My thoughts of the International meet in SB.

[DEEPNHOCK]

<snip>
No offense here, but if you usually come to a May Meet in South Bend and didn't come to the International Convention because it was in May, I simply don't understand. You missed a tremendous 4 days of teamwork, special events, and a superior promotion of this Club, and Studebaker in a town that a couple of generations ago didn't embrace Studebaker at all.
Wow, that was long. Thanks for reading this far...

Yes,I did read it all.
And am violating my own policy of responding to negative threads.
But the highlighted sentence means a lot to me.
I remember 1971. ......Like it was yesterday.
Was in high school... Lost my dad the year before...
My best friend's dad painted my dad's (now mine) bondo'd '61 Hawk in his front yard (Blaze red lacquer with plenty of orange peel).
My high school car friend and I wanted to go to the SDC Int'l meet.
Heck, I didn't even know where South Bend was.... We left after school and my part time job at a gas station at 9:00pm.
Rolled into South Bend (or we thought it was South Bend) after midnight.
Asked where the Studebaker meet was. Nobody knew... Stopped at the Farmer's Market, dragged out a couple of pallets, and crawled into our sleeping bags... dog tired.
Were awakened at 5am before sunup to the sound of farmers trucks pulling in with produce. Got some strange looks..
Drove around looking for anything Studebaker meet related. Couple motels had letters up on their billboard signs.
Made a couple wrong turns and went down some side streets... People actually jeered us and a couple of rocks were thrown at us. How welcoming!
Finally found SASCO and it was heaven. Six stories of digging through stuff. And me with only $45 in cash and needing gas to get home.
Bought some goodies. Found a motel that had Stude's in the parking lot. Went to the back of the parking lot and stretched a hammock out between two tree's.
Slept great that night until the T-storms rolled in, and then found out how a Hawk is not a great camper for two guys.
Found the show grounds and had a great time. Memories seared into my feeble brain....even 45 years later...
Flash forward to today...
I find it embarrassing to see the only rocks getting thrown now are NOT from the South Bend people, but from our very own club members.

[studeguy54]

......everything else was a flop..........The swap meet, the car show, the 196 car parade, the cruise night, the comraderie????? What banquet has there ever been where the presentation of whatever was being celebrated came BEFORE being fed?
Giving an opinion as to what you thought was missing is good feedback, calling the show "....a flop" is downright rude and an insult to those who worked hard on it.
Some car shows have t shirts made up, Steve would have complained if the shirt didn't have his car depicted.
Enough said, kudos to those who volunteered countless hours.

Tim,

Thank you for your kind words. It seems that no matter how much time is expended on planning a meet of this nature, it's not going to be meet someone'sexpectations, and that's unfortunate, as there are too few people in this club anymore who either want to do the work necessary to put on a successful meet and/or volunteer to help.

Thank you again.

[Steve-o-Reno]

I have helped with 2 International Meets and a few zone meets, so I know, so I'm judging this meet with ours.
I meant at the banquet, draw the RED ticket numbers AFTER the meal, so if you didn't want to listen to the BS you could leave.
I apologize for calling it a "FLOP" that was not the correct word. I should have said "A DISAPPOINTMENT"

And tim333 you seem to have the wrong impression of me. I WASN'T EXPECTING A "T-SHIRT WITH MY CAR ON IT" but I was expecting a mug.
Shame on you!!

[53willys]

my thoughts on the meet were as follows, to have a national planned while school is still in session was a questionable move, families that bring their children were excluded until late fri/sat if attending at all ( i may be wrong but it seemed to me to be the smallest attendance of any s.b. meet i have attended), i vended outside, arrived early on tues. and mostly because of weather, waited 3 1/2 hrs to even be shown where to set-up. so i did the next best thing and helped inside set-up of tables, no problem there, the weather as previously mentioned is always questionable that early in may , if the local officials i voiced my opinions to as well as milt the director of vendor communications would eliminate the spring swap for a better time to schedule the nats when in s.b, would favorably help attendance and avoid most of the weather issues, overall i had one of my better shows vending, but only because over 1/2 were pre=sold items, otherwise this would have been a very poor selling show, the long vendors night would benefit vendors if all who come to this show were allowed access, not just registered meet participants, as it is, i will wait until next scheduled nats in s. bend as to whether or not attend as a vendor or participant, or just plan another show instead, i dont want to step on anyones toes, but i talked to many other vendors who feel the same, thanks to those who read with an open mind, my intent is to improve by pointing out where improvement can be addressed, thanks, doug

[Bob Henning]

my thoughts on the meet were as follows, to have a national planned while school is still in session was a questionable move, families that bring their children were excluded until late fri/sat if attending at all ( i may be wrong but it seemed to me to be the smallest attendance of any s.b. meet i have attended), i vended outside, arrived early on tues. and mostly because of weather, waited 3 1/2 hrs to even be shown where to set-up. so i did the next best thing and helped inside set-up of tables, no problem there, the weather as previously mentioned is always questionable that early in may , if the local officials i voiced my opinions to as well as milt the director of vendor communications would eliminate the spring swap for a better time to schedule the nats when in s.b, would favorably help attendance and avoid most of the weather issues, overall i had one of my better shows vending, but only because over 1/2 were pre=sold items, otherwise this would have been a very poor selling show, the long vendors night would benefit vendors if all who come to this show were allowed access, not just registered meet participants, as it is, i will wait until next scheduled nats in s. bend as to whether or not attend as a vendor or participant, or just plan another show instead, i dont want to step on anyones toes, but i talked to many other vendors who feel the same, thanks to those who read with an open mind, my intent is to improve by pointing out where improvement can be addressed, thanks, doug

Doug,
Thanks for your input, and for your candor. As the Co-Chair of this Meet, I appreciate it. I will PM you.

[WLB]

This year was my first National and my wife and I enjoyed it very much, hope to make it next year.