Beginning’s
In the summer of 2004 a group of guys got together to show off some of their classic cars from around the Winterset area. Those “guys” were: Ray Dawson, Bill McDonald, Bob Stephens, Roger Hanson, Dan Bush and Terry Housman. They thought this was such a good thing to do that the following year, 2005 the Central Iowa Auto Club was started. First it was a couple times during the summer
and then the chamber of commerce contacted us on running the Madison County Car Show during the bridge festival. We accepted the offer and so it started, show and shines and car shows. In 2006 we set up a schedule of 6 show and shines, once a month from April to September out at the Sports Page Bar parking lot. The shows were two on Thursday evening’s from 6-8 pm and the other four were on Saturdays from 2-4 pm. These show and shines were very successful, but the parking lot was in such disrepair, that we moved the shows out to the Maid-Rite in 2008. Again, the shows were so popular that we were running out of space and had to move again. This time in 2013, we asked the chamber about allowing us to have one side of the square from 4-7 pm on the second Saturday of the month. They welcomed us with open arms to help promote the business on the square. We now block off the north side of the square and ½ the block on the west side. Sometimes we have had cars parked down the middle of the street as this was not enough area on some days. We have had very good luck with all the businesses on the square not complaining about parking, but some have thanked us as it sometimes help bring in business in to their stores. As the years went by, things were getting to the point that we needed to do something about protecting our selves, so we talked to an attorney and proceeded with getting incorporated. In 2015 we were about to get a donation from a local person, Marvin Cox, of a 1938 Packard. In order for us not to get overwhelmed, we finally concluded that it was in our best interest to go for a non-profit filing. So in June of 2016 I received a letter stating that we had been accepted as a 501(3) C Non-Profit organization. This helped us out on not having to pay taxes on the donation of the Packard. Over the years we have given out several $500 scholarships, we have helped families at Thanksgiving by buying food for the Thanksgiving dinner, and at Christmas, we go shopping for more families for CRISP and buy clothing and toys to put under the Christmas tree. The Christmas shopping is a fun event for us as we get together as a group and go to Walmart and buy as much as we can for each family (we set a limit on each family member) then afterwards we go out a celebrate to one of the local restaurants and have a evening meal.
