 500 on Sunday. It does not look like a nice day for things outside. Will not be able to get the lawns mowed,shucks, what an absolute shame!

Upcoming events include Sunday April 30th in Benicia, May 5th & 6th in Madera for the Pontiacs of Central CA show,

the May 13th in Hayward for our club tour of Vic Hubbards warehouse and May 20th for our wine cruise. The first two of these events were covered in last months newsletter and on the website. Look for info on the other two events in this newsletter or on the website as details become available. Once again, I urge all of you to always check the website before an event for any last minute information.

Our next club meeting (and last until Sept.) is on Wednesday, May 3rd, at Harrys Hof Brau in Redwood City. The main objective will be preparing for our hosting the June 3rd & 4th GGuys 7th All American Get Together at the Pleasanton fairgrounds. As I write this, I have not been told what our work assignments will be. I hope to have that info for you at our meeting. Full info on this event is on our website (GGGoats.org) and in this newsletter. You will receive emails as well from time to time. Thank you to the 35 or so members that have signed up. We are off to a very good start. I would like to hear from any of you that are planning to be there via e mail asap. I just need your car color and paint type if known, license # and size for the freebie T shirt along with which day (s) you plan to work. You have the option of purchasing additional show T shirts for our cost ($8 last year) so let me know size and quantity for those. I will handle the paperwork for you. Please remember that those working the show get complimentary admission so you do NOT NEED to register with GGuys or send $$$$$$! If you were going to sign up at our May meeting it helps me if you let me know now, as I can get a jump on the paperwork. My deadline to complete all paperwork is May 4th. I have an all day equipment show that day in Morgan Hill and will be driving to Salem Oregon for my Dads 75th birthday party the following day. I would really appreciate you signing up with me NOW. I urge all of you to participate in this event. A GRRRR8time will be had by all. Help us make our goal of 100 club cars participating. If you don’t have email, then please call me with your information @ 650-349-2095.

Please submit any ideas you may have for next years 5th Anniversary Jim Wangers event as you think of them. This will put us all ahead of the game. We have a clean slate for planning this event. It can be designed around whatever parameters we choose. The event can be anything we want it to be. One or two day, our club only or invite other GTO clubs, a cruise and or picnic. A car show at a dealership, or? We are responsible for Mr. Wangers travel expenses, food and lodging. We have the option of offsetting these expenses any way we want, or not at all, and throw ourselves one heck of a 5th Anniversary party! Time to put on your thinking caps! Let us take advantage of the time we have and generate lots of neat ideas. This is gonna be really cool. You guessed it, I am stoked!!!!!

I would like to share some thoughts I have had regarding our adopting an East Bay meeting location. I was really on a high after our 1st meeting in Feb. Level of participation simply blew me away. Yeah, I under estimated the turnout big time. Looked like a great move for us. Our 2nd and most recent meeting in April had way fewer people there. The majority of those present were not from the East Bay. Meetings were at the same time and place so why the huge drop off in attendance? It was pretty baffling to me as this was the East Bay June GGuys planning meeting! My ongoing reluctance to go with an East Bay meeting location was due to the fact that it is a commute direction drive for many more of us. You asked for and I committed to having 1/2 of our meetings in the East Bay this year and that is the way it will be. Looking towards next year, let me go on record and say this; the level of meeting participation by members at East Bay meetings for the rest of this year that just cannot make it to Redwood City will determine our future direction with this. If we do not see a continued and consistent increase in attendance from you, bet you can guess what the outcome of a majority rule vote on this will be. If we get basically the same people attending and the drive to Redwood City is faster and easier for the majority of us, well, you get my point. I urge those of you that this relates to, to come on out and participate at club meetings. This is your club, be heard! I appreciate members thoughts on this. My purpose here is to let you know where I am coming from and nothing more.

Our membership is currently at 190 strong. This tells me that we are doing a lot of things right. The only way the board and I know how good of a job we are doing is to hear from you. Are we doing things that you do not like? I frequently hear from members commenting on various things and the feedback I get is overwhelmingly positive with a small dose of negative as well. Thank you for your comments. The board welcomes all comments both good and bad. We are fully aware that we cannot please everybody all of the time. You judge our performance and it is your option to do so at any time. You have my personal guarantee that we will evaluate anything you have to say in a fair and unbiased manner. The long term success of GGG is your boards objective and we do not take that responsibility lightly.

So, see ya in the fast lane!

John

 

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CHANGES, MISSPELLINGS, ETC.

IF WE HAVEN'T GOT YOUR INFORMATION MIXED UP YET, JUST GIVE US TIME. WE ARE WORKING AS FAST AS WE CAN.

 

Please contact Jim Lent with any name, address, phone number or vehicle corrections or changes. (510) 799-6096.

E-mail: jimlent@home.com

SNAIL MAIL: Jim Lent

118 Iris Court

Hercules, CA 94547

 

 

 

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO MAKE THE JUNE GOODGUYS SHOW THE LARGEST SHOWING OF GTO's IN THE BAY AREA. PLEASE CONTACT JOHN MEKISICH ASAP TO PARTICIPATE

As many of you already know, Golden Gate Goats is the host club for the GoodGuys 7th Summer Get Together at the Pleasanton fairgrounds. This has proven to be our largest event to date with 50 GTOs in attendance last year. Our club has become one of the largest GTO clubs in the nation with approximately 165 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! (I suspect that our past performance had a lot to do with our being offered an indoor display at this years March show.) They invited us back for this years show during last years show! For a niche club such as ours, the opportunity to host a show of this calibre 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 2 club meetings to plan for this event. 2000 will be our fourth year as the host club.The previous events went off without a hitch as I am sure this years 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! I have asked GoodGuys for some acknowledgement in their newsletter, the Good Guys Gazette. Let's totally blow them away with a huge turnout and give them a little positive reinforcement, making them want to give the Golden Gate Goats some ink! We can do it!

Let me go back to early 1997 when our club was but a few month's old. Club member John Phillips was at the right place at the right time and was instrumental in introducing us to 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 the upcoming Muscle Car Nationals as they were already doing 3 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. Thank's 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. We rendezvous in front of Specialty Sales on 1st street in Pleasanton at 5:30 a.m.! 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. We will also mail the schedule if time allows.

REALLY BIG NEWS!!!!!!!

I just received confirmation that the Good Guys have revised what the host club receives in return for services and you are gonna love it!

1) $500 donation to our club treasury!

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

3) One complimentary event T shirt per worker. Additional shirts can be purchased at Good Guys cost ( yet to be determined ). Our club logo will be in color.The shirt will have last years big winners and is always very colorful.

4) Golden Gate Goats will have an article about our club including pictures in the Good Guys Gazette which continues to increase our exposure. This is the national newsletter and is sent to Good Guys members everywhere!

To use one of my favorite sayings, I was stoked when I got off the phone with Good Guys Director of Events & Operations Harry Daviess. Actually, I was beyond stoked but I don't know what to call it! A sweet deal now becomes even sweeter. The club will be doing a BBQ lunch both days. We provide everything except beverages. We need volunteers to help work the show as well as to handle the cooking chores, shopping, etc. Those of you that will be at our April meeting can let me know then. My final deadline to get everything back to them is May 4th, the day after our May meeting.

Once again, if you are working the show you do not need to register (pay) as you get in complimentarily. You can work either day or both days. We will have a work schedule for each day. With the benefits that we now receive, I should think that our turnout will be huge! 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 at MITYGTO@aol.com or better yet, let me know at a meeting. The sooner you let me know, the easier my job becomes.

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 2 day show and we are there both days so if you are busy one day, you still have the other! It is impossible to talk this show up too much! To my knowledge, this is the largest Musclecar 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 2 club meetings. With our April meeting in San Leandro and our May meeting in Redwood City, more of you than ever before will have an opportunity to hear all about this. This hopefully will result in a record # 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 magazines letting them know that we are coming out in force. They are always looking for GTOs to do articles on and we have some mighty fine examples of the ORIGINAL MUSCLECAR! Plan to be there!

 

JOHN

 

 

 

Golden Gate Goats 
Cruise to the Wine Country

May 20, 2000

 

TIME: We will meet at the public parking lot behind the Mission at 10:00 a.m. See the map below.

DIRECTIONS TO SONOMA: If you’re coming from the Bay Area there are two ways to go.

1) Take 101 N. to Hwy 37 E. Turn left on Hwy 121 N. Take Hwy 12 W. and follow the signs to Sonoma.

2) Take 80 E. to Hwy 37 W. (Marine World Exit). Turn right on Hwy 29 N. Turn left on Hwy 12/121. Follow the signs to Sonoma.

As you come into Sonoma on Hwy 12 which is also Broadway it will come to a T intersection with the Plaza at the top of the T. Turn right at the T on Napa St. and follow the signs to the “Free Public Parking”. Turn left on First Street East. Go past Spain St (past the Mission). Take the first left into the parking lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LUNCH: Bring a picnic lunch or pick-up picnic supplies at one of the great places in Sonoma. The Sonoma Cheese Factory and the Sonoma French Bakery are right on the Plaza (walking distance from our meeting spot).

ITINERARY: We will depart Sonoma at 11:00 a.m. sharp. We will cruise up Hwy 12 to Kunde Winery. They have tours of their limestone caves every half hour if you’re interested. Next we will cruise to Chateau St. Jean, which is our picnic lunch spot. We will then cruise up Hwy 12 to the outskirts of Santa Rosa, then back on Bennett Valley Rd. to Glen Ellen. Our final winery will be Benziger Family Winery, which offers tram tours of their vinyards. We will then cruise down Arnold Drive back to Sonoma. Maps of the cruise route will be available at our meeting spot.

DINNER: For those that are interested we can have dinner at one of the fine restaurants in Sonoma.

Please confirm attendance with Skip Hendricks, 510/727-0221 or email skipandra@mindspring.com

On the day of the event, Skip will be available by cell phone 510/599-3086 or by two-way radio FRS Channel 6-6.

 

 

 

NEW MEMBERS

Welcome to these new members who have joined the Golden Gate Goats in APRIL. We look forward to meeting you at our club events. 

Michael Sherman                   Mountain View                1968 Convt 

Dave Hansell Jr.                    San Francisco                  1965 H.T. 

Leroy & Judy Anderson        Sonoma                           1969 H.T. 

Allen Smith                           Vacaville                           1972 Lemans

Paul Eason                            Healdsburg                       1968 & 1969 H.T.'s

Bob Doten                            Lafayette                            Seeking 1965 Tri-Power