I would like to open these remarks with a sincere Thank You to the Wisconsin Section’s Board of Directors and Membership for awarding me the Member of the Year award during our December 8th Christmas Party and Annual Meeting. This award means a lot to me and I cannot thank everyone enough. I will, however, take a moment to extend special thanks to Bernd Kampe for surprising me with a very large signed print of Mario Andretti driving his JPS Lotus Formula 1 car. Now I just have to figure out how to re-arrange things in my house to find a place for it! Thank you Bernd!
Before we look ahead I would like to take a minute and wind up 2018. It was a great year with great events, culminating in the Christmas Party and Annual Meeting. New this year was a slide show of pictures taken during all of our 2018 events that ran throughout the event.
Results of the fall election were announced during the business portion of the meeting. Sovann Khong from Green Bay, along with Dan Hellenberg and yours truly were elected to new 3-year terms on the board. Members were recognized for their contributions during the last year, and both Secretary’s and Treasurer’s reports were given. Read more about the Christmas Party elsewhere in this newsletter.
2019 Officer Line-Up
At their December 13th board meeting your board of directors chose their 2019 officers:
Bruce Hamilton, President
Bernd Kampe, Vice President
Dan Hellenberg, Secretary
Frank Lubinski, Treasurer
Andy Stockhausen, Membership Director
John Ledbury, Newsletter Liaison
All of the 2019 Officers and Board Members appear in the current newsletter.
Upcoming Events
2019 promises to be an exciting year for our Section, with multiple events planned almost every month. In fact our next event is only a couple of weeks away. Join us Saturday, February 16th for a Valentine’s Drive-to-Dine at Mader’s Restaurant in downtown Milwaukee. No basketball games are scheduled that day so parking won’t be a problem, and we will be dining the in private room at the rear of the restaurant where we’ve held events before. More details are in the Event Calendar, and help the restaurant with a headcount by please letting me know if you plan to attend.
Our Fish Fry is March 15th, and our Spring Tech Session at Black Forest is scheduled for April 27th. And on Sunday, May 5th we are holding a New Member Reception and Drive-to-Dine at the Trysting Place in Menomonee Falls. New members since January 1, 2018 get their meals paid for by the Section.
Please note that the New Member Reception and Drive-to-Dine has been moved to Sunday May 5th. The date was changed from Saturday to Sunday to make it easier for dealer personnel and our advertisers to attend.
Read more about these and all the other events planned in our Events Calendar and elsewhere through this issue. Put all the upcoming events on your calendar NOW and stay tuned as more information follows.
The last words on upcoming events…
We are working on a tech session featuring someone who is both a regular columnist in The Star magazine as well as an internationally recognized Mercedes-Benz specialist. Nothing is finalized at this point but I couldn’t resist whetting your curiosity and interest. Stay tuned!
If you have a suggestion for a Drive-to-Dine venue or an idea for an event, please contact myself or one of our other board members. We are always looking for feedback, opinions and suggestions from our members.
Looking for a Journey Article
We’re looking for the next story about “the journey,” how you acquired your favorite Mercedes-Benz. Did you travel across the continent to find the perfect Benz for you, or find it sitting a barn, awaiting a new home? Whether it happened last week or a decade ago, if you have an interesting story about how you acquired your favorite Mercedes-Benz, we want to publish it. Contact our newsletter liaison John Ledbury with your story.
I close these remarks by welcoming Ken Pinckney, our newest member as of January 21st
THANK YOU, members new and old, for being members of the Wisconsin Section. Your interest and participation is what makes us successful.
I look forward to seeing you February 16th at Mader’s or another upcoming Wisconsin Section event.
Bruce Hamilton