CORSA 2012: Convention Concours schedule (UNCLASSIFIED)

[O'Neill, Brian M CTR USA]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE



On Saturday during the car display, I had a meeting with Jamie Reinhardt
the CORSA president, Jim Allen the CORSA Concours chair, Larry Claypool
the Concours classification and operational check guy, Jason our
regional director and Bay State member.  Also in attendance was Harry
Jensen the CORSA Executive secretary. The purpose of the meeting was to
review the positions of the attendees regarding our proposes convention
schedule that had the Concours and car display on Saturday.  It was
apparent to me that no decision regarding the proposed schedule had been
made by the CORSA BOD.  I had a number of conversations during the week
with some of the Board members to gage the support for our position but
wasn't sure there would be enough votes if it came to a showdown.

 

During the week, I had discovered that this convention was only the
second time a computer based scoring was used.  I'm not ignoring the
1984 NJACE Parsippany convention.  However since then the Concours
judging has exploded. There are now seven or eight sheets per car to be
entered into the data base.  Last year's 10 people and nine hours
project didn't happen this time. It was much, much faster this year.
However, the posting of the scores is till a major operation.  I watched
the posting and it is time consuming.  Practice will reduce the time
required. Short of totally reforming the whole concours scoring system,
there isn't much that can be done to reduce the time required.
Reforming the concours isn't what we need to do to have a successful
convention.

 

The first part of the meeting was all opinion about who would and would
not come because we intended to have the Concours on Saturday after the
moving events.  The same old 'the cars will get dirty' talk. I said we
should concentrate on the facts not 'what ifs'. We reviewed the time
required to post the scores and all agreed that it was better not still
requires hours to complete.  It was obvious to me that no changes to the
whole mutli-sheet process was going to happen.

 

In my mind, there were only a couple of options.  One was to  bow to
pressure, change our whole schedule and have the concours first.  I
wasn't ready to make this major concession.  Another option was to make
it a 'take it or leave it' choice for the Board.  In spite of my
hardnosed attitude before the convention, I knew that neither us nor
CORSA would benefit from this.  I was searching for some sort of
compromise. I was about to propose moving the concours to Friday when
Jim Allen the concours chair made the same proposal. I was thrilled
because he was willing to accept that the concours would happen after
the moving events. The only thing he asked was that we end the Thursday
rally around 4 PM so they can classify and operational check the cars
that evening.  I think we can accommodate that.

 

I told the group that I thought we could live with this but that I had
to check the  NECC folks. Personally, I support this compromise.  As I
mentioned , it would take a complete revamping of the whole concours
scoring business to reduce the time requirements for posting.  Doing the
Concours on Saturday makes the trophies a real headache, one we don't
need.  Please let me know your position on this.

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE