Many members and friends of our work have asked, “what’s happening with PAPA?” The answer in the last year might not have been clear, but it is today.

Since the group was formed in 2001, PAPA has grown and risen to a full fledged organization with a healthy membership and a calendar of events ranging from meetings to exclusive news opportunities and even some educational round tables in-between social occasions.

During late 2015 and 2016 our group board entered a quiet phase with many of those who had been long standing members simply needing to take time for their own work and see PAPA change hands into new leadership.

I call it a quiet phase because that is what it was. Most of us who had been at the core of running PAPA were not able to put in the time and focus for that period to keep the organization at full steam.

In this time our Board became really more of a Steering Committee or Board Of Advisers who have met regularly to keep things moving forward until such time as we could assemble a group of people who had the energy and focus to get this organization at full steam again.

This is where we are in 2017. I have stepped into a leadership role along with Tyson Hugie. I am more or less operating as a General Secretary with Tyson Hugie operating as our Membership Chair and Treasurer.

We’re sharing the road ahead with our esteemed Board Of Advisers; Cathy Droz, Larry Edsall, Nicole James, Sandra Munoz, and Brenda Priddy. Though official titles aren’t yet assigned to these fine people, each and every one of them is playing a vital role in PAPA going forward.

You may recognize many names as most have been on our Board for many years in various roles. There are also some new faces including Nicole James of ClassicCars.com and Sandra Munoz of Latinaology.com who will be handling our PR work and running our new social media channels you can see icons for on our site.

In the coming year we have a number of goals:

First, we are working to assure that PAPA has at least one event or meeting each month that has value to our members. A number of events are in the works for the immediate coming months and we intend to have a full year calendar of events – which means summer too.

Second, we’d like to reach out to all of our members and ask your help to grow PAPA strong by supporting us in membership renewals as well as attendance at our coming events. We also welcome members and manufacturers alike to work with us to promote events and gatherings that would be worthwhile to our members. That means if you have an idea, let us know.

Third, building on the first two goals we would like to be in a place this fall where we can once again hold official Board elections for the 2018 year. This goal is the crown to what we are working on this year to bring PAPA fully back from the quiet phase.

If you have any questions or would like to know how you can get involved, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sam Haymart, admin@phoenixautopress.org