40th Anniversary a Success! – Blue Ridge Region

With much planning and hard work from a few people our 40th Anniversary Celebration, though a year delayed, was held on October 14, 2021. The turnout was great with 94 attendees including several of our founding members, a few of our past President’s, several new members.

A number of members commented that it was a great event! The Vinton War Memorial was quite the upscale venue and facilitated socializing, dinner, car show, and silent auction. Our dinner was catered by our own Steve Williams and his staff from Professional Catering, Inc. More than a few attendees said the food was awesome with one saying it changed his mind how good food can be at a large social event. Of course, no celebration is without mementos and each attendee departed with an insulated tumbler and each registrant was provided a dash plaque.

The event began with a show of members’ cars in the parking lot with entries organized in 3 classes. This was a “peoples choice” show with the votes placed through tickets purchased by attendees in the quantities they desired. While there were strong contenders the winners were:

CLASS	WINNER	VEHICLE
2-Door Porsche	Marc Wilson	1991 Porsche 944S2
4-Door Porsche	Dawn Michelsen	2021 Porsche Cayenne Coupe
Non-Porsche	Al & Beth Durham	1971 Detomaso Pantera

A key portion of our celebration was raising funds for the 4 charities that our region supports. The car show entry fees and voting tickets were but one aspect of the fund raising. As part of registration a number of caring members made charitable contributions to add to the funding. Finally, we held a silent auction which featured a number of items generously donated by Porsche of Charlottesville, as well as a number of books donated by a bighearted member. The result is that we raised over $2,800 for our charities!

With concerns for Covid, the venue was set-up with fewer chairs per table. Several parties self selected their dining partners for comfort. All attendees were provided a stunning face mask that sported the event logo as well upon check-in and for use while indoors. And, an individual size hand sanitizer was placed at each table setting.

This article by Dave Hogan provides a summary of the event activities and includes more pictures.