BMWDCM Presentation Dinner and First Birthday Celebration
 13 April 2019

BMWDCM's first anniversary event was held at The Vincent restaurant & bar in Albert Park. The evening included the presentation of trophies and awards for the first year of operation and events as a new club.

The venue was excellent for our function.  This building has quite a history of its own, starting life as the Windsor Hotel in 1889, then being re-named the Red Eagle Hotel soon afterwards. The current owners re-furbished the building in recent times and re-named it The Vincent.  The building retains many of its historical elements but is now very much modernised internally and caters to a wide variety of clientele.  The meals and table service were excellent, and the bar offered a great choice for those enjoying a responsible drink or two.

With allocated seating, the evening allowed us all to get to know more of our club members than just those who we meet up with at other club events we regularly attend.  Having large tables of 10 guests encouraged lots of interesting conversational topics and interaction between diners – including plenty of non-BMW conversation as well.

The presentation of awards was a real highlight.  All awards were to the ‘inaugural’ winners – which is a significant achievement in each winner’s club life. The atmosphere in the room reflected this and each winner was warmly congratulated by us all.  A raffle on the night was also drawn with some very nice prizes collected by lucky ticket holders.  Many of the awards and raffle prizes were donated by club sponsors, some of whom had representatives attending on the night.  It was great to see this level of support for our club by businesses who see value in being associated with our new, but rapidly growing club.

The individual awards, their sponsors and the recipients are listed below. Hearty congratulations to each winner.

The evening also gave us an opportunity to recognise the enormous effort and work rate of our club committee.  Although only small in number, our founding committee and helpers have done themselves, and us, proud by getting the club up and going and then organising a huge number of events throughout our first year.  On top of this is the time and work involved in the legal and legislative aspects required of registered clubs, the merchandising, club plate management and club publications that all form part of our club network. So, a huge ‘thank you’ was extended to our committee and their helpers.

On the subject of publications, the evening also provided an opportunity to launch the new club magazine – ‘idrive’.  This is a first-class piece of work.  The magazine is a high quality, beautifully presented item and its content is excellent. Many of the articles are written and submitted by club members and record our activities.  The ‘idrive’ magazine was designed and published by Jess Bell and Leigh Kelly – clearly very talented young people who have put a huge amount of their time and effort into this enterprise.  The magazine was really well received by those present. 

A great night, a great facility and great people.  I think our first Presentation Dinner and Birthday celebration was a real success and promises even better events to come. 

Jim Tucker | Member #26
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

	CLUB AWARDS
Member of the Year	Theo Hoffs
President's Award	Phil Kolar
Special Recognition Award	Jessica Bell
	SHOW & SHINE AWARDS
People's Choice Award	David O'Dwyer
8 Class	David O'Dwyer
Early Class	Paul Caruso
Recent Class	Lawrence Glynn
Non-BMW Class	Phil Kolar
	2018 DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIP
Outright	Rod Martin
Racing 2 - 3 Litre	Paul Kertes
M Class	Igor Kay
Over 2 Litre Modified	Rod Martin
Racing Under 2 Litre	Rachael Kertes