Enjoy these pictures from our 2022 Summer Meeting --- in Old Forge, New York
Click on any picture below to see it in full-size
Recap of 2022 Summer Meeting - Old Forge, NY
Our club membership smatters throughout the snow-belt states/provinces, from coast-to-coast. Most members would live in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan. So, our two meetings per year have mostly been in these states. The result is that we have dues-paying members who have not experienced nearby ASCOA events and who receive little more than newsletters through their membership. Actually, the Directors have talked for many years on an "out-East" summer meeting. Guess what? Plans changed to realities when member Ed Stabb took on the task of organizing our 2022 Summer Meeting in New York. (Ed Stabb received our Distinguished Service Award this year!)
Wow, when was the last time ASCOA hosted a meeting out East? The answer came through a phone call to our club historian Jerry Wanty. Jerry had published a year-by-year history of ASCOA. What was discovered is that ASCOA hosted three Eastern summer meetings in the early 1980s --- Syracuse in 1980, Lowville in 1981, and Boonville in 1983. (The annual ledger shows additional summer shows in the Midwest and in Canada for these years. Apparently, we were a busy club back then.)
Along the way, Ed Stabb is calling Minnesota with "an idea". How about staging the Vintage Snowmobile - VSCA 2022 Nationals Show in conjunction with our ASCOA show? Well, our answer came pretty fast --- LET'S DO THIS
In retrospect, it was a great location and show site. The New York tourist town had all the amenities. An ASCOA troop that grew to 14 members from the Midwest had a blast out East! Those from Minnesota hit the Willis Snowmobile Museum in Hopedale, IL the first travel day. The next day was a short hop over to former President John/Jan McGuirk's collection in Sidney, Ohio. Day three found us in Old Forge and enjoying the vacation/tourist vibe as the sun set.
Most memorable aspect for most of us Midwesterners? It was the fun of meeting and shaking hands with that fellow sled-head name and voice you have enjoyed, but never met. Put a face to a name. We ate it up...
In the town of Old Forge, the largest gathering venue is on the ski hill. The McCauley Mountain Ski Center was the Friday Cracker Barrel/Saturday Meeting and Banquet hot spot. Our Friday reception was well attended and amply showed the appreciation and support from our East States membership! It was heart-warming.
Saturday morning was meeting time. See the meeting minutes elsewhere in this newsletter. After the Saturday meetings, it seemed that we had the ski hill to ourselves. Most rode up the chairlift to check out the hilltop sightlines. A view of the Adirondacks that I won't forget. (A Northern state mountainous area but populated with deciduous trees, most over 100 years old.)
Next, on to the show site. A big Community Rec Center and also enough room outside for four huge circus tents to accommodate some 460 old snowmobiles that were judged. At the back of the property, up a road incline was a raised plateau where swappers enjoyed parking lot spaces. One guy was selling a fluid-drive "EW" Yamaha and another offered up a Redline, fresh out of a museum. I saw stuff unseen in Center-States sled swaps.
ASCOA came away from the weekend with enriched coffers. At our membership meeting, we were surprised to receive a $ 1,595 check from Cal and Linda Moser. It represented one-half of the proceeds of the auction that they put on at their recent Milbank, South Dakota 2022 show. (Recall that our 2021 Summer meeting was at Milbank.) Another ASCOA tradition is to hold a live auction after our Saturday evening banquet. Well, this year, Ed Stabb offered us an alternative --- to hold the live auction on Saturday afternoon at the event grounds. The thought was that the large audience at the show would drive sales, and sales prices. And it worked! Non-members came forward with their donations to be auctioned. A large crowd stuck around for 90 minutes and, in the end, the dollar tally was impressive and actually exceeded our auction income at last year's Milbank Show!
So, check out the pictures of the event and as a club, let's not wait another 40 years to return "out-East".
Wow, when was the last time ASCOA hosted a meeting out East? The answer came through a phone call to our club historian Jerry Wanty. Jerry had published a year-by-year history of ASCOA. What was discovered is that ASCOA hosted three Eastern summer meetings in the early 1980s --- Syracuse in 1980, Lowville in 1981, and Boonville in 1983. (The annual ledger shows additional summer shows in the Midwest and in Canada for these years. Apparently, we were a busy club back then.)
Along the way, Ed Stabb is calling Minnesota with "an idea". How about staging the Vintage Snowmobile - VSCA 2022 Nationals Show in conjunction with our ASCOA show? Well, our answer came pretty fast --- LET'S DO THIS
In retrospect, it was a great location and show site. The New York tourist town had all the amenities. An ASCOA troop that grew to 14 members from the Midwest had a blast out East! Those from Minnesota hit the Willis Snowmobile Museum in Hopedale, IL the first travel day. The next day was a short hop over to former President John/Jan McGuirk's collection in Sidney, Ohio. Day three found us in Old Forge and enjoying the vacation/tourist vibe as the sun set.
Most memorable aspect for most of us Midwesterners? It was the fun of meeting and shaking hands with that fellow sled-head name and voice you have enjoyed, but never met. Put a face to a name. We ate it up...
In the town of Old Forge, the largest gathering venue is on the ski hill. The McCauley Mountain Ski Center was the Friday Cracker Barrel/Saturday Meeting and Banquet hot spot. Our Friday reception was well attended and amply showed the appreciation and support from our East States membership! It was heart-warming.
Saturday morning was meeting time. See the meeting minutes elsewhere in this newsletter. After the Saturday meetings, it seemed that we had the ski hill to ourselves. Most rode up the chairlift to check out the hilltop sightlines. A view of the Adirondacks that I won't forget. (A Northern state mountainous area but populated with deciduous trees, most over 100 years old.)
Next, on to the show site. A big Community Rec Center and also enough room outside for four huge circus tents to accommodate some 460 old snowmobiles that were judged. At the back of the property, up a road incline was a raised plateau where swappers enjoyed parking lot spaces. One guy was selling a fluid-drive "EW" Yamaha and another offered up a Redline, fresh out of a museum. I saw stuff unseen in Center-States sled swaps.
ASCOA came away from the weekend with enriched coffers. At our membership meeting, we were surprised to receive a $ 1,595 check from Cal and Linda Moser. It represented one-half of the proceeds of the auction that they put on at their recent Milbank, South Dakota 2022 show. (Recall that our 2021 Summer meeting was at Milbank.) Another ASCOA tradition is to hold a live auction after our Saturday evening banquet. Well, this year, Ed Stabb offered us an alternative --- to hold the live auction on Saturday afternoon at the event grounds. The thought was that the large audience at the show would drive sales, and sales prices. And it worked! Non-members came forward with their donations to be auctioned. A large crowd stuck around for 90 minutes and, in the end, the dollar tally was impressive and actually exceeded our auction income at last year's Milbank Show!
So, check out the pictures of the event and as a club, let's not wait another 40 years to return "out-East".