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From the Archives #10, December 2022

For the past year we’ve been reviewing the Las Vegas Region’s first year, 1974. This month I thought we might jump ahead ten years to check out development in our first decade.

You might recall that during the LVR’s first year, they had roughly 40 members, and that the event reports showed that essentially everyone participated in everything. Pretty much 90 to 100 percent of the membership came to all of the events. But by 1984, it’s clear that the situation of non-participating members had set in.

The Newsletters of 1984 contained complaints and questions about these non-participants in almost every article. There were notes that putting on an event, and then having only five or six cars show up, was not acceptable. There were doubts about finding event organizers or sponsors, since there might be only a few folks attend the event. In February 1984, there were requests for members to suggest or say what kind of events they would actually attend. The Activities Chairman said that the Region would no longer offer “something for everyone.”

Now, today, with over 900 members in the LVR, a participation level of 10% or 15% can be dealt with, since that would still result in lots of folks at any event. But in 1984 it was a problem that seriously troubled the Region.

As I mentioned in my talk at the Red Rock Country Club Brunch in September (to the 6% of you that were there), the low percentage of member participation was the subject of a PCA National survey and examination in the early 80’s. It turned out that a huge number of members wanted only the PANORAMA monthly club magazine, and within that group most wanted only the MART so they could examine the “For Sale” market of Porsches across the country.

On the positive side, the Region did, however, schedule a pig roast at Mt. Charleston for August of that year. We’ll let you know how that went.