DV, by DV

[Double Venom]

Mid-O,
Absolutely no offense taken. How ever "the Combs' family" has more help and support than I can ever thank. I have posted this many, many times. We have had help from California to Florida and we use what we can.

The Fling is the Fling. If someone else wants to come forward and hold their own Cobra get together somewhere else in the country, I'm all for it! The bottom line is people can't come to London/Columbus to help organize, meet with all the restaurant owners, the businessmen involved, let alone all the City entities that are involved. Even you, as relatively close to us as you are couldn't take two or three days off of work every other week or so to attend all the meetings. Well, maybe you could.

What we do need are people coast to coast to coast to talk about the event, contact potential sponsors, knock on doors, and have their own fundraisers of whatever type they can think of. Contact their own kit manufacturer, insist they come to the Fling and be represented.

The most active and fortunately local guys that are with us almost at every step are Frank and Rick. Even they have a hard time keeping up with their work schedule.

I have very seriously thought about having a "diary" if you will concerning the Fling so everyone can keep up to date on a true daily/weekly basis. The reason I haven't done it is because guys wont read the whole thing, they will pick out excerpts and go with it, only to have it changed the same day or within days. I know of no other event where this is done. Car events, Carlisle, SEMA, etc. only give you a date and place to show up.

Along with the huge amount of time it would require to do this, I'm afraid it would simply cause utter confusion among the masses. Just for example, we worked over three weeks on the above mentioned airport event. Meetings were held, countless phone conversations, food vendors were in place, safety crews were recruited, parking and transportation services were notified, only to get a phone call late on a Friday afternoon that 'The Corporation', (not the General Manager of the facility) came into play and cancelled everything.

However I don't have to be told that "we" are a very special group! As always I will do what the majority of our Cobra Family wants to do. Period. This IS NOT my event it is yours.

Questions that I ask every year--do we open this special event up to different groups of cars? The Viper clubs have shown more than a basic interest in joining us. The MG club of America wants to do the same. Should we open it up for others to join us? If we do, they will of course have their own section(s). Much to debate here and organization will be paramount.

The wonderful vendors that have come on board, almost all Cobra related, are in a quandary. Do we turn the event into a combined event? Open it up to all kinds of Cobra people, from CobraDan to guys that build and sell trailers? The City of London surely wants us to! But think about the problems for these guys. They only get one true day to show off their wares. Off course they are with us all three days, but they no sooner get set up and it's time to move on!

Do we change the Fling in such a way that we make our home port of London a full three day event, with everything based from there? All the events would still take place as usual.

A picnic...who would have thought "WE” would be where we're at in only four short years?

Back to the part about accepting more help...JP or anyone else come on down! Right now we need someone to track down a really great area for a great autocross event.

The questions that I have now are,
Do we keep our Picnic at the hotels under the tent, or should we go back to a Hall/Lodge?

Do we open it up to other car clubs? If so, how many and which ones? Ford, Vipers, Vettes, whatever?

Do we take over the entire downtown of London, forgoing the Strawberry festival?

Do we combine the Fling as a huge "Vendor" show as well as our Cobra picnic?

ANY other suggestions?

DV...