Greetings fellow members of our wonderful Finger Lakes Section of Mercedes Benz Club of America. It has been a year of Mercedes Benz cars and friendship fun curtailed by the low attendance. Certainly, your club officers have a good idea what has caused hesitation. Our picnic was blessed by an all-day rain. The unexpected resurgence of the pandemic here in upstate New York, has no doubt provided pause. As a result, our schedule of events this past season, has become focused on driving events and gatherings that have been offered spacing for social distancing.
Our last 2021 event, which you do not want to miss, is our “Annual Meeting” on Saturday November 13th at 1:30PM. This is the time we begin planning for 2022 gatherings. We need your thoughts and ideas regarding motoring and car inspired gatherings. 2021 has consisted of the following events: Cars and Coffee, April 10th in Horseheads at Tobin Motor Works, the annual Fathers’ Day Car Show at Sonnenberg Gardens, the annual picnic in Scottsville, the Ontario County Historical Tour with a very nice lunch stop in Clifton Springs, the Fall Color Tour along Skaneateles Lake and of course, our annual meeting.
The 2021 annual meeting will be in Clifton Springs, NY at Warfield’s Restaurant for a lunch paid for by your club, 2022 elections will be held and the afore mentioned discussion concerning next year’s events. Lunch details can be found elsewhere in the pages of this newsletter. We experienced the wonderful venue at Warfield’s Restaurant during the Ontario Historical Tour in mid- September. Excellent food, accommodations and service. This is the reason for returning to this colorful and attractive little village called Clifton Springs for our annual meeting.
Currently our board of directors has been re-aligned to accommodate change. Judy Handzo has retired as secretary/ treasurer. Peggy Raffo has volunteered to handle club expenses as treasurer and arrangements have been made to transfer this responsibility with our banking institution. The new board alignment will consist of president, vice -president, secretary, treasurer and web master We have volunteers who have offered to serve as VP and Secretary, Obed Opare-Sem and Bob Harradine respectively. Oscar Lopez Raffo is happy to continue as our web master and Oscar and Peggy Lopez Raffo continue to serve admirably as our newsletter editors.
As always, Mercedes Benz owners are a very fun group of people to share time with. Please join me on November 13 in Clifton Springs. Thank you once again for allowing me to serve you as club president in 2021. I have had fun.
Happy and safe motoring,
Section President Don Klug, 2019-2021