Sunday, December 12th, over 60 club members, spouses, and guests, gathered at the Shoreline Yacht Club in Long Beach to celebrate the Holiday Season. As the participants arrived, bearing an unwrapped toy for the Marines Toy Drive at Camp Pendleton, they were greeted in the lobby by Greg Aden with sheets of name tags. They were then directed upstairs to the bar area where a lively crowd was gathered, reconnecting with friends they might not have seen since 2019.
After an hour plus of greetings and conversation everyone adjourned to the dining room for the official start of the Holiday Party. After everyone was seated, President Steve Kirby greeted everyone and gave a brief recap of the past year which included the successful Conclave the Club hosted in Big Bear. He also mentioned the joint Healey/ Jaguar Owners events that took place during the year with plans to join them in 2022 for more joint events.
Greg Aden then spoke about the club events planned for the next three months: Tour d’Orange, San Juan Capistrano Car Show, and Festival of the Whales.
He also requested input from the membership with suggestions for future events. The newsletter editor was next up to announce the winner of the Bill Barnett Spirit Award for 2021. Tim McNiff first spoke about how the competition for the award has gotten a lot stiffer since 2015. Recent winners have been accruing almost twice as many points as winners in the early years of the award. With the help of the 2020 winner, Chuck Lakowski, the award was presented to Phil Caliva for the third time. Tim also recognized the layout editor, Renee Neace, who really does the hard work of making the newsletter look great every month.
Steve closed the business portion of the luncheon by announcing that the club will be holding California Healey Week in May since the Golden Gate Club’s Rendezvous in Tahoe didn’t receive enough early registrations to be feasible. Our event will be in Cathedral City of the greater Palm Springs area, May 9th to the 13th.
Finally, Steve spoke about needing new blood, i.e. newer and younger members, to step up and run for office in the near future. With that, the Holiday Party was officially over as Christmas and New Year’s wishes were given to all.
Editor’s note: A special thank you to George Merino for arranging the use of Yacht Club, yet again, for the Club.