SPINNER SPINNER
APEX President’s Message
I only have two more Apex ar�cles to write before my term as President of Schonesland is over. I’d like to take this �me to publicly thank all board members during the past two years. Please a�end our holiday party so you can thank all these board members in person!
Registra�on is open un�l November 23rd and will be capped at 100 people. Save your spot now using the following link before it fills up!! h�ps://schonesland.motorsportreg. com/events/schonesland-2024holiday-party-noce-pca-408770
John Peeler, vice president, thank you for being there as a back-up. I tried to make your job easy and hope you enjoy being the next president. I’ll be around if you need anything!
Kloey Runyan, treasurer, thank you for keeping track of the club’s finances. You have done a great job implemen�ng Venmo and bringing us into this century!
Herman Riva, secretary, thank you for taking mee�ng notes. I know some�mes it was hard to follow all the discussion, but you did a great job!
Garry Seemann, safety chair, thank you for keeping the club safe during all our driving tours from filing for insurance to wri�ng up safety guidelines for each drive. Not to men�on planning and leading a few drives!
Belinda Nordman, social chair, thank you for organizing the holiday party and finding places for this evergrowing group to meet for dinner once a month. I know it can be quite a job to find loca�ons for our large group!
Skip Hammerman, social media chair, thank you for managing our Facebook page and planning and leading several drives this year. I do not know what I, or this club, would have done without you this year!
Ken Watkins, membership chair, thank you for welcoming all new members. We have grown again this year, and you made each one of the new members feel welcome!
Erik Johnson, website chair, thank you for everything you have done with and for our website. It is leaps and bounds be�er with you in charge, and I know you have many more ideas to come!
Bob Eddy, compe��on chair, thank you for ge�ng more club members into compe��ve events this year. With more and more members I think these events are going to have more Porsches at them with your leadership in this area!
Jeff David, tour director, thank you for organizing all the driving tours and planning and/or leading a few drives yourself. Other regions are jealous of all our drives!
Bryan Shiffler, newsle�er editor, thank you for crea�ng the Spinner each month. I know it was hard to put all the pieces together and learn a new format, but you did awesome!
This month you will get an email from me asking you to vote for our next board. Please take �me to vote! Without a dedicated board this club would not be what it is!!
Jen Scharff President, Schonesland Region of the PCA
Schonesland Hats
As a reminder, there are new hats available for purchase! They are $30 each and you can pay with cash or Venmo. Jeff David will have hats on hand at November’s Cars and Coffee, Drive and Dine, as well as the December Holiday Party. There are two styles of hats—both “trucker” style with mesh back and full fabric style and only six colors of each.
Annoucements
New Members
Matt and Laura Gillon Altoona 2005 Boxster S
Martin Grund Des Moines 2000 911 Carrera
Daniel Malliet Des Moines 1999 911 Carrera
Ana and Edward Maccracken Ames 2025 Macan
Mike Hueholt Urbandale 2008 Cayman S
Welcome to Schonesland!
Calendar Contest
The deadline entry for the 2025 Schonesland calendar has been extended to 11:59 p.m., November 9! Details on the contest: Submit all photos to kenwatkinslaw@gmail.com
Pictures must be landscape orientation NOT portrait
Remember: “Beautiful land” background.
Submit as many photos as you wish
Top 12 photos will be presented in the calendar and top three photos will receive canvas enlargements.
Examples of previous winners to the right.
Letter from Editor
Hello all!
After many excellent issues of The Spinner, Bryan Shiffler stepped down from his position as editor, so The Spinner is now under new editorialship. Let me introduce myself.
Hi, I’m Megan!
Unlike many members of the club, I was never really interested in cars while growing up. Like all country bumpkins, watching NASCAR was a weekend family bonding event, but that’s about as far as it went. I didn’t really have interest in driving until it became an necessity.
That was until I met my husband, Kevin. In many ways, Kevin is a typical dude. Drinking Scotch, playing with fire powered things, and watching three British blokes talk about whatever the high-powered car of the week was. (I’m talking about Top Gear, for those not familiar.) Top Gear soon became one of our shared comfort shows. And the more I watched, the more interesting cars became.
It was then I came up with a plan. Or at least a concept of a plan. I was going to buy a Porsche. I don’t think I had ever really seen a Porsche in person at this point, let alone drive one, but I knew I wanted one. My biggest fear was I was going to get one and have it be the biggest disappointment of my life. What would happen to my dream? I was set on getting myself a mamba green Macan for my 35th birthday.
at it, and he wasn’t as convinced on the Porsche as I was. I “could by a new Subaru for that price.” I didn’t want a Subaru. I wanted a Porsche. A couple days later, the Cayenne was mine.
A few months later I joined the PCA and started coming to Schonesland events. I had some worries that for whatever reason I would be shunned or looked down on because I “just” had a base Cayenne. How wrong I was! This group has been the most welcoming, fun, and heartwarming group I have had the pleasure of getting to know, If you’re not regularly attending events, please do! Every Schoneslander is the best.
Anyway. Kevin soon came to the light and decided he wanted a Porsche of his own. After a couple of months of trying to find the right one (a mid-2000s manual Cayman in a dark color) we found his 2008 Cayman S.
I quite liked my Cayenne, but there were as few features missing that would have made it the perfect car. And earlier this year, I found a Cayenne with all those features for sale in Des Moines. “Let’s just go look at it,” I said. Ha! A couple days and one trade in later, I upgraded to a 2018 Cayenne S. The main reason I bought it was because it had a heated steering wheel.
So here I am! And I’m happy to be here!
Word spread faster than I thought possible that I agreed to be Spinner editor, and whew does it feel like I have some shoes to fill and expectations to meet! Bryan did an excellent job with the newsletter and I hope I can at least keep things up to his standard. In other words, I have to live up to the hype.I promise to do my best.
In my everyday life, I do work as senior editor at Grey Dog Media in West Des Moines. My work is to help create and produce ideas and articles for Hy-Vee Seasons magazine, soon to be all-digital. Kevin works as a systems analyst for the Iowa State College of Engineering, making sure many websites stay online and active.
Like all good plans that aren’t really plans, it didn’t work out as I envisioned it. It worked out so much better.
I randomly saw a 2016 Cayenne base for sale in Ames. I convinced Kevin to let’s go look
So, now that my short car history is caught up, how’d I go from member to Spinner editor? Well, its because like all things, I can’t keep my mouth shut and tend to dive right into an idea. At dinner on the Nauvoo drive, I was sharing how I worked as an editor and have a background in journalism. Skip soon after came up and asked if I’d be interested in being newsletter editor as Bryan wanted to step down and they needed a replacement. I, without much though, said I would.
As many have learned, I have a menagerie of animals – two dogs, two cats, two ducks, about 20 quail, a fish, and three shrimp (who live with the fish). I also garden, poorly and haphazardly, but this year managed to can 42 pints of tomatoes, 12 quarts of pickles, and 9 pints of pickle relish. I also had a volunteer pumpkin vine produce 18 pumpkins, just in time for Halloween decorating. However, my biggest gardening accomplishment is a thriving lemon tree, with 10 lemons currently ripening. It spends May-November outside and the other six months under a very powerful grow light hat probably has me on a government watch list.
So, with that, whether you’ve been around for years or this is your first month in Schonesland, I look forward to getting to know everyone better and come to the events–I can testify that we are the best group of people around! Megan Wickham
2024 DRIVING TOURS
April 20 - Mad Warren
April 27 & 28 - Loess Hills to Sioux City
May 18 & 19 - Nauvoo Trail
June 8 - Dragoon Trail
June 21 to 29 - Great Western Skies
July 11 - Drive to Road America
July 12 & 13 - Omaha Cars & Coffee
July 25 to 28 - Redwing, MN
Aug 29 to Sept 2 - Eureka Springs
Sept 14 - MA Hill Drive
Oct 3 to 5 - Wisconsin Fall Colors
AnyonewhodreamsofaPorscheusuallyhasoneimageintheirmind:the911 hasbeentheepitomeofanexciting,powerfulsportscarwithday-to-day usabilityfor60years.Takeaseatbehindthewheelofthenew911and becomepartofauniquecommunity.
Wisconsin Fall Colors Recap
The largest ever Schonesland Touring Event was a great success!!!
“The Wisconsin Fall Drive Reimagined” had 31 cars and 54 people in attendance. There were even more Schoneslanders who inquired about joining the tour but due to hotel and restaurant limitations (in addition to planning coordination) could not be accommodated on the trip. As our Club has grown and continues to do so it will be increasingly important to register early in order to secure a spot and it is likely that several of the tours will have a maximum number allowed in 2025 as we did have on a few tours in 2024.
This year was new in a couple of ways. For the first time we stayed one night in Prairie du Chien and two nights in LaCrosse (Onalaska). In previous years we have done the opposite and in
2023 we started in Prairie du Chien and then drove to Dubuque where we stayed for two nights while enjoying the roads in that area combined with a visit to Galena. Garry and I have tweaked the trip every year with a change here and there as we have been looking to make it better and better for the attendees. We both felt that we may have found the perfect formula. Based on the post trip critiques we received all the attendees seemed incredibly pleased and there was some great feedback to make it even better in the future.
We started the trip on Thursday in two driving groups headed to Prairie du Chien with a lunch stop in Grundy Center utilizing two restaurants to improve lunch experience and to expedite the stop. Both the Landmark Café and Pancho Villa did a wonderful job, and we were back on the
road in very reasonable time. In the afternoon we stopped in Elkader, IA after making a detour due to unexpected bridge closure. The first stop was downtown at the famous Pedretti’s Bakery where most of us grabbed a cookie or two to enjoy. And yes, they are fantastic! After the sugar boost we headed a few blocks north to Tom Chandler’s house to check out his great and eclectic car collection the highlight being his 1953 Maverick Sportster (1 of 7) which has been exhibited at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance and at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. We finished the day’s activities after checking in to the River District Hotel in Prairie du Chien by enjoying the evening at Jones’ Black Angus, which continues to be one of the most enjoyable dinner destinations out of all the tours we do annually.
Friday morning, we split into three driving groups as we had a few more people join us in Prairie du Chien in order to assure that the cars in each group could stay together and to make the pit stops and the lunch stop more manageable for both the attendees and hosts. This was something that Garry and I pondered for a while when working on the details and it absolutely was the correct thing to do. We had driven most of these roads before, however, it was to the other direction. Ride with GPS made it incredibly easy to reverse the route as with only click it turned the direction around and created all the turnby-turn commands. All I had to do was to add the custom cues about upcoming pitstops, etc. Our lunch stop was at the At Home Bar and Grill in Clifton, WI where we have stopped many times before. They executed the
The group visits the Tom Chandler collection in Elkader, Iowa.
Wisconsin Fall Colors, con’t
to our dining locations in two groups at Ciatti’s Italian Grill and at the Manny’s Cocina. On Saturday night we utilized the same two restaurants swapping the destinations for each group. Being able to walk to both was extremely well received by all. Ciatti’s always does an excellent job and while there are a few enhancements we would ask Manny’s to make for next year, we most likely will do the same if it is decided in the annual planning meeting to do this drive again in 2025.
On Saturday we continued driving again split into three groups. The roads were mostly all new to us even though there were some sections that many of us do remember from years past. With the exception of a few bumpy bridges the roads did provide a fun-filled and exciting day. Our lunch stop at the Rockton Bar was a little longer than ideal, but it was a terrific opportunity to socialize and spend time with friends. Sunday’s return to Des Moines was “on your own” with some taking the freeways home while others took some of the Iowa byways to enjoy some more country driving.
Garry and I would like to thank Jeff David, Bruce and Jennifer Nuzum, and Jen and Jim Scharff for assisting in lead duties as well as our great sweeps Craig and Sandi Bassett, Bill and Angie Nowysz, Roy and Terri Johnson, Daryl and Kitty Metzger, Dustin Pettiecord, Dave Hill, Ben and Belinda Nordman, and Mark and Thalya Hanson. Your help was absolutely critical to the success and safety of the trip.
lunch extremely well and everyone left happy and satisfied with their lunch. Once
we arrived in LaCrosse and settled into the Hampton Inn Onalaska we were able to walk
Skip Hammerman
The Black Angus in Prairie Du Chien, a classic Wisconsin dinner club.
The Black Angus in Prairie Du Chien, a classic Wisconsin dinner club.
Above, and below right: Everyone lines up for one of the many pit stops on Saturday.
For a video of the drive from Skip, check out:
https://bit.ly/3Uq3QEB
Wisconsin Fall Colors, con’t
Above: Skip Hammerman leads the Thursday morning driver meeting before the start of the trip.
Right: Drivers meeting on Saturday in LaCrosse.
Wisconsin Fall Colors, con’t
Friday night dinner at Ciatti’s Italian Restaurant in LaCrosse.
Bottom left, clockwise: Frank Kremrich, John Snyder, Bryan Shiffler, Dave Hill, Kelly Parkins, Dustin Petticord, Mark Hanson, Thalya Hanson, Karl Schoerder, Jason (Karl’s friend), Kim Snyder, and Julianne Kremrich.
Friday night dinner at Ciatti’s Italisn Resturant in LaCrosse.
Bottom
Craig
left, clockwise:
Basset, Sandi Basset, Chris Decker and son, Anna Mari Martinez, Louis Laurent, Jennifer Nuzem, Bruce Nizum, Jim Scharff, Jen Scharff, Belinda Nordman.
Wisconsin Fall Colors, con’t
The group enjoys Manny’s in LaCrosse.
The group tours Tom Chandler’s car collection in Elkader.
Oneofmany carsfrom Tom Chandler’s collection:a LotusSuper 7
Cars and Coffee
Above: Bob Eddy, John Kelly, Ken Watkins, and Don Parbs
Right: Many deep discussions and debates among friends at the breakfast table.
Left to right: John Kelly, Ken Watkins, Don Parbs, Paul Novak, Garry Seeman, Ben Nordman,
Cars and Coffee, con’t
Above: John Peeler and Emily Hillman
Right: Emily and Drew Hillman are all smiles after a filling, delicious breakfast.
Cars and Coffee, con’t
Above: Megan Wickham shows a neat phone trick to Jeff David, proving “old” dogs can learn new tricks.
Right: It’s always a good morning when the group fills the space and extra tables have to be brought together.
Add your CO-PILOT as a CO-MEMBER!
Co-members are free and get a PCA membership card as well!
Co-members are welcome to share in your PCA experience at no additional cost; they are invited to PCA events, receive their own user account on www.PCA.org, and have digital access to Porsche Panorama magazine. Co-members must be at least 18 years of age.
If you’d like to add a co-member, send an email with their full name, relation to you (i.e. Spouse, child, friend, etc.) and their email address to membership@pca.org
Drive and Dine
Around 50 Schoneslanders gathered in Dallas Center at The Handlebar for the October Drive and Dine. This was the second Drive and Dine here this year–the first one was interrupted by severe weather and had a smaller turnout. October’s Drive and Dine was severe weather free and actually bit chilly. The Handlebar, normally closed on Tuesdays, opened just for us, which meant we had the place to ourselves and a parking lot full of (almost) nothing but Porsches.
Drive and Dine, con’t
Left to right, clockwise: Craig Bassett, Tim Hawkins, Diane Hawkins, Emily and Drew Hillman, John Peeler, Kevin Wickham, Carolyn and Cam Tortensen, Phil and Margaret Patterson.
Drive and Dine, con’t
Left: Food is served and check out the size of the tenderloin!
Below: Lynn Frank, Shashi Perera, Klay Kane, Mike Hueholt, Kathy Simpson, and Bill Frank.
Right: Bryan Shiffler, Avi Hazan, Will MacFarland, and Idit Hazan.
Drive and Dine, con’t
Below Left: Ben Nordman, Louis Laurent, Anna Mari Martinez, Albana Selimaj, Jim Scharff, and Jen Scharff
BelowRight:KevinWickham. CarolynTortensen,Emilyand DrewHillman,JohnPeeler
DeepCleaning
✓ Toptobo�omdetailcleaningofallareasofyourhouse
ScheduledWeekly/Bi-WeeklyCleaning
✓ Ongoingmaintenancecleaningcustomizedtoyour specificneeds
HomeOrganization
✓ Kitchens,Pantries,Bathrooms,Closets,Storages, Basements
Board Meeting Minutes
Cars & Coffee Dates:
Date Time Loca�on
Nov. 9th 8:00 am Cozy Café
Dec. 14th 8:00 am Cozy Café
Jan. 11th 8:00 am
Drive & Dine: Cozy Café
Date Time Loca�on
Nov. 19th 6:30 pm Roots95
December N/A Do not have Dec. D&D due to holiday party
Jan. 21st 6:30 pm TBD
Tours:
Oct. 3-5 – Wisconsin Re-Imagined – Skip Hammerman & Garry Seemann.
• Recap
Other Events:
December 7 Holiday Party 5:30 pm Noce Registra�on capped at 100. Charging $70/person.
Financial Report: Kloey Runyan
Spinner Submissions: Megan Wickham
Adver�sing: Skip Hammerman/Ben Nordman
Compe��on/Autocross: Bob Eddy
Non-Club Events: none since last board mee�ng
New Members: Ken Watkins
Numbers as of 10/27/2024 for the month (looking back from 9/23/2024)
• 4 new primary members.
• 1 new co-member.
• 2 transfer in (1 member and 1 co-member)/ 1 transfer out.
• Expiring members o 1 primary/0 co-member expired without renewing on 9/30/2024.
• 1 primary is listed as auto-renew but did not renew on 9/30/2024.
• 3 primary and 0 co expiring on 10/31/2024. ▪ 0 auto renews.
• Total gain of 4 members and 2 co-member from previous month.
• Total to 220 primary, 113 co.’s, 17 juniors for a grand total of 333 (juniors not included in total).
Website: Erik Johnson
• Update.
Other Business:
• Nominating committee (Ben Nordman, Herman Riva, Jen Scharff) to submit candidates to board.
2025 Planning Meeting – December 14th @ 1PM at Urbandale Library Meeting Room A
▪ Incoming President should run.
▪ Meeting Room A has been reserved for 3 hours.
• Meetings for remainder of year via Zoom.
Next Mee�ng – November 26th via Zoom at 7PM.
Megan Wickham Spinner Editor mmwickham19@gmail.com
