As published in the January 2001 edition of the "British Marque" newspaper.

The Annual PBCA Christmas Party was enjoyed by forty two Club members at the Best Western Pensacola Beach. Ann Fell put together another great meal of ham, fried turkey and all the trimmings. She topped it off with a super cake. Prez Gus Fell announced the new officers elected at the November meeting. They are Gus Fell, President; Keith Sanders, Vice President; Ron Newman, Vice President; Bill Snyder, Secretary; Tom Schmitz, Treasurer; Bill Cornacchione and Gary Jensen, Members at Large; Sylvia Newman, Club Historian. Tom Schmitz and Bob Henson will co-chair the April Pensacoal Beach British Car Show. Mike Japp continues to maintain and expand the website. Tom Schmitz was presented with a very nice pewter clock as Member of the Year. After the short business meeting, the group got down to the real business and had a great time swapping, stealing, and hiding of gifts. As usual, there was a lot of creativity shown in the variety of gifts. Twelve members spent the night at the Best Western and enjoyed brunch Sunday morning at the Bayside Grill.

Sixteen members and one guest attended the January meeting at Ryans Steakhouse January 15. Treasurer reported that the Club remains very solvent and that with the end of the membership renewal drive, 63 members have paid their dues for 2001 and will continue receiving the British Marque. A new roster will be ready for distribution by February.

Trophy plates were distributed for the trophies won by PBCA members at the South Alabama British Car Show at Fairhope in October. Receiving First Place trophies were: Bob Henson, '67 XKE; Chuck and Charlene Byrne, '94 XJS; Fred Saas, '50 Jaguar Mark V; Tom Schmitz, '55 MGTF 1500; Kenny Justiniano, '76 TR6; Gus Fell, '80 TR8. Second Place trophies went to Bill Shanahan, '73 XKE; Tom Schmitz, '57 MGA Coupe; Ron Newman, 73 MGB GT; Bill Silhan, '49 Triumph 2000. Bill's Triumph also won the "Ladies Choice Trophy". PBCA won the Club Participation Award for the third year.

The Pensacola Beach British Car Show committee was appointed. Members are Tom Schmitz and Bob Henson, co-chair; Gus Fell, Bill Snyder, Keith Sanders, Joe Hajcak, Chuck Byrne, Bill Cornacchione. There will be a meeting of the committee Saturday, January 27 at Keith Sanders offices at noon. Other members who would like to help put the show together are welcome to attend and get involved. All members are requested to recruit the same sponsors they brought in last year and find additional ones. Also needed are goody bag stuffers. We will again stuff approximately 110 goody bags for the Show.

The Show is scheduled for April 21st at Pensacola Beach. Registration forms will be available shortly and can be printed out from the web site at http://www.geocities.com/pbca1/show2001.htm.

The remainder of the meeting was spent entertaining suggestions for events for this year. In the planning stage is a "Garage Tour", "Sunday Afternoon Progressive Feast", a tour to Seaside, Florida as well as caravans to various British Car Shows, the first of which will be the New Orleans British Car Show March 24th. Other suggestions were Tech Sessions and Autocross events held jointly with other car clubs. See below for February event.

The February event will be a tour to Atmore, Alabama, for lunch and a visit to the Railroad Museum. We will leave the Walmart parking lot located on Highway 29 just south of Nine Mile Road at 10 am Sunday, February 11th.

If you have had any changes as to address, phone number, email address, or British cars owned, please contact Tom Schmitz at 334 961-7171 or tschmitz@ametro.net. Since 48 PBCA members are online, we have used email as well as snail mail to communicate with the membership. We have found that some members with email addresses seldom check their email. So, if you fall into that category, please contact Tom and we will add you to the snail mail list as you may be missing some messages about events and club activities.

Starting in the March issue of the "Marque", we will begin a series of Member Profiles. We will be contacting members at random to interview for these articles based on how, why and when you became interested in the British Car hobby and other personal facts which you would care to divulge. If anyone would like to be featured in this series, please write a biography and submit to Tom Schmitz by either email or snail mail to 9609 Soldiers Creek Road, Lillian, Al 36549.