n April 12th, the AONE convention committee got together for another convention planning meeting. The convention is drawing near, folks!

First, I would like to apologize to those who took their valuable time to attend and participate, since the setting was really not well suited to conducting any kind of business meeting. For the rest of the meetings, I’m securing a room at Cisco Systems, and we’ll order up some takeout or something. That way, we can conduct the meetings in a much better environment.

We had a pretty full agenda; we’re getting down to working out the nitty gritty details now. I’ll try to summarize our progress here.

First and foremost, we had one important announcement: we have secured Henry Wessels as our guest speaker! We’ll post a biography soon but, in the meantime, just the thought of having him show up with one (or more?) of the cars he’s owned is a thrilling prospect! Thanks to Bob Brady of Pennsylvania for talking Henry into it, and also for working with Henry on his presentation.

Glenn Michael has spent days driving to all of the venues from the convention center, and is writing a "Directions for Dummies" guide to the convention. Glenn has also worked on gathering up tourism brochures, web site pointers, etc.

Gene Durso and Simon Body are in regular contact with the convention center personnel. The hotel name change is now complete; Gene and Simon have provided updates to the new web site.

Steve Silverstein has secured the concours venue and is finalizing all of the paperwork. I never imagined there could be so much paperwork; it’s almost like buying a house!

Bruce Donahue has been working with the Manchester aldermen on securing permits, greasing palms, etc. (Just kidding about the palm-greasing part...)

Jonathan Kirshtein has been working on some great trophy designs. We’re still in the pricing phase, but I’m confident that, when they’re unveiled at the convention, all will be impressed. So start tuning those Alfas—when you see one, you’re going to want to bring it home!

Stephan de Pénasse, Eliot Shanabrook, and Andy Kress are hard at work on the competition events. The big stuff is all covered, and now we’re in the process of working out timing, insurance, etc. There is some good news here, too: people can leave race cars and trailers at the track if they’d like, all the way from the Thursday practice to the Saturday autocross if they choose. So it should save a lot of dragging them back and forth.

Kevin Murphy is good to go on the driving tour, and has picked up responsibility for the Pinewood Derby.

Steven Thomas and Tom Letourneau have driven the rally route a dozen or more times, and are ready for the practice run on May 1st. We’re still looking for volunteers to man some stops—contact Steve at srt@anlytc.com or 603-293-4250. The Long Island Chapter will attend to run the trial event (they’ll be working the stops during the convention).

I’d like to thank Kevin Murphy for stepping forward and picking up a portion of the dinner bill. We came up a little short during the final counting…

Finally, we need more manpower to help with the convention! Some of the areas include (but aren’t limited to):