Youth Involvement

[Terry Bond]

We just tried a local version of Doug Drake's "The Car and It's Parts" program at our annual local show here in Chesapeake Virginia. It was a tremendous success drawing very large crowds of both children and adults. We had previously invited boy/girl scout troops, school children, and publicized it in our local newspaper. There were two programs during the show lecturing on the history of the automobile and in particular, the Model T, including a cranking demo. We gave out special buttons to all the children present. Our membership table was busy all day and hopefully we will gain some new families in the Tidewater Region and some Junior members for AACA. It was fun and very well received by the public. I highly recommend you try it at your own local events. Are there any other programs out there directed at interesting younger members? Lets share some ideas here.<BR>

[ronbarn]

Terry, That event sound great. Is it possible to get an agenda or script or better yet, a video of the program available for other regions or chapters to help them do a similar program. Maybe Doug has put something together. If this exists or can be made to exist, we could post it on the homepage.

[Terry Bond]

We are fortunate to have a member who stepped forward and volunteered to head up our efforts in this area - Mark Monaghan of our Tidewater Region really put this all together and deserves the credit, I just supplied the Model T, and did the talking. Of course the tie-in was the Model T Ford - "The car of the century." It was our feature car this year for the meeet. We got some good press coverage in advance and that helped. Doug was very helpful with Mark's planning and Im sure would gladly assist any group with a similar project. I'll ask Mark to jump on the DF to respond to any questions about how it all worked. We will have an article done for the Rummage Box and Antique Automobile Magazine. Check out our region Web site also - it links directly to this site - just go to Local Clubs, then Tidewater to see some coverage.

[24T42]

Terry,<P>The BNTC has not done anything like your program - YET. However, I am trying to appeal to the younger group with our web site. Since the today's youth takes to computers like ducks to water, I thought it would be nice to offer something for them on our corner of the web.<P>I have recently added a Kids Korner. This will contain picture pages, jokes, riddles, games, holiday pages, and anything else I can think of. All will be car related. The site is up and running but still in development. <P>24T42 <BR> <A HREF="http://www.aaca.org/bntc/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.aaca.org/bntc/</A>