2021
Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Minutes – Toronado and Aurora Chapter Meeting

OCA National Meet, Murfreesboro, TN – August 8, 2021

The annual Membership Meeting of the Toronado and Aurora Chapter (TAC) commenced at 3:05 PM in the Broadlands “A” meeting room of the Embassy Suites hotel. (Note – the meeting was scheduled an hour later than usual to accommodate the 5 PM departure for the Grand Ole Opry tour.) The meeting was attended by approximately 15 individuals, with slightly less than half identifying themselves as being TAC members.

Per our usual practice, the meeting started with all attendees introducing themselves, including brief summaries of their Toronado/Aurora involvement. Sal Barberi, our newly elected OCA President, was last to introduce himself, and while not a Toronado or Aurora owner, he shares our passion for another part of the sum total of Oldsmobiles and committed himself to being available to help grow and strengthen our club.

For the Business Meeting, minutes of the last (2019) meeting were read, with no additions or corrections. Without the checkbook in hand, I reported a current balance in the Treasury as something in the $3000 range. This is a significant gain compared to two years ago, but a lot of that gain has come from multi-year memberships. In addition to meeting the newsletter commitments of those multi-year memberships, there have been some increases in printing costs and will likely be even more significant increases in postage costs down the road.

As to Old Business, I indicated that there has been no progress with the T-shirt project, but that maybe the newly adopted TAC logo offers some hope for an easy design.

That last item prompted two discussions. First, there continues to be interest in the pursuit of a club T-shirt by some individuals, even if it is as basic as just our recently developed logo. And then, mention of the logo resulted in Dan Gulino sharing some thoughts. Namely, the current logo incorporates our website address, but that address is only accessible through the OCA website and requires OCA membership. The membership requirement is obviously an issue to one avenue of gaining new members, etc., so Dan will be exploring a solution to that limitation, with or without changing our website address.

The only New Business was my reporting that I noticed Fusick is in the process of developing some new Toronado products. We all know about the 1966 Toro driver side floor mat shrinking and curling (Deluxe models only). Well, Fusick will be making reproductions that will lie flat on the floor; every ’66 Deluxe owner will probably clamor for a repro when it becomes available. Also, they are developing replacement gas tanks and sending units for 1^st generation Toronados, 1966 to 1970.

There were some questions/comments about the two Toronado clubs, the second being the Toronado Owners Association. Without getting into any “politics,” I offered that the newer, independent club was formed in response to the wishes of some to have a Toronado club that didn’t require OCA membership, as was the case with Ralph Braun’s original Toronado Chapter. Yes, any Chapter membership originally required coincidental OCA membership up until about 8 or so years ago. Since then, that requirement has been rescinded, but the new club was started and continues to this day, with some commenting that it would seem so logical to be part of OCA – I guess that’s a matter for the powers that be, if and whenever.

In this day of technology and internet, there next was some discussion of useful websites. For Toronado and Aurora (and all Oldsmobiles), one can go to “ClassicOldsmobiles.com” to post comments and questions, and view the conversations of others. For Aurora info, there’s the Aurora Club of North America (ACNA)– they have a website as well as Facebook presence. Both are interesting just to explore, not to mention actually posting your own specific questions/info. After the fact, Bill Crockett informs me that there’s some additional Facebook presence under “First Generation Oldsmobile Aurora 1995-1999” and “Oldsmobile Toronado” – Thanks, Bill.

Some general discussions followed, with the Meeting adjourning at approximately 4:00 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Paul Andreas, Secretary-Treasurer