Dear Members,

We started off June with Victoria back in lockdown and had to shuffle our June members meeting back a few weeks.  The second week was just Melbourne Metro staying in lockdown, which meant we had to postpone our Whale Watching Weekend away to Port Fairy. We were very lucky to be released in time to still run our Sandown Driver Training and Come & Try Day on 19 June.

Our Sandown day was very well attended by 55 entrants, who had an absolute ball.  I would like to thank all of the volunteer officials who made this day as good as it was.  We were also very lucky with the weather and a fantastic sunny day.  Our Makulu Scholarship winner for the Sandown event was Nella Santisi, you can read about her experience here.

We ended up moving our June Members Meeting three times to enable us to be safe with the COVID lockdown and it was held on 22 June at Makulu Vehicle Storage.  We were also lucky to have a tour of SouthernBM collection which was brilliant, and we would all like to thank both Andrew and Keith for staying back and allowing our members to view their collection.  We had a great turn out with two representatives from Century Batteries coming along to show us some of their products and then we were able to present Nella with her award from the Sandown Event.

Clive from Makulu Vehicle Storage is again providing a Scholarship for our next Come and Try Day at Broadford on July 17.  Check out our latest newsletter for details on how you can win your entry fee back from Clive’s very generous scholarship fund.

On 27 June we had our drive for the month to Point Nepean.  We left from Mornington and took in some of the fantastic roads on the Peninsula before arriving at Point Nepean, where we spent a couple of hours exploring the old Quarantine Station before heading back to the Pig and Whistle at Arthurs Seat for a delicious late lunch.

July is looking good with our first event this Sunday at Phillip Island for Round 6 of the Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship. Entries are still open, so if you are wanting to go get our entries in quick.

Our July members meeting will be at Waverley BMW on 6 July with a special visit from the Police to show us some of their marked and unmarked BMW’s. We will have Police officers on hand to answer any questions you may have and tell us a bit about how great the BMW Police spec cars are.

The following weekend sees a lot of our members off to Winton for Round 4 of the E30 Racing Championship. One of our Founding Members, Alex Jory, is currently leading the E30 Championship.  Good luck to Alex and all of our other members that are racing up at Winton.

The weekend of 17-18 July will have us attend Broadford for the weekend.  Saturday is our second Come and Try Day at Broadford, we would love to see you all there and if you are wanting to help out as an official or an instructor, please email officials@bmwdcm.com.au and give Meg all your details.

Sunday is round 7 of our Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship on 18 July, so why not come up and make a weekend of it and do both days, have some practice or instruction on Saturday, followed by the timed sprints on Sunday.

Our July drive is Christmas in July on Saturday 24 July and we will be heading up to the Black Spur Inn via some great driving roads, then a yummy Christmas dinner and some great give a ways, don’t forget to get your ugly Christmas outfits out and see if you can win some of the great prizes.

Of course, all our upcoming events are subject to what we are allowed to do and any restrictions that may come into force due to the ongoing COVID situation. We see all around us how quickly things can change, how we can be getting back to a ‘normal’ life and suddenly we are back in lockdown. So, make sure you keep an eye on your emails and our social network pages for any updates or changes to events that need to be made. It goes without saying now, if you feel sick, get tested and for all our sakes, go and get vaccinated so we can get back to a normal life sooner, rather than later.

You may have also seen that we now have a welfare team.  They are here for you if you need a shoulder to lean on, someone non-judgemental to talk to, or are struggling in any way in your life. It could be emotional or physical or even financial, if you have any issues you’d like to talk to someone about, feel free to call or email them at welfare@bmwdcm.com.au and they will be sure to offer assistance where possible.  We would like to thank Shannon Cooper and family for supporting the welfare team and we look forward to working with them to help support anyone in our BMW family that needs help in any way.

We have also appointed an Officials Officer, Meg Boers, who is now taking on the role of engaging and co-ordinating officials for our track events, so be sure to contact Meg via officals@bmwdcm.com.au if you are keen to help out at any of our events or wish to become a Motorsport Australia Official. Meg can help you with any enquiries regarding either becoming an Official or what events we have coming up that we will need help at.

We have also been working on some new merchandise items and we now have a great BMWDCM umbrella which you can purchase from our online store.  We are also stocking UHF radios so that all you need to do before a drive day is order one and we will charge it and get it to you at the drive event, ready to go.

Over the past months we have been applying for some of the Government grants that have been made available to not-for-profit sporting clubs and we have been lucky so far to have received some money from a couple of grants to allow us to purchase some much-needed equipment to help us run our club track days. Things like the UHF radios and headsets the official use at track days, hi-vis vests, a decent First Aid kit and a portable defibrillator to have on hand at events have so far been purchased through these grants and I would like to thank both Motorsport Australia and the Victorian State Government for their assistance and help in providing funds to help our Club grow and benefit from the assistance offered. We will be applying for more grants as they come up to enable us to hopefully run some subsidised events and buy more equipment in the future too.

Our little club is still growing, currently we have 610 members and again, I welcome the new members that have joined us this month and I thank you all for making this the wonderful club it is. You should all be immensely proud, as I am, of what we have built together over the past three years and what a great club this continues to be. Every event is a success, not only because we run good events, but because you all continue to come and support us in giving you what you want. We do it because we love it and because you enjoy it as much as we do.

Just a reminder too about the proposed changes to the Club Permit Scheme, we are putting in a submission on behalf of our members and you can too. The more voices that the Government hear, the more notice they may take of those that the changes will affect. You only have another week to get a submission in if you wish to do so.

I look forward to seeing you at an event somewhere soon.

As always, stay safe and drive careful 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