Hello all you Healeyphiles, You are probably all tired of hearing the hype about California Healey Week, but I am just getting more and more excited! We’re going to have a great crowd and a fun event. First, I want to mention that due to the generosity of our Sponsors and your gracious (future) spending at the event Auctions, we were able to add a FREE Farewell Hot Breakfast to the agenda including a FREE Commemorative Coffee Cup (courtesy of Austin Healey Spares). Come down to the banquet room between 7 and 9am on Friday, have a bite and claim your cup. We might also have a few more surprises during the morning.
Several of you have asked, “what are the Theme Nights this year”. Those of you who attended Conclave last May remember that we had a special Theme, with appropriate costume contests, each night. Well that was Conclave.....you have to go a little bit over the top for that. But I guess you liked it, it sure was fun and over half the guests joined in.
And it seems like many of you want more. OK, we already announced that Thursday (Banquet) Night will be British Dress Up Night. So let’s add Monday (Welcome Reception) Night to the list. Let’s call it “Old Rock and Roll Night” in honor of our featured artist, Mick Jagger. Any old concert T- shirt you might have, a tie dye, bell bottoms, or beach bum, flowers in your hair, marijuana leaf corsage, sandals, and holey jeans. Hmmm, I wonder what interesting “best costume” prizes I can come up with? OK, no more Healey Week. For the last year I have served on an Austin Healey Club of America Committee that helped guide the national club in selecting and implementing a new software solution, which turns out to be Club Express, the very same software that our Club uses! Phase 1 of the implementation was Membership Management. Yes there were a few hiccups and a steep learning curve. But I think next renewal season will be much easier, and if you renew both your AHCA Membership and Local Membership on the AHCA system, we get our money much more quickly.
But that’s not the story. As part of Phase 2, I learned something I never knew. For many years AHCA has been indexing and digitizing all the past issues of the Healey Marque and its predecessor, Chatter. The key word here is “indexing”. The front end of this database has a powerful search engine. You put in almost any key word and the system comes back with every article since 1988 that covered that topic. A click takes you right to the specific article. Really powerful. Log on to the AHCA website, www.healeyclub.org and log in (you are a member right?).
Select Club Resources and then Magazine Index. Just another example of why all Healeyphiles should be members at both the local and national levels.
See you in the desert!