Classic Memories
(Part three)
By Gary Porter

I guess it’s been about four years since I wrote part two of the club history. I never thought at the time that I would take so long getting around to doing the remainder. First I should apologize to everyone for being so slow, especially Jeff, who has politely asked, pleaded and begged me to finish this. Without getting into the reasons why I wasn’t able to continue this story, let’s pick up where we left off, the end of 83 and start in 1984.

“One of the directions in which I would personally like to see us head is a ‘Classic Chevy’ meet
of our own making”.

-President Peter Stokdijk, January 1984 newsletter

We did hold our own event for the first time in 1984 as Peter had hoped. However, it was John and Cheryl Perry who took on the task of organizing our first ever event. The Old Orchard Inn was the host hotel. Room rates started at $35.00! A telephone survey done in April indicated 34 member planned to attend our event, two said no and there were five maybes. As the event grew closer more and more details were finalized, members worked frantically to have their cars ready on time for our event.

In May, the Mail Star did an article on our club and our upcoming event. Pictures of Wayne Conrod’s ‘57 and Earl MacDonald ‘56 were featured.

After much anticipation the first Classic Chevy weekend was held on June 30 - July 1, 1984. Approximately 35 Classics attended with some coming as far as Maine and Newfoundland. The event was a big success and fanned the flames for a bigger and even better event in 1985.

Like the previous summers, 1984 had its share of show and shines that various members attended as well as a couple of get togethers at members homes.

The annual elections were held in October with Jeff Kempton being elected as president (for the first time). The position of Director was changed to Entertainment Director and I (after three ballots) was voted into the position. I also was elected as Show Chairman for our 1985 event. Planning for the 1985 Classic Chevy weekend was well underway by the fall of 1984. While John and Cheryl did an excellent job with the first 1985 Classic Chevy weekend, it was easy to see that with even more club members involved with the organization, the event can be even better without burning out a few individuals. So for ‘85, 14 separate committees were formed to organize various parts of the event. Also in ‘84 we decided that it was no longer mandatory to be a member of the
Classic Chevy Club International in order to be a member of our club.

1984 ended with 46 memberships and 51 classics. The “Classic Chevy weekend” was still the hot topic as 1985 rolled in. To the right is the flyer announcing the big event.

Our dues structure was changed again to keep things simple and is basically still the same today. Rather than dues being paid on the anniversary of a member joining the club, dues became payable by all at the end of February each year. This eliminated a lot of unnecessary complex book keeping.

In February we held an anniversary dance. The tickets were $10.00/couple and the music was provided by a DJ. Ticket sales prior to the dance were described as “slow”. Fast forward to 2005. An anniversary dance is planned for February, 2006 . The tickets are $15.00/couple and the music will be provided by a live band. Tickets are almost sold out as of early December! I guess we can conclude that although 20 years has gone by, your entertainment dollar has fared better than your gasoline dollar.

It is also interesting that T-shirts and sweat shirts with the club logo were being sold back in ‘85. Twenty years later, club apparel is still popular. Over the years we have had countless T-shirts commemorating our various events, golf shirts, belt buckles and four club jackets.

The May newsletter reported some members participating in a number of spring indoor car shows.

A club roster was published in the June newsletter. There were 57 memberships and 63 Classics. There was quite a variety with lots of sedans and hardtops, but there were Nomads and convertibles from each of the three years along with a ‘55 Corvette and several pickups. The 2005 roster lists 73 memberships, but only 52 classics. Nineteen of the current memberships have 20 or more years in the club with only three of the “originals” left. Ten of the above 19 memberships still have the classics they had in 1985. Some then and now pictures would be interesting!

The second annual “Classic Chevy weekend” was held on June 28-July 1 at the Old Orchard Inn. Records indicate that we had a 65 per cent increase in classics! That is a substantial increase, no matter how you look at it. In terms of real numbers that equates to approximately 57 classics, 16 from the U.S., including two from Maryland. While most of the remainder were from Nova Scotia, classics also represented New Brunswick and Newfoundland. The surprise of the weekend was Ron and Toni Garnier’s ‘56 Corvette. It was purchased before the meet, but kept secret. That must have been difficult!

Here are two pictures from the cruise to Hall’s Harbour.

While Saturday was a bit damp, Sunday was beautiful. Here are a couple of shots from the show and shine. Look at all those Chevys. Look at all those people!

These are the two 1955 Delrays from Maryland owned by Vince and Norma Stinchecum. His and hers classics!

Ron and Toni Garnier’s secret 1956 Corvette is pictured above.

The ‘85 show was a great event. We had meet and greet on Friday, cruise, lobster supper and dance on Saturday, show and awards on Sunday. There also were games for the adults and kids and a model car contest.

With our show behind us, the rest of the summer was spent enjoying other shows, having barbeques at various member’s homes and a contingent of members made the trek to Augusta in late August bringing home six class awards.

As summer turned to fall, we started getting back to business planning for next years event, purchasing new jackets, planning a Halloween dance and, of course, elections.

Because of what we felt was lack of cooperation on behalf of the Old Orchard Inn, we decided to move the event to the Best Western in Truro for ‘86. The once monthly feature of the newsletter of including an article and picture of a member’s classic was reduced to two issues for ‘85 despite the tireless pleading of editor Jeff for members to submit something.

1986 started with President Jeff resolving that “in 1986 special emphasis will be put on scheduling informal, friendly evening cruises, weekend picnics and the like.” Jeff pointed out that it would take an effort on everyone’s part to make this work. A number of club cars were being refurbished or upgraded during the winter months in anticipation of a busy summer. The jacket order was postponed and a dance was held in April.

The third annual “Classic Chevy weekend” was held on June 27-30 at the Best Western Glengarry in Truro. While we had approximately as many classics as in 1985, the big disappointment was the off and on rain on both Saturday and Sunday which caused a lot of last minute changes to the schedule of events.

Here is a picture taken of the show and chamois! Again, we used the International club’s judging guidelines with 40 classics taking home trophies. Eighteen trophies were given out for the models. While this was only our third event and it was considered a success by all, there was a continuing concern that too much was being done by too few.

For a lot of these cars, other than washing, this is one of the rare occasions that they got wet.

One of the seldom seen body styles is the sedan delivery. This one belonged to Harold Jardine and was making its debut at CCW3

This 1956 panel is owned by Reg Muncey from P.E.I. and is the equivalent of the sedan delivery based on the truck body style.

Merlin Dorey’s 1957 rolling chassis drew a lot of attention. Note a couple of members keeping dry under a nearby tree.

By all reports, the summer of 86 was a wet one. However, members attended a variety of shows throughout Nova Scotia as well as Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. There were regular Friday night cruises from Point Pleasant Park. Twenty years later, this is still a popular spot for car enthusiasts to gather. On a fine night, particularly on the weekend, there are enough cars to rival some of the show and shines.

We participated in the Halifax Natal Day parade in 1986. Here are Wayne Conrod’s 57 along with former members Skip Collier, Greg Westlake and Don Langille with me bringing up the rear in my 55. Shouldn’t 55s be ahead of 56s and 57s?

Our August meeting was at the home of former members Mike and Kathy
Greenough. All of the cars in the foreground and their owners are no longer in the club. However, long time member Harold Jardine is seen here checking out the classics.

The last car event for 1986 was a trip to Maitland drag strip. Twenty members brought 12 classics to the event that cold October day. While I still remember how cold it was that day, what I didn’t remember was that I took the runner-up position, losing in the final round to Steve Gatti’s blown small block powered ‘57.

The club constitution stipulated that no person could serve more than three consecutive years on the executive. As a result, Jeff was ineligible to run for office in the 86-87 term. Five nominations for president were made with John Perry taking the majority. We finally decided to go ahead with a jacket purchase. We chose the melton and leather style which is better suited to our early spring/late fall (and some summer, for that matter) weather.

For reasons that were not explained in the newsletter, both the president and vice-president resigned their positions. I was chosen as interim chairman until a new president was chosen. A couple of other highlights from ‘86 included a membership survey to see if and where improvements can be made in the club and an article in the Mail Star on Curtis Levangie and his ‘55. Finally, 1986 saw submission of information for only one member’s classic for the newsletter. That’s down from two in ‘85!

Part three has turned out to be a summary of 1984, 1985 and 1986. My deadline has arrived to get this to Jeff in time for the next newsletter. However, I will continue to work on this and have another installment ready for the following newsletter. For those with access to the club website, check out this article for colour versions of the pictures.