I hope you and your families had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We had an active and rewarding December starting with a very productive Business meeting with much accomplished including voting on our Charity donations for 2008, passing the newly revised EMCC Constitution and By – Laws and changing the starting time of our monthly Business meetings from 8:00 to 7:30pm. The following Sunday a few of us took a cruise to the Henault’s house to present a donation to the Phil Henault’s Children’s Fund and wish them all a very Merry Christmas; it was a very enjoyable and worthwhile visit. Our Annual Holiday Christmas Party and Yankee Swap was another great success, well attended and all had who attended had a lot of fun. Sunday December 21’st a few members braved the snow and ice to help deliver Christmas gifts and food items for the Friends of Franklin. A very special thanks goes out to all who participated. It’s time to look forward to our 2009 schedule; we already have a lot of exciting events planned for EMCC’s 25th Anniversary year.

This past year has flown by and we’ve done a lot of Cruising, Social events, competitions, shows, and had many proactive Business meetings addressing a few sensitive subjects with lots of dialog, participation and recommendations. The following is a brief overview and annual report of our Club’s events, functions and accomplishments during 2008 and goals, objectives and planned events for 2009.

The year started with a very successful Soup Party hosted by Rick and Jackie Wile, followed by a very well attended and successful Anniversary Party at the Chateau Restaurant in Norwood; John Dwyer received the President’s Award for Outstanding Service, club participation and dedication. The old Board received numerous tributes, Bob Gardner turned the gavel over to me, and the new Board and Chairs were introduced. We all felt we had very big shoes to fill.
Our 2008 Board hit the ground running in March setting many goals and objectives to strive for during 2008 to include – Charity Donations, implementation of EMCC name badges, planning functions for our 25th Anniversary for 2009, Pasta Hop, Club dues increase, update and revise the Club’s Constitution and By – Laws, start the planning process to represent EMCC at Caravan 2009 at Bowling Green; schedule fun Social events, implement an exciting Cruise schedule and most important to have fun and enjoy our passion our Corvettes. Our Board and Chair Officers all stepped up to meet this challenges with excitement and enthusiasm.
• Vice President and Cruise Control Joel Baker did a great job kicking off our unofficial Cruise schedule in mid March followed by our Static Cruise schedule starting and ending with coffee and donuts. We had a full summer schedule of Cruising staring at the Bubbling Brook in Westwood; thanks go to all the members who hosted and planned our summer cruises. Other very successful Cruisers during 2008 included the annual South Shore Corvette Club Shakedown Cruise to Newport RI, Larz Anderson Corvette Day, Muzi Corvette night, Mass Cruisers at Patriot Place, 50’s Diner, LaBelle Corvette Sunday, TEC, Gas N Glass Car Show, Imperial Chevrolet Car Show, and Fall Foliage Cruise etc. Joel has also done a great job chairing our Board meetings and presiding over meetings in my absence.
• Secretary – Nicole Flynn has done an outstanding job throughout the year preparing minutes, documentation, updating Club roster and serving on the Charity and By-Laws subcommittee.
• Treasurer - Phil Wesalowski has kept excellent records, reports, and documentation and keeps our Club up to date on all financial matters.
• Membership Chair – Tommy Flynn continues to do a great job; this year our membership has increased from seventy-five to eighty – five. Many new members have started to take active roles with hosting events. Tommy and Nicole have done an outstanding job making up all Club ID badges.
• Competition Chairs – Andy Tenore and Rocco Derrigo have hosted numerous events to include – Factory Five Racing, New England Dragway, Hemmings Muscleplooza, American Lemans Series at Limerock, Bowtie Shop, Bay State Corvette Club Autocross at Devens. Andy and Rocco have done a wonderful job hosting and managing Club events.

Many of our members received trophies and or awards for their Corvettes this past year, leading the list is Bob Grenier (59 fuelie), followed by Jack Ryan, Stan Chorianopoulos, Bob Fitzpatrick, Jim Gable, Rocco Derrigo, Stuart Graves, John Dwyer, Bob Gardner, Dennis Collins and even I received one.
• Sunshine Club / Club Store – Hutch continues to do an outstanding job, he remains the heart of the Club, always there for our membership during the good and the bad times. Continues to do a superb job promoting and selling our club merchandise. We have many more items planned to celebrate our 25th Anniversary and Steve Hahn is in the process of designing a new tee shirt.
• Publication / Web Site Chair – Bob Feigen continues to do an outstanding job with all aspects of putting together our Gazette and Club Web Site, It’s a model for any club.
• Editor - Bob Gardner has taken on a new position as Club editor, assisting Bob Feigen and overseeing ads placed and collections. A great new asset for our club. Thanks goes to all who submitted articles in the Gazette, we even got a couple from our west coast member Les Brown.
• Social – This Chair position has been vacant for the last couple of years, however many members have stepped up to host and manage many successful events to include – Saint Patrick’s Brunch – Mal and Judy, Our very successful Pasta Hop – John Dwyer and committee, Soup Party – Rick and Jackie Wile, Annual Wash & Shine – John (Pinch) Pinciaro, Columbus Day weekend Cruise – Jim and Kelsa Morrill, Fall Foliage Cruise – Andy and Rocco, Halloween Party – Judy, Holiday Party Al and Sue Szafarczyk and committee, Friends of Franklin – Bob Gardner, Barrett Jackson Auction gathering- Ed Fosberg, Anniversary Party – Nicole and myself, Ralph Andrea will be hosting this year. I apologize if I left anyone off the list.

Goals, Objectives, Initiatives and challenges met during 2008 include -
• Three temporary Sub Committees formed: 25th Anniversary, Joe O’Connor Chair, Charity Donations, Judy & Mal Chair and Constitution By-Laws, Mal Chair. They and their committees have done an outstanding job helping us meet and exceed many of our club goals and objectives for 2008.
• Increased Club membership by over ten percent.
• Fund raising events during 2008 for charity or our Club included the Pasta Hop, chaired by John Dwyer netted $2299 (charity), Hingham Display hosted by Jim Gable $300 (charity given directly to the Phil Henault’s Children’s Fund), Squantum 4th of July Parade hosted by Jim Gable $300 (charity), Norwood 4th of July Parade hosted by Hutch $300 (club expense fund) and Walpole Day at Adams Farm $300 (charity). EMCC donations approved this year included $100 to Finnegan’s Wake, $200 Joe Doyle / Pan Mass Challenge, $100 A.L.S., $250 Vettes to Vets, $200 Friends of Franklin, $650 Shriners and the remainder $1617 to Phil Henault’s Children’s Fund.
• EMCC name bags were approved, implemented and given to members.
• The motion to increase annual club dues from to $35 to $50 and $15 to $30 for Associate members was approved to commence in 2009.
• Numerous 2008 Cruise, Social and Competition actives and events scheduled with positive results.
• Updated and revised Constitution and By – Laws was presented and approved, all members received hard copies Future members will receive a Club nametag and copy of Constitution when becoming a member.

A special thank you goes to the 2008 Board, Chairs and Committee members.

We have many Social events scheduled for 2009, starting with our annual Soup Party and once again hosted by Rick and Jackie Wile, our February Anniversary Party hosted by Ralph Andrea, St. Patrick’s Day Brunch hosted by Mal & Judy, 25th Anniversary Party, two 4th of July parades, Caravan 09 to Bowling Green, Adams Farm; Joel is in the process of planning our Cruise schedule and Andy and Rocco are already in the process of scheduling great competition events.

A few goals I’d like to recommend to the Board for 2009 are to try to increase membership participation, Board and Chair position involvement etc., consider scheduling a few fund raising events to take the place of the very successful Pasta Hop the last few years. We already have a nice financial pot started for our 25th Anniversary year events due to our monthly 50/50 raffles; 25th logo are in final design and will be officially rolled out within a couple of months.

Thank you all for your past and future continued involvement, recommendations and support. Lets keep our Club strong, momentum going, and most important having fun.
Bill