28 Members in attendance, all looking a little leery about the weather.

President George Phariss banged the gavel and brought the rowdy bunch to order at 8:02PM. A new member, Janet Wagner from Schaumburg, is the proud owner of a red, 1980 MGB. Welcome Janet!

On behalf of the club, flowers were sent to the funeral of Larry Daniels. Larry was a long-time member who will be greatly missed.

Doug Clark got one of his MGBs back from John Twist’s shop, where they did a full tune-up and inspection, as well as fixing an oil leak, and rectifying a wobbly driveshaft. You can see a video of Doug’s driveshaft being fixed by Mr. Twist, if you search YouTube for “Driveshaft woes”.

Election Results: The only contested race was a very close one, in the end, long-time member Victor L’Heureux narrowly pulled out the win. Election official (Dave Bralich) certified that the election was free and fair, and that there were no “hanging chads”.

Doug Clark then gave a detailed talk about dealing with the aftermath of 3 of his MGs being caught in an underground storage facility that flooded. Luckily all 3 MGs are back on the road today.

After which the 50/50 raffle was held, where Dave Bralich won $19! Way to go Dave! And a donated poster from Blackhawk Racetrack was won by Bill Mennell! Nice one!

Bill Mennell in the club Library, says that there are 2 more MG-club wall plaques available for sale.

Barney Gaylord says the website is still humming along. Barney is also offering website development lessons to anybody who’s interested, as he’s looking for somebody to be his backup, and perhaps run the website in the future. Call, talk to, or email Barney if interested.

Driveline: Victor says that the February issue will be published with your info (name, address, phone number, email address). Please proofread it when your copy arrives. D&R Press is still doing the printing of the newsletter and it looks like that will continue for the foreseeable future. In an effort to save a little money, the 2014 roster will be “published” in a digital format.

Kim Tonry wasn’t present, but it looks like the club’s Facebook page is still popular.

Tech Sessions: Steve Skegg has a lot of plans for this coming driving season. Since Steve will be showing things as he’s fixing

them in his (rather lovely) garage, many of the sessions will be ad hoc. So look for updates in your weekly club email. Future projects include re-assembling Russ Mehaffey’s B-Series engine, which will be put into his MGA. Finally a “modern” power plant for Russ & Amy’s MGA!

April’s meeting will have a tech session by Steve, and we’re looking for suggestions. Give George or Steve your suggestions. March’s meeting will have Dave Bralich showing the results of his oil-filter analysis.

After Jim Evans kindly agreed to donate one of his MGBs to the club to restore, it was determined that the cost of parts was too high, and therefore the club would not be able to pursue the project.

As I type, a number of club members are on the Amtrak trip to the Detroit Auto Show! If I weren’t heading to LA (and out of this cold weather) I’d be there too! Look for updates on how the trip went!

Swap Meet is March 30th this year! New date, same place! Victor is learning the ropes from Jim, and will be handling the event, and Victor is looking for volunteers for:
Saturday setup
Manning the club booth
Running the Door
Vendor check-in
Please contact the new Vice-President, Victor if you are interested in volunteering. About 29 of the 100 vendor slots are currently filled which is looking good. A number of long-time participants (repeats and local clubs) have not signed up yet.

NAMGBR convention is on June 15th! Rooms are nearly filled up! So if you’re planning on going, make your reservations! Jim Evans is organizing a convoy to the convention, taking the historic Dixie Highway, which runs through Chicago, down through the French Lick area. This is the North-South equivalent to the Lincoln Highway. Look for more details soon.

February 17th is the annual business meeting.

Dave Bralich is looking for anybody with marketing experience to volunteer to help the BCU (who put on that great show every summer) getting the word out about the BCU and the great show they put on. Contact Dave if you’re interested in helping.

Reinout Vogt presented Dave Bralich with the Other Events awards! Congrats Dave!

At 9:34PM George again banged the gavel to end the meeting, at which point the club members slowly disappeared again, into the snow.

Yours respectfully,
David Novak
Chicagoland MG Club Secretary.