Dear members,

September has seen us continue another month in lockdown so nearly all of our planned events had to be cancelled or postponed, leaving us to continue with the virtual world to interact with everyone. Now that we have the unenviable title of most locked down city in the world, it is very understandable that we are all feeling the stress and depression coming from being kept from doing the things we love. I hope you are all doing as best you can to keep your mental heath up and that of those in your world. Keep thinking of the, hopefully, not too distant future, when we can get back to a normal life and see our friends and families again and enjoy all the things we love.

Round 9 of our Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship was cancelled which was disappointing, but we are hoping that we will be able to get a couple more rounds in before the end of the year once we start opening up again.

Similarly, our Port Fairy Whale Watching Weekend trip, which had been moved from June long weekend until September with the hope we could get away for a few days, but unfortunately this didn’t happen either.  We will try to do the whale watching in 2022.

We did however, start our month with a virtual car show and catch up and because this was all new we were not sure how it would work, but we were very happy that it turned out a great night.  Lots of members cars and some surprising collections out there.  We can’t wait to be able to get out and visit some of our members “man caves” once we open up again.  It was a great night and it was so nice to be able to also catch up and have a chat after the virtual car show too. Lawrence did a fantastic job of putting the cars into a presentation and each of the owners was able to give us some insight into their cars and collections and answer a few questions along the way.

We were also asked by one of our younger members if we could have a children’s activity for the school holidays, so we currently have a two week colouring in competition with varying age groups from 2 to 102.  We are looking forward to seeing some amazing art cars, some have come in already and they look amazing.  Thank you to Shannon Cooper and his family for sponsoring this competition.

On 21 September we held our AGM and again this was attended well with easily a quorum of 53 allowing the AGM to proceed.  The new committee were voted in as were two resolutions and we are happy to say our committee will remain unchanged for the next 12 months.  Thank you all for having the faith to have us back for another year, we hope we do you all proud. 

On 25 September a lot of us got up again at 2am, where the BMW Clubs and Community Management team showed us how to access the new online BMW Archives department.   It was great seeing how easy and accessible it is to be able to source information about your car or motorbike. 

We have been trying to keep things interesting for you all and through October we have a few interesting Zoom meetings to look forward to.

12 October will be our ‘Becoming an Official’ virtual meeting, where we will have some senior officials from different areas of motorsport officialling online to answer some questions and also guide you to the correct pathway. 

26 October will be a Catch up with the Richards, with Steve and Clay Richards joining us for an informal night chatting about their careers and answering your questions.  There is also a chance for one of our members to win a signed model of Steve’s M6 GT3, you have to be registered for the event and present when the draw is held to win.

Again, there were some events planned for October which have either been postponed or cancelled and we are so sorry this has happened, but as you know this is out of our control. As soon as we are allowed to get back out and do anything, we will! We have so many event ideas for everyone to come along to, you won’t be left with nothing to do. We will again only take a short break over Christmas and get straight back into running all the events you love in January.

Looking further ahead, we have some great events planned for 2022, German Auto Show, Geelong Revival, Maling Road, just to name a few.  Watch the event alerts for reminders and registrations.

11-14 March will be the Clubs Australia Nationals, this time being held in Canberra.  We are hoping for a large contingent of Melbourne members attending, and of course Peter Williams will be planning another fantastic road trip up and back for us all to enjoy.  Get your accommodation booked early, as rooms will sell out quickly. Of course, if the current situation with borders and pandemic closures continues you will be able to cancel your accommodation and get a full refund, but better to get it booked now than try and get in somewhere last minute. The program is looking very interesting and it will be so good to catch up with all our interstate BMW Club friends again. I have been to quite a few of the BMW Club Nationals now and can assure you they are a lot of fun and something not to be missed.

We plan on hitting the ground running once we are allowed to get out there, so be ready for a full-on summer.

There has been talk from both the State and Federal Governments that venues will be requiring proof of you being double-vaxed to be able to attend any sort of public events.  We have put a tick box in our membership system for you to be able to tick if you are already double-vaxed or not, so we will be able to keep track if necessary. We, as a club, will not make it mandatory for you to be double-vaxed to come to our events, however we will be governed by the places we go and the laws at the time. It is something we all need to think of and accept, that it is a different world now, and will be for a while to come. So we all have to play our part in living with Covid and moving forward.

If you link your MyGov account with Medicare, you can download your Vaccination Certificate and also add it to your wallet on your smart phone for easy display. If you don’t have a smart phone you may need to carry a paper copy with you. A lot of places we are talking to are already mentioning that people will need to be double-vaxed, so best get ready as soon as you can.

These are very trying times and if we all work together and do the right thing, hopefully we will all be able to get out and enjoy some great events in the later part of this year and into 2022. Until we see you again, take care, get jabbed and hope for the easing of restrictions sooner rather than later to get us back out and enjoying life again.

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