I posted this at www.mazdamp3.com also - Enry was kind enough to make it "stick" at the top of the thread list - replies wanted!!

Proud P5 owner on Long Island - I think we should try (try hard!) to set up a meet this summer.

One was tried (MP3/P5) recently in South Jersey, and from what I hear an amazing 2 people showed. That sucks.

We should pick the date and place soon, and stick with it. Northern New Jersey is fairly central to all of us in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and even Pennsylvania - maybe someone from Northern Jersey could recommend a place?

Here's an idea, if we can plan far enough in advance - we should all go to a concert at the Meadowlands or Continental arena - we could have the meet all day until the show, and hopefully a lot of owners will show up. A huge showing of P5s and MP3s at a concert would draw a nice crowd, I'd think, and a cool concert could be a great addition to the day - just a thought.

Sometime in June or July - in the warm weather? Whatever we do, we should do SOMETHING!

 

Looking at the Meadowlands Sports Complex calendar it looks like not much going on but flea markets.

Of course, there are no concerts posted there, so I'm not sure what's up with that. Ticketmaster showed no events scheduled there either.

The Deleware Water Gap is a great place to go, although it's about an additional hour West for NY'ers... I think the tri-state Miata club has their annual there during the summer. It's very scenic, nice curvey freeways and also some curvey mountain roads around. There's also camping and hotels and such... but man, if we could get enough cars together to take over an entire campsite that might be something else!

 

I wouldn't expect much to be posted for the upcoming summer just yet - too early.

A meet at the Del Gap would definitely be cool. I was just thinking that maybe if it was tied together with a good show we could get a BIG meet - along with something else to do. I figured a meet AND concert would be something of a unique experience.

Maybe we could have a faggy t-shirt made up for the event, too, so we could all look like idiots together

But seriously - I'm looking for any support for this idea, or support for ANY TYPE OF LARGE-SCALE MEET THIS SUMMER. Let's get organized, and make this a really good time - we've got tons of time to plan something big and great.

Keep the responses rollin'

 

I agree with you... I think it would be awesome. We should make is some kind of weekend thing... in an area where there is cool stuff to do on Saturday and Sunday. We gotta think of a bitchin' place where there are a ton of things to do... If we get a large enough group, not everyone's going to be down with seeing the same concert. The idea should be to have a massive get together, where we have some "events" that everyone can participate in, like maybe a massive BBQ. Then when those aren't happening, everyone can break into groups of like 10 cars or so and go off on little side adventures. So those that want to go see a concert can go do that... and the ones that want to sit around a campfire an jam on Acoustics and drums can do that.

Maybe we can get a local dealership to sponsor and do like a raffle to generate funds for the thing... we can do the drawing there. It'd be cool if we could get some aftermarket parts to give away. That might be able to buy some food, rent some tents, or something.

The T-Shirt idea is wonderful... but there's no need to make it faggy. It could be something cool. Like a long-sleeve T-shirt with a BadAss design on the back and protegeclub.com down the sleeve.

-Brubeck

 

All great ideas - we just have to keep up the motivation and try to rally support - that's why this flow of ideas is great.

In case a whole weekend thing didn't work out, most venues (I'm not 100% sure about the Meadowlands or Continental) allow anyone to enter the parking lot (for the parking fee) whether or not you're a ticket holder. So a meet at a show, even for those who don't want to see it, might be a good starting point. And it's all close enough to Manhattan for people to trek over there, too.

The acoustics and campfire idea rocks, too - you a guitar player, too?

I know of an awesome campground near Port Jervis (again, fairly central to most of us) - it's in Cuddybackville. Nice place - probably an hour north of Rutherford - near the PA/NY/NJ borders - I've been there a bunch of times, and it's great.

The ideas are good - I hope we can get some more contributors soon and set this up at least a month or more in advance.

 

Depends on where and when you guys have it , I can maybe muster up a crew of like 5 protege's in the new york and connecticut area
Bruce

 

Sounds good, Bruce. This is all very preliminary right now, but it would be great to have something large here in the Northeast.

Does anyone have any idea as to how to get some sort of sponsorship for an event like this? I just threw an idea of a big summertime meet out on a few boards, and now I'm feeling like I should try to organize it, too - which is okay with me, as long I get some help and support.

Anyone have any connections or know how to get a sponsor that might help this thing really blow up? I think we'd all love to see hundreds of Proteges show up at something like this, but I don't think a few message board postings are gonna do it.

We've got plenty of time, so keep it going - I'll be here.

 

Sponsership would definitely be tough. Besides a few aftermarket dealers for the Neon, our national meeting every summer doesn't get anything.