So far, the Connecticut winter of 2022-2023 has been one for the books. Most of us have received no measurable snow so the shovels and snowblowers continue to sit in the garage gathering dust. Because of that, the last thing we were worrying about for our February meeting was the weather, but sure enough, rain and lower temperatures moved in and threatened our event with an icy mess on the roads. But the temps stayed above freezing and the CVRers, being the hearty New Englanders that they are, made their way to Porsche Danbury for our February event.  

If you have been to the Porsche Danbury location for a monthly meeting, you know what a great job they do. They utilize their Audi service center, which is off of Miry Brook Rd. The location offers plenty of room for the tables and the many CVRers in attendance (there were 70 of us). The meeting started out with a great dinner and socializing. Porsche Danbury brought in Carl Anthonys who provided some great Italian food, firing up their pizza oven outside and baking up a number of pizzas. Delicious! The CVRers enjoyed a great meal while catching up with each other.  

With dinner complete, we moved on to the business portion of the meeting. Porsche Danbury’s Marketing Director Mike DeMilt and General Sales Manager Van G Kolton Jr. welcomed us to the dealership with a hello to everyone before we handed things over to our president, Shelley Krohnengold, who touched on our CVR calendar for 2023. Dave Vaccaro was in the audience so he filled the membership in on his exciting plans for the Driver Education events. Shelley also introduced a number of new members in the audience which is always great to see. Welcome to CVR!

Our presentation for the evening was done by Porsche Danbury’s Mike DeMilt who touched on Porsche’s renewed focus on having their customers also be influencers for the brand. Mike explained that many potential customers feel they are not worthy of owning a Porsche or think that they are simply too special of a car to utilize on a daily basis. As we know, they are all special cars but there is no reason you can’t run an errand to Home Depot using your Porsche. And with the Macan being Porsche’s number one selling vehicle, they are looking for their customers to be influencers and get the message out about Porsche ownership. One attendee spoke of her ownership experience and her findings when friends find out she owns a Porsche. Female customers are an area that Porsche would love to tap into and broaden their sales results. Very interesting topic and we’ll see how they do. With social media exploding like it is, there are many influencers out there. Maybe even you!  

With the presentation complete we moved to our door prize drawings. Danbury was very generous with door prizes so many members in attendance went home with a neat gift. Our former President, Allen Fossbender, took home the grand prize, a desk clock that looks like a Porsche tachometer. Lucky guy that Allen. A big thank you to Mike and Van at Porsche Danbury for hosting our February meeting. Everyone had a great time.

We hope to see you at next month’s March monthly meeting which is being hosted by Automobilia of West Haven.

Thanks, your CVR programs crew.