The gentleman, Bob Brassard from Chula Vista, mentioned in December’s 1800 NEWS, not only came to the General Meeting as he promised, but also shared with us pictures of his newly purchased ’73 ES that was currently in transit from New York state! Bronze colored, with 240 turbo wheels, it looks like a beauty. There was a big to do at the Aerospace museum on our meeting night, so the 8 members who attended had to scramble for parking spaces, and the number of Volvos present is unknown. We mostly talked about plans for the then upcoming SDVSA Holiday Party, which was a great success, as the reader will discover. For once, Kurt Sievert, our membership coordinator was not present at the meeting, and, wouldn’t you know it, he won the $30 in Bob Skoog’s 50/50 raffle! Unfortunately, the rules say that the winner has to be present at the meeting, so….sorry Kurt! 

     It may be some consolation to Kurt that he was picked as the outstanding SDVSA member for the year 2002. At the Holiday Party, the club presented him with an award and gift certificate. We counted around 23 participants at said party, which was held this year at the home of Richard Pattee and Darcy Bergh. And what a charming house and setting it is! In a canyon, right at the eastern edge of Balboa Park, the house is done in a Craftsman motif, surrounded by decks, lots of vegetation and tall eucalyptus trees. The lay of the land is depicted at the top of this page. Three active cats, led by Milo, big and yellow, could hardly wait for the ham and turkey to be served -- and neither could we! Our “temporary” president, Russ Orrell, demonstrated his culinary skills by BBQing and smoking the turkey the previous day to the peak of perfection. Every one of our members contributed scrumptious side dishes, salads, breads and desserts. It was an extraordinary feast! The traditional “White Elephant” gift exchange brought us many laughs. A drawing afterwards for club donated prizes provided an extra bonus to the lucky recipients of a poster and stickers from the ’98 East Coast (Elk Hart Lake) Meet, a beautiful Volvo book, and a ’99 West Coast (Portland) Meet T-shirt signed by Irv Gordon when he had “only” 1,720,000 miles on his ’66 1800S. We owe a great big “THANK YOU” to Richard and Darcy for carrying on the tradition of great SDVSA Holiday parties! Read about it beginning on page 5.

     The first scheduled event for 2003, a Tech Session at the Bilstein shock absorber factory, unfortunately had to be cancelled due to volunteer tour guides not wanting to commit to our Saturday request. Randy Blum, who was asked by the club to coordinate this event, received mixed responses, or none at all, to his inquiries. We’ll have to postpone this event to a later date when maybe we could schedule it during the week, or perhaps join another club on a tour. Randy also knows an SU “carburetor” rebuilder/expert, who would be willing to give our club a short presentation at one of our meetings. Any thoughts on scheduling either of these events from club members will be greatly appreciated. 

     So now the first SDVSA event for 2003 is going to be the Temecula Valley Wine Tour on Sunday, February 23. This actually conforms better to our new policy of having a SDVSA sponsored event only every other month. Del Skoog is already working feverishly on making this tour the traditional success it always has been. All our local members take heed! We are giving plenty of notice for this event in the hopes that it will bring more of you out for our San Diego club events. Although Temecula is some 60 miles from downtown San Diego, our Volvos will barely reach operating temperature in that distance! If you are worried about having car problems along the way, we can organize caravans, too. Just contact any of the characters in “the box” on page 3. We will have more details in February’s 1800 NEWS! But, please, make your plans to join us!

     And, don’t forget, at the next SDVSA General Meeting, on February 12, we’ll have another “Pizza ’n’ Video” session! It starts at 6:30 p.m. at SDAM.

     We would like to commend Martin “Marty” Kern of the National VSA, for “volunteering” (VSA, September/October, page 4) to straighten out their membership mess! If our SDVSA members have any problems with their membership in the National VSA, including not receiving their newsletter, VSA (renamed from S-E-ES as of Jan./Feb., 2002), contact Marty at mkblk@erols.com. 

H A P P Y   N E W   Y E A R !