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BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

An update from the President | April

30 Apr 2021 5:30 PM | Anonymous


 


Dear Members,

I don't know about you, but I can’t believe it is only the end of April with so many events already under our belt for 2021.

We started the month on 2 April with our Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal Car Display, this year we held it at Sandown Raceway. A huge thank you to Sandown for donating the area for us so that all the money we collected could go to the very worthy charity.  We also had help as well from the Mercedes Club and a huge thank you to Chris McDermott for sending out so many personal emails and messages to get such a brilliant turnout. There were lots of interesting cars there to look at and it was a perfect sunny Autumn day.

We had raffle prizes donated by Revolution Race Gear, Sonax, Sirene Sea Pearls, Jay Leno Garage Products, Celebration Cellars, some Lifestyle products from BMW and some generous donations from Makulu Storage, Shannons Insurance and Bell Motorsport.  Thank you to Chris Brady from Rush Mobil Café as well, who kept us hydrated throughout the day.

With only 10 days to organise this event we were immensely proud of how many cars we had on display - over 80 at one point.  With our final count for the day coming in at $2,500, we are incredibly happy with that result, as is the Royal Children’s Hospital. We will be doing more of our display events on the grass at Sandown’s Red Hill area, so watch out for the next one. It really is a lovely place to spend a day.

Easter Sunday was the Flinders Heritage Motoring Display Day, and we again had a fantastic turnout of cars on display as well as members coming along to support our club and the event.  We also signed up several new members on the day, so welcome to all who are now members of our club.  We are enormously proud to say that our club won best Club Display again.  We won it in 2019, making it two in a row (as 2020 was cancelled due to COVID).

On 10 April we did a Saturday drive leaving from Berwick BMW to Mirboo North.  It was a little damp to start with, but the day turned out to be a great drive as always.  Thank you, Peter Williams for the fantastic drive route as usual. Even though it was damp the driving was fun and the lunch superb. Also thank you to Berwick BMW for the lovely breakfast and for allowing us to drive a G20 M340i for the day. What a beautiful car and, as the seventh generation of the 3 series, is a huge leap forward in technology compared to the 3 series cars I am used to driving! Watch out on the blog for my write up on the G20, loved driving it and just amazed at the technology in the new cars now.

On 13 April we held a fantastic Member’s Meeting at Eastern Tyres where we had a guest speaker from Continental Tyres.  Lots of prizes were won on the night with the grand prize of $1,000 worth of Continental Tyres going to Jo Mawson.   Eastern Tyres offer 20% discount off all Continental tyres, you just need to show your membership card. Thank you, Joe and staff at Eastern Tyres for your hospitality and Continental for the very generous prizes and show bags everyone received.

17 April was our second Mates with 8’s drive for the year.  It was a fantastic turnout with even a few extra, non 8’s, coming along for the day. Unfortunately, we were on our way to Winton so we couldn't attend.

18 April was our third round of the Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship Round at Winton.   We had a few members who had never been out on the track attend, who had a lot of fun and learnt a heap from the officials and other members there on the day.  These days are always a lot of fun and the best way to get out and stretch your cars legs.

Our last event for April was our ANZAC Day Weekend Away to Mansfield. It was great to have 11 carloads come up on Saturday and stay with us and then take in the Dawn service on ANZAC Day.  Peter Williams really excelled himself this time with some superb roads both on the way up and the way back.  It was wonderful to have 2 family groups join us with their kids in the back seat and have members join us just for the day drive on the Saturday.  Again, we were incredibly lucky to have the wonderful support of the dealer network, this time from Mornington BMW, who loaned us a G22 420i for the weekend to show everyone and test out on the twisty mountain roads. Thank you, Alex and Mornington BMW, we loved the 420i very much. Surprisingly agile and more powerful than I thought it would be, with plenty of room in the huge boot for all the gear for a weekend away. Sadly though, I am now getting pressure from my navigator that it is time we upgraded to something like a G22 for ourselves… hmmm thanks Alex!

The ANZAC Day Dawn Service was very moving, as always, and I was touched to see all the young ones up early to pay their respects, remember the fallen and give thanks to those who serve now to allow us to live in a free country like we do.  We placed a wreath on behalf of us and the club to say our thanks. Lest We Forget.  

Events to look forward to in the coming months will start with our third Birthday Presentation and Awards Dinner on 1 May. It will be a wonderful night at the Park Hyatt, where the third edition of idrive will also be launched. If you are not coming to the Dinner to collect your copy, look out for it in your letter box next week, they were being posted today so you will see them very soon. 

Our May Members Meeting is at Creative Custom Cars. Alan has a fantastic business and you will be amazed at the work they do there. Join us down in Dromana on Tuesday 11 May for the tour and catch up with members.

May also sees two rounds of our Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship, Sandown on 8 May and Rob Roy Hillclimb on 23 May. Rob Roy is also round two of the Motorsport Australia Inter Club Challenge, so points for each driver go toward the club in the Interclub Championship too. It would be great to get a see as many members as possible to collect points for the club. It is a great day out and a lot of fun without being too hard on the car.

15-16 May is round three of the E30 Racing Championship at Phillip Island, where quite a lot of our members will be racing. It is a round of the Victorian State Race Series, so if you want to see some quality grass roots racing, come down and support our members. If you can’t get there it is again being streamed on Blendline, so get on there and watch the action if you can’t come down. Our club is again sponsoring E30 Racing to help them with the coverage, so get on the internet and check it out.

16 May is National Motoring Heritage Day. We are in discussions with the organisers of the State Race Meeting at Phillip Is to see if we can run a touring event from Melbourne to the race meeting and end up parked up along the fence on the main straight opposite the pits. We are hoping for cheap admission to the event for those on the tour, so it’s a great way to get into the race meeting cheaper than you otherwise can. Keep an eye on you emails for the event notice, it will come out as soon as we have confirmation of what we can do. It would be great to see a big group of cars and members come to support the members racing.

May will end with a Cars and Coffee casual Sunday in Beaumaris, so look for the event notice for that too.

That makes a different type of event on every weekend in May, plus the Creative Customs evening, you cannot say we do not give you something to do and a variety to suit everyone too!

June continues the trend with Queen’s Birthday long weekend to Port FairySandown Come & Try Day on 19 June and a drive to Point Nepean on 27 June. We then have Christmas in July coming up on 24 July.  These are just a few events coming up, so keep an eye out for the event notices and get in early so you don’t miss out.

There's definitely a busy couple of months coming up like the start of the year, so keep an eye on your emails and come and join the fun!

We are also about to release our first Tassie Trip, which will be leaving on 26 October and returning on 2 November over the Cup Day Long Weekend (plus a few extra days).

Jo has been working on a presentation for me for the annual Clubs Australia AGM and we were both amazed at how many events we have done since COVID started, both virtual and in person.  It is incredible that we can run so many events and they are all so well attended. It makes our job easy when you all come and enjoy the events and give us ideas for more. We love running events and it shows that you love coming, so thank you.

I am enormously proud to let you know we are currently sitting on 583 members. Only three short years and we are just shy of 600 members! Who would have thought? Thank you all for joining us and making this the fantastic club it is.

I look forward to seeing you at an event somewhere soon, until then take care and drive safe out there.

Graeme Bell | President
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc.

P.O. Box 81, TYABB   VIC   3913
Incorporated in Victoria #A0102695G
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc is a member of: BMW Clubs Australia and the BMW Clubs International Council
Motorsport Australia Affiliated Motorsport Club



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