The Wall, American Veterans Traveling Tribute

Calling All Rodders,



Tonight was the last night that the traveling memorial wall was in Erie. Rex and I took the time to go to the First Assembly of God church parking lot on Oliver Road to see this display. Words can NOT explain the feeling of standing before that wall. We go about our busy lives and sometimes forget how lucky we are to live in a country that is protected by these great men and women. The ones that chose to give their life to keep us free and those that were called to duty and chose to defend our country and people. We all seem to have an opinion on how things should be run but these people did more than just talk about it. They gave the ultimate sacrifice and we need to never forget!

We need to THANK those people who gave their lives, We need to THANK those families who have lost a loved ones for the good of our country. And we need to THANK those men and women who put them selves in harms way everyday for US! No matter was race what religion what working class these people come from they come together for a cause and that is for you and I to live in a country where we can voice our opinion, complain about our government, and get an education if we want one, work where we want, simple put make choices and live safely all the things we take for granted! These men and women believe it is your right to these things and fight to keep those things and many more.
Stop and pause right now and remember why we have these rights and how many lives over the years all through history have been lost to ensure that our sons and daughters get those same rights and hopefully a better live because of the sacrifices of our service men and women! God Bless America! We are Proud to be Americans!

Woodward Dream Cruise 2010

Calling All Rodders,

Saturday, August 21, 2010 we woke up 5:30am to meet friends and headed up to Detroit Michigan!... Why?...

Because the worlds largest one day car event is going on there! Woodward Ave Dream Cruise 2010. With 40,000 cars and over one million people attended it is an event you don't want to miss. If you have ever gone before you know what I mean. Despite the weather the streets are filled with muscle cars, streetrods, hot rods, special interest cars, any kind and anything you can think of. This event runs the whole length of Woodward Ave. from Ferndale, Michigan to Pontiac, Michigan. Each town has a special part in t his event. The towns participating are Berkley, Ferndale, Birmingham, Huntington, Royal Oak, Bloomfield and Pontiac.

Dodge, Chevy, Ford and GM as well as other groups have there own special spot along the route. Also complete with Vendors, Car Clubs, Food, Event merchandise. There are Auto Techs, Promotions of next years cars and sneak peaks of what's to come in the auto world. Contests and prizes fun for all.


Speciality cars attend and partiapate in the crusin. We saw the Car from the Monkees, A Fred Flinstone Car, Deloran, Back to Future Car, Batman Mobile just to name a few.

In Ferndale on Nine Mile Street you have Mustang Alley where all the pony cars parked. Bands fill the air with music. Entertainment is plentiful.

We traveled the entire Woodward route and ended up in Pontiac Michigan, When we were there six years ago it was a very depressed looking area this year it looked like new life had been breathed into it. They have done quite a bit to bring this town back to life we saw remarkable change in the attitude and look of the town. Good Job guys, Keep up the good work. We saw parking lots filled with car enthusiasts and great classics. Pontiac was one of our favorite spots.


There we met Paul, Vince and Joe from Cruis'news. Talk about hospitality they were the best at welcoming us to the Dream Cruise! We stayed and talked to them for quite a while and they made sure we had all the information and souvenirs we needed to remember our trip to Michigan! Great Job Guys we enjoyed your time with us. We will be back!

Now we head back down Woodward on the other side of the boulevard and back out in the cruise line. People are lined up in lawn chairs all along the route enjoying the endless parade of great looking cars the the sounds and smells of the car enthusiast world! What a great event!


Back in Ferndale it is now time to find some dinner. When we were there in 2006 we went to a restaurant called, "Howe's Bayou" and had some of the best Cajun cooking we have ever had. So, lets try it again and sure enough it was every bit as good as before and we were glad we came back! The staff is super and the owner came out and talk with us right at the table. Great service and wonderful cuisine in Ferndale Michigan.


Now night is falling and the cars are still crusin until 9:00 pm when the street shuts down and the police will help empty the street and end the event for another year. This process is done rather quickly and without much traffic problems it is amazing to see them do this. The police departments in these towns are to be commended, there are very few problems with the amount of people the descend on Woodward Ave for this event! Great Job!


In closing I want to give everyone who makes this event run so smoothly a big Thank You for your all your efforts it shows that you take time to plan and organize because it is one of the best run shows I have been to. With the amount of people and cars that attend the Woodward Dream Cruise Event you do a great job!



See ya next year at the Woodward Ave Dream Cruise 2011, the plans have already started for next years event. Make sure you are there. Well worth the travel time.

Waterford Tool & Machine Cruise the Bay!

Calling All Rodders,

Well another record night at the cruise the bay event, held every Monday night at the Bayfront Park N Ride, in Erie PA..

We can't complain about this summer we have had great summer nights and lots of participation all over the tri state area at all the areas cruise in amd shows.
One of the most popular shows held in Erie, is the Monday night cruise in. Each night a new theme is presented and an area sponsor is there to participate in the show. Tonight the sponsor were Jim & Janet Shillings from Waterford Tool & Machine.







It was "Car Show Night", any or all that wanted to join in the fun had the opportunity to enter their car in the show, for the zany prizes, the choices were made by the fellow cruisers.

Winners, were Fran Yost, with her 1969 Mach One Merlot...Bob Sheimer with his Z28 Camero...Ken Johnson with his 1931 Red Ford Coupe, it was his first time at our show he came in from Geneva, Ohio...Joe Bruce with his 1964 Chevelle.

It was also Krispy Kreme night and they came with FREE samples of the best glazed donuts in the land! And a Spin to Win Wheel for more delicious goodies!


Don't let the summer evenings on the Bay front pass you by you won't be dissappointed. Jump in the car and come on down and Cruise the Bay with us!
See ya next Monday!

Local Cruisers get invited to a Photo Shoot for Tuning World of Germany

Calling All Rodders,

Some lucky local cruisers had a once in a lifetime invitation to be a part of a national promotional photo shoot.

The Promoters of Tuning World an annual car show held in May in Germany. This attraction brings in over 1000 cars and over 100,000 spectators to this event. Along with the cars they also have a beauty contest to pick the next Miss Tuning to be used in all the promotional material for the event.

This year Kristin Zippel of Mering, Germany was the winner and along with the exclusive photo shoot in North America she won a New Nissan Micra.

One of the stops in North America is the wonderful Great Lakes. Erie was contacted and ask to help find cars for the photo shoot of local car enthusiast. Chris, from the Visit Erie office contacted us to help.

The German Promotional Group came into Erie about a month ago to meet with the local cruisers. It just happen to be a Friday Night and The Last Buggin State Street Event ! They then enjoyed a great evening in Downtown Erie and there they found a few more cars that they were interested in.

Today's event involved 3 local cruisers.




Our day started out at Beach #9 on Erie's beautiful Presque. Steve & Cheryl Nesselhauf and Son Cubby from Edinboro PA along with friend Kyle Sheehand who was lucky enough to tag along today! They brought out their 1955 Ford F-100 Truck to be apart of the photo shoot.

After some tense moments in the sinking sand Steve did a great job at getting his truck up on the beach. The the beautiful Miss Tuning, Kristin Zippel brought the pictures to life.



Then it was off to the next location. Erie's own Sara's Dinor at the entrance to Presque. The Dinor setting was perfect for the old skool HotRod shots. Rex & Annette Diemer from Waterford PA brought out their 1933 Plymouth Coupe to Sara's Dinor and there with the addition of some props and the wonderful backdrop of the Dinor, Miss Tuning, Kristin Zippel became the best mechanic in the area! You guys could only wish that your mechanic looked like her! We also enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Sara's.



Next the scene changes with the arrival of Paul & Marcia Jensen from Greene Township, in their 1966 Red Corvette Convertable. Our wonderful model, Kristin Zippel transformed into a full service Gas Station Attendant! What a fun day!

Thank you, Chris, from the Office of Visit Erie for including us this promotion.
And a sincere Thank You to Toby and his staff, Marc and his staff from Tuning World for giving us a day to remember! And for visiting our city. We all can't wait until the final 2011 Calendar comes out!

Also Kristin Zippel and her staff were a pleasure to work with.
More pictures can be seen of the days event by clicking on to our fan page on facebook or by going to the website www.callingallrodders.com

See ya at the next car event! You never know when you might be at the right place at the right time!

NEW EVENT TO REPLACE BUGGIN STATE STREET

Calling All Rodders,
I have just received a special announcement from George Lyons! Courtesy of a fellow cruiser! (Gregg H) As follows:

Yes, I am sponsoring/managing/promoting a Friday Night downtown Erie car cruise,
Friday, September 17th
It will be similar to a "Buggin State" event but will NOT be called that name.
I am going to promote it as:
CruiseTown Erie
2010
Exclusive sponsorship by Contemporary Motorcar
I do not yet know what next year will bring.......we will see how this goes for us.
Help spread the word and more info will follow by mid August.
Let's make this an event to remember.
Thank You,
George Lyons
Well , there we go lets continue the great cruise on State Street see ya on Friday,
Sept 17th, 2010!

Rumors surrounding the Buggin State Street Events 2010

THIS AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LOCAL CAR ENTHUSITS ABOUT THE RUMORS SURROUNDING THE BUGGIN STATE STREET EVENT!
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Annette:

Thank you for reaching out and calling me for “our side” of the Buggin State event. While some may disagree, we did try to secure sponsorships and have continually tried to assess ways to hold the event at a breakeven point. I can assure you that our organization does not make money at any event we organize, however we do have a policy that states that we need to at a minimum have our costs covered prior to scheduling an event.

I have attached a letter that was sent to the Erie Times News editor and subsequently printed. This gives some of the basic information regarding our decision making process and the need for us to juggle the needs of all of our members (members are the property owners and businesses between Holland and Sassafras Streets and from 14th Street to the Bay). I hope this will be the beginning of an open dialog between those car enthusiasts and our organization.
Please feel free to post this as well as any portion of our phone conversation. If you or any of your “followers” are interested in further dialog, please feel free to have them call or e-mail me with questions. If would like me to write a specific piece or do something almost like a written interview where I answer some of your questions for you to post, please give me a call.
Thank you for the opportunity to straighten out some of the rumors that are buzzing around the car community.

Brenda A. Sandberg, CEO
Erie Downtown Partnership
515 State Street
Erie PA 16501
(814) 455-3743

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FACTS ABOUT THE BUGGIN STATE STREET RUMORS!

Dear Cruisers and Car Enthusiasts,

Lately it seems at every event we attend someone comes up to me and wants to know, “ what is up with the Buggin State Street Event? “ Countless rumors have been flying around about the future of these events. And the interest to keep this event going is strong. Because of this I decided to go the source and try to get answers.

This letter is to you the cruisers and supporters of the Calling All Rodders website, it is only intended to be an informational letter for you. NOT the opinion or decisions of Annette Diemer, or Calling All Rodders. We only wanted to get some of the facts out to you and open a line of communication between you and the Buggin State Street organizers.

This week, I spoke to Brenda Sandberg, CEO of the Erie Downtown Partnership. For those of you who do not know, The Erie Downtown Partnership is an organization that is made up of property owners and business owners from Holland Street to Sassafras Street and 14th Street to the Bay in the downtown area.
At this point, I have added the letter sent to the Erie Times News by Brenda explaining their policies, earlier in the year, for you to read…

**********************************************************************************

During the summer, the Erie Downtown Partnership organizes many weekly downtown events including Block Parties, Bike Nights and the Classic Car Buggin’ State. This is the Partnership’s most public face.

We are always evaluating what services we provide and how effectively they are provided. As a membership based organization, we must first look to see if we are satisfying the needs of our members. The latest event evaluation really led the Board of Directors to reflect not on the implementation of the event, but the reason behind having them. We asked ourselves “How do these events benefit our membership”? The answer is complicated, for some members the event brings an influx of people and spending to their door and for others it neither helps nor does it hurt them. Finally, for some members, the event is seen as a detriment because the streets are closed and their customers or clients cannot easily access the products and services they offer. Those members often argue “would you want to locate your business on a street that closes 10+ times a year”?

We determined that these events are vital to bring people who may not otherwise come downtown to showcase our area as being clean, safe and fun. Secondly, we realized that it was important to bring them to the downtown on a night in which it was not typically busy. This second goal is much more difficult to accomplish. In creating our 2010 calendar we made every effort to schedule around events being held at Jerry Uht Park, the Warner Theater, the Erie Playhouse, Gannon University, and Gallery Night just to name a few. Add to that the thought that most people will go out for the evening on a Friday or Saturday and the dates become more limited.
It is wonderful that downtown has so much to offer! This is exactly the activity the Erie Downtown Partnership is trying to reinforce on a daily basis. However, in an attempt to balance the goals of an event and the needs of all of our members, the Summer of 2010 event season will have a few changes. We have made a slight reduction in the number of events we will be holding and we have moved our Bike Nights to Thursday nights.

We are looking forward to a busy summer season which begins with a Bike Night on Thursday May 20th. Thursday night is the night to come downtown with events each and every Thursday from June 17th to September 9th . We hope you stop in for a visit, maybe you will find a store or restaurant that will become your new favorite!

************************************************************************************

Some points of this letter addressed by Brenda were :

1. The reduction in Buggin State Street Events.

Answer : Due to cost and no sponsorship. Also, the problem of trying to work around other scheduled events in the downtown area. Such as events held at the Jerry Uht Park, Warner Theater, Erie, Playhouse and Gannon University.

2. The Cost of sponsorship for the Buggin State Street Events and the response for sponsors.
Many local businesses were approached for sponsorship along with local car dealerships, there was not enough response to fund the event. The changing of the event night also hindered the sponsorship as they did not want to sponsor it on any night but Friday.
Answer: This event needs to have a sponsorship of $3000.00 to go on. A sponsor will be added to all advertising material for the event.

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Here is a break down of the estimated cost of the event:
Estimated Event Expenses
These costs are per event held not cumulative
Buggin’ State:
Advertising -
Television $350.00
Radio $350.00
Print $275.00
Children’s Activities $600.00
Porta Potty $375.00
Permit Fees (inc Officers) $925.00
Misc (trash bags, water, etc) $ 75.00
TOTAL $2,950.00
In the past, this has covered our external costs of the event. We never expect nor ask for us to recoup our time or clean-up resources that the Erie Downtown Partnership incurs with organization and implementation of this or any other event.
Please feel free to share this information with any potential sponsors. Let’s hope 2011 is better than 2010!

Brenda A. Sandberg, CEO

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One solution that was requested by the cruisers, was to charge each car a minimal fee for entrance.
Answer: The Problem with this is there is no one point of access for the event and would be impossible to get to every participant in the show.

3.Why they want to move the event from Friday night (a rumor that has been flying around).

Answer: The purpose of these downtown events is to bring business to the area that would not normally be there. The partnership owners feel that the Friday night is normally busy so they would like this event held on another less busy night to draw in business for their slower nights. As this is the purpose of the Downtown Partnership, to help draw business to the downtown area.

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From Annette @ Calling All Rodders Response:

In response to this, I can say that the cruisers in the area have expressed to me this, “By moving it to a week night you will lose a lot of the out of down guests that come to the city JUST for the Buggin State Street Event. Many families tell me that they plan their vacations and family reunions or get togethers around this event because it is on a weekend. We get people coming to see our cars or show off theirs from as far away as Ohio, New York Pittsburgh, Sharon, or West Virginia. Even many of our local cruisers come in from more than 30 miles away they do not want to try and drive back on a weeknight and have to go to work the next morning. This is big event for many people who have moved out of the area and love coming BACK to Erie to reminisce about the days of Buggin State Street. Talk to anyone from the area and they have a story about Buggin State Street in their younger days! This is a great event that brings tourist into the area sometimes for the entire weekend as well as bringing business to the downtown area.”

If you have anything you would like us to pass on to Brenda Sandberg, CEO of The Erie Downtown Partnership Organization. You can send me an email at annette@callingallrodders.com and we will forward them on to Brenda or you may contact her directly at:

Brenda Sandberg, CEO
Erie Downtown Partnership
515 State Street
Erie, PA 16501
814-455-3743


In Conclusion, again this letter to you the cruisers and supporters of the Calling All Rodders website, is only intended to be an information letter for you not the opinion or decisions of Annette Diemer, or Calling All Rodders. We only wanted to get some of the facts out to you and open a line of communication between you and the Buggin State Street organizers. Maybe together we can get this event to continue.
I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion with this event.
Sincerely ,

Annette Diemer, CEO
Calling All Rodders
www.callingallrodders.com
annette@callingallrodders.com

Syracuse Nationals NY 2010

Calling All Rodders,

We have just returned from the 11th Annual Syracuse Nationals held in Syracuse NY. This is the largest car happening on the Right Coast. Street Rods, Customs, Classics, Antiques & Trucks thru 1980. It is a three day event held at the Empire Expo Center on the New York State Fairgrounds. Produced by the RightCoast Association, Cool Cars and Hot Happenings.

Next year it will be held July 15-16-17 2011, same place make plans to get there you won't be disappointed.

The cars are beautiful and the custom work is amazing. the Rat Rods building was my favorite part of the show it is amazing to see the creativity of the custom builders!

They held a charity auction, the money was raise from the sale of pin stripped panels done by some of the most talented pin strippers in the country.

Vendors, galore! Tech seminars, Cars, Cars, and more cars! Over 7000 cars attended Everything from Muscle Cars, Street Rods, Hot Rods, Lead Sleds, Famous Custom Builders, Airbrushing and Pin stripping, Customs Paint all around.

They had shuttles for the women, to the local shopping malls, and Women's World on the grounds. Plenty of good food and Music, Bands, Burnouts and Fireworks. Three fun filled days of things to do and see!

We had so much fun that we are planning to go again next year...you should too, if you are interested in cars at all don't miss it!