Dear Members,
Welcome to Spring! A time for renewal and the hope of all things to start to open up again, like the blooms in our garden. Also welcome to the new members that have joined recently, helping to keep the club grow all the time. Membership is currently at an amazing 492!
With winter behind us now and our second wave of lockdowns slowly dragging by, we have possibly had the hardest month for us all. Stage 4 restrictions have been hard for all of us (who have been subject to them), especially when we are such a social bunch and love getting out and about together.
I truly hope that you have all been able to get through this past month without too much hardship. Each day brings us closer to getting back out there and seeing friends and family again. With the numbers dropping every day, hopefully only a couple of weeks to go before restrictions begin to ease.
August 3 was our members meeting in Shannons Auctions Room and for those who zoomed in had a fantastic evening, with a tour of some beautiful cars and even 5 BMWs on the floor for us to marvel over.
On August 18 we had a virtual meeting with Evan Gale from Jay Leno’s Garage Products, which was very informative. I thought I knew a lot about cleaning cars but there is so much more, and their range is fabulous. Remember, if you are wanting to go on to their website, use our special discount code ‘BMWDCM’ and you will received 15% off your online order and within 2-3 days your stock will be delivered straight to your door.
We have also been working on some new merchandise products to help us through the COVID pandemic. We received our first batch of triple layer washable cotton face masks, which sold out in 4 hours! I didn’t expect that, so our second batch is now in stock and we should also have our neck warmer/masks within the next few days. Have a look in our online store and get your orders in early to avoid missing out. Whilst you are there, we have some handy, club engraved pocket tools in 4 different colors. They're the perfect gift for Father’s Day for the dad that has everything. They're also reduced to $10 for Father’s Day.
September is looking like an exciting month for our virtual events, with our members meeting on 1 September being "How to prepare your car for a motorsport event". Jo and I have put together an informative presentation, which you will also be able to refer to later down the track (as we will put it on the website for future reference).
Tuesday 15 September is a member only exclusive tour of BMW Classic Munich. I have been lucky enough to go through this facility several times and this is not available to the general public, so this is an event not to miss. We will be shown through by our friend Eva Priller from BMW Clubs and Community Management in Munich (what a job!). What a place to work every day with so many beautiful and rare cars to look after and all the history of BMW at your fingertips.
PLEASE NOTE: This event will start at 7.30pm sharp. Please make sure you are logged in by 7.20pm or earlier, so as to not delay this event. We are very lucky to be given this exclusive tour, so we want to show our appreciation by all being on time for Eva to be able to start the tour. It is the middle of a normal working day in Munich and Eva is taking time out of her day to show us around, so please be logged on and ready to start on time. It would be great if as many of you as possible were wearing Club or BMW gear to show our love for BMW and the Club.
We're hopeful that restrictions will begin to ease soon which means we will be able to start doing drive events again. We'd love to hear from you if you have any suggestions or would like to plan your own drive route for us all to join.
We have some great events ready to go, but there is always something that someone comes and says ‘how about a run to such and such’ that even we haven’t thought of. Same goes for any other events or ideas you might have; we are always open to ideas for something new and fun. Just wait and see what we have sitting in the wings ready to go. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will be able to start looking at doing something when we come out of Stage 4.
There is also our Members Car of the Month, which you can enter as many times as you wish. We’d all love to see what we have hidden away, even if it’s not a BMW. We have a bit of a collection of ‘other’ cars and toys, so I am sure you do too. We’d love to see what you’ve got.
It is also coming to that time of year for our Annual General Meeting, which at this stage will be conducted virtually. However we will conduct it face to face in October if we are allowed to. We are calling for nominations for all positions on the committee, if you're interested in nominating for a position on our commtitee or wish to nominate someone else, please view the following forms:
Again, I hope you are all weathering stage 4 restrictions and always remember, we are here if you ever need a chat. I’ll talk cars or anything all day long and am always happy to chat to anyone if it makes them feel a bit less isolated or alone.
Stay safe and keep an eye on the website to see what things we have coming up. Also check out our Facebook group and page, there is lots of interesting items pop up on them both.
See you somewhere soon.
Graeme Bell | President
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc.
P.O. Box 81, TYABB, VICTORIA. 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
