Next Year

Well...the Webmaster has already removed the 2013 Convention detail from the homepage and added a note saying "See you in Ft. Wayne (IN) in 2014". If so, this will mark a return visit to the NE Indiana city. One of the Club's early Conventions, maybe number 4 or 5, was held there. I'll have to dig through my stack of now too tight and seldom worn past Convention t-shirts to say for sure.

I also heard from someone concerned about such things that the 2014 Convention may be scheduled for September, not the usual July. Another convention with 90 degree plus temperatures has apparently been enough to expand the calendar for our Conventions. If so, I support and applaud.

Someone please confirm and supply more details. We should get a reasonably good turnout of DeSotos as there are many members within a reasonably short drive of Ft. Wayne.

Finally, to those who stepped forward to hold this Convention, I would like to offer my help in any way necessary. Although too busy to hold my own Convention in Louisville, I would like to help. Bob Terpak and I were co-Chief Judges in Chattanooga, and will accept that role or any other needed by the Convention team.

Mark K.

The bad thing about holding a Meet in Sept.We are wanting to
have younger people attend our Meets this would make it
impossible for them to attend as well as any people connected to
school system.

Rick,

I'll acknowledge the point about a later Convention impacting school schedules but frankly how many school-age children do we see now at Conventions held in the middle of July? I was not at this year's meet but there were very few at last year's meet in TN. Balance that against folks that don't attend or at least don't drive their DeSoto in the mid-summer heat and traffic and it at least worth a try.

What other details do you have about next year's Convention?

Mark

Changing the convention to Sept. also effects teachers and anyone else working
in a school system. While it is less likely, it can also get hot in Sept.. If the date must be changed I like June better than Sept..

I'll be wanting to attend the national meets once mine is finished with the restoration. Right now, the month of July is so full of Mopar related shows and August is right behind. Personally, I have the last week in June off work every year so that week, just before July 4 gets my vote!

The NDC convention that was held in Ft. Wayne, IN, was in 1991 and was convention #6.

I'm orginally from east-central Indiana and now live in west-central Ohio. While it is rare, something to consider is that I have seen in snow in September in this part of the country!

Noble

Would be great if we could team up with another Mopar-related club. Plymouth club maybe ?

September is totally fine with me.

Ron

Fort Wayne is "DeSoto Driveable" for us, so I'm a happy camper!

I'll gladly accept any time of year that is convenient for the very generous folks who are offering to host the 2014 convention.

Hope to see ya'll there!

Would be great if we could team up with another Mopar-related club. Plymouth club maybe ?

September is totally fine with me.

Ron

While at the meet in Minnesota, I asked all of the NDC and WPC Club members that I could, how they were enjoying the joint convention. All of the folks that I asked agreed that they thought that the joint meet was a great idea, and that they were having a good time enjoying the opportunity to see more cars, and to meet more people. Hardly a scientific survey, I know, but I personally didn't come across anyone who didn't like the idea of the joint meet.

It was a super fun time, and the weather was great!

MANY thanks to Micky Dunning, Garry Yazell, Alan Ralston, and to all of the hosts, planners, volunteers, international travelers, and other fellow attendees who made the 2013 conventions such a total HIT!

While at the meet in Minnesota, I asked all of the NDC and WPC Club members that I could, how they were enjoying the joint convention.

You didn't ask me Rosy. We already had a joint convention that combined Desoto's with other Mopars. It is the WPC meet. Anyone that has a Desoto can join the WPC and attend a meet with other Mopars. You could attend both meets unless they were held at the same time. I think our Desoto conventions were just fine as they were. I liked the smaller group and the uniqueness of our cars. I haven't been to a WPC meet in several years but I remembered them having more cars than ours which would make sense as they are a bigger club than the NDC. We had more DeSotos at this show than other Mopars combined. I wonder if that wasn't because many WPC members weren't happy with the combined meet and didn't come. Don't know that for sure but there was some reason there weren't a lot of WPC members there.

If it ain't broke why fix it? IMHO, It was fine like it was.

Having said all that, I agree the organizers done a good job with the convention and appreciate all of their hard work. We had a great time. Anyone that hosts a convention deserves our thanks and appreciation as it is a big undertaking.

I very much enjoyed myself last year at the NDC Convention in Tennessee as well, so I think I see what you're saying, Les. It was my first convention, so I can't really comment regarding the history of the conventions.

We sure did have a great turnout of Desotos though, didn't we?! It was a very pretty sight! And it was so nice to see all of our old DeSoto pals.

Let's all do it again real soon!

I very much enjoyed myself last year at the NDC Convention in Tennessee as well, so I think I see what you're saying, Les. It was my first convention, so I can't really comment regarding the history of the conventions.

Our first NDC convention was Charleston, SC in 1999 and we were hooked. We didn't go to Seattle in 2000 but have been to everyone since. All have been good. A great opportunity to visit different parts of the Country and experience local cultures. We have made many friends in the NDC. Some that we only see once a year but always look forward to meeting them at the convention. That is probably why, along with the fact we are getting old and set in our ways, we don't want to see a lot of changes in the way the conventions are done. We just enjoy them the way they are. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Ft. Wayne.

Rosy,

I guess you didn't make it to the open meeting with the NDC Trustees that was held on Thursday evening. At that meeting, Alan Ralston listed his reasons, based on this combined convention, as to why NOT to do a combined convention. Mainly, there are significantly more problems with finding and booking hotels and events. For example, the banquet room wasn't big enough to hold members from both clubs. The host hotel quickly filled up, and one of the back-up hotels wasn't helpful. Too many trailers and not enough room to park them (which may be a future problem even if we're not having a joint convention). The tour buses and boat limited the number of members to less than those who wanted to go. Most of his issues were problems that the hosts have to deal with, and the majority of the members would never even know that there were any problems. I think it would be interesting to do a combined meet with a Plymouth club, since that probably would be smaller than what we just did with the WPC, and Plymouth and De Soto were both started at the same time and are now both "orphans". I haven't had the chance yet to look into that possibility.

On a side note, I have to disagree with a comment made by Les. He said, "We had more DeSotos at this show than other Mopars combined." Counting up my photos, I have 54 De Sotos that were at this show - that includes the two on the WPC side of the field, two that were in the parking lot and not in the show, and the '42 that was up on the trailer (that won Diamond in the Rough). I also counted 67 non-De Sotos Mopars that were in the WPC portion of this show. So there were more non-De Sotos present than De Sotos - unfortunately.

Bill

...Most of his issues were problems that the hosts have to deal with, and the majority of the members would never even know that there were any problems...Bill

I feel fairly confident that the majority of NDC and WPC Club members were quite aware that the planning of such a large, joint convention would naturally bring many obvious challenges to the fine folks who worked so diligently to ensure that the event went as smoothly as possible for the attendees. And it does seem that the planning team was quite successful in this endeavour, at least according to the many attendees with whom I spoke regarding the matter. I'd like the planning team to know that their success with surmounting the many challenges of hosting a joint convention was greatly appreciated by so many.

So for me at least, the good news is that the challenges were handled quite well by the planning team, which left the attendees with whom I spoke at least, with nothing much to worry about except having a great time. And for that, I thank them for all of their well executed efforts.

We attended the WPC Club's post banquet awards presentation and meeting, and a show of hands revealed that the majority of the WPC Club members enjoyed the joint convention as well, which was nice to see. (We brought a Chrysler to the meet, as our DeSoto was in the shop.)

Can't wait to sign up for the next convention!

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