Thanks to the 130+ members who took the time to fill out the survey we put out to you. As a result, I know that myself and a number of other Board Members have had great conversations and emails about the club with different members. There has been a lot of great feedback about what you, the members, want from the club.

In our last Board Meeting, we dedicated over half of the time to poring through the results to see what we could find. Dick Demaine and Rich Willey put a lot of time into breaking the results down different ways to see what was common, what was different, and what we can do. With some good conversation and lots of consideration, we came up with the top three things we think will make a big difference for our membership.

The first thing we are going to do to help everyone enjoy events better is to try and have name tags available to everyone at events. The was one of the universal things that came through in the survey. While we always think of ourselves as a friendly group, seeing someone’s name and being able to introduce yourself becomes much easier when you have a name to do it with. And, if you’re like me, you forget names quickly, so it makes the remembering part a little easier.

Second, we are going to work to have quarterly member appreciation dinners around the region. We saw many different ideas of how to do this, and the solution that we came up with was to have some dinners that should be convenient to members in all areas. This should let folks get out to an event, make some friends (with name tags!), and have a great social time. Watch the calendar and website for more details on this as we get the dates and locations worked out and published.

The final thing we heard was that people need plenty of notice for events. With busy lives pulling us in different directions, it helps out when you can plan for things. We are going to do our best to make sure all events are published at least 2 months ahead of schedule. I can understand the frustration and annoyance people get when they miss an event that they are interested in because they didn’t get enough notice. I’m sure there will be more that comes out of the survey, but those are the initial action items. We’ll keep everyone updated on further analysis and decisions that come out of the survey as we determine them.

Getting to what is going on in the club, we have started our season with a great first DE and Charity Laps. I don’t know the final tally on the donations to Make-A-Wish, but just by the smiles that were seen, the event was a great success. Word around the track was that it was one of the best yet! Our goal this season is just like last year’s - to raise over $10,000 so we can provide a full wish to a child. I hope you’ll come out to some of the other charity events throughout the year at Porsche of Stratham for the Car Show and follow up with Ivy on the Charity T-Shirts. I’m sure there will be more articles in this Northlander about this wonderful event. I’m disappointed that I will miss the Spring Rally that Jeff Torrey has put together. I know there has been a lot of planning put into this event and Jeff has a great day planned.

Seeing the RSVP list growing since the first announcement, it’s going to be very well attended. I hope there are lots of pictures and a great wrap-up article so I can hear about all the great things I’ve missed. I hope to see you at an event this summer. Come up and say Hi!

Matt