Well hello everyone!

Thank you to all of you who attended the AGM recently at Shannons and for your continued support for your Committee and Club – I am delighted that we have the go-ahead to continue much as we were before, with the notable exception that Alastair Brown has decided to stand down as CMC delegate, after many years of close involvement with the Club, so our very grateful thanks go to him for all he has done in many capacities over the years.

Evan Jones will continue his good work to maintain our presence with the Council of Motor Clubs. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be present on the night due to work commitments in WA, so I would also like to take the opportunity to thank your Committee publicly for all the hard work which goes on behind the scenes and which most of you never see! Without their time and effort, you wouldn’t have the vibrant and enjoyable club events, motorsport or technical support which makes owning a Lotus such a joy.

I particularly want to thank the CLA Chapter representatives in WA (Eddie Lankhorst), ACT (David Leaney), Tasmania (John Barrass) and South Australia (Andrew Stevens) for re-establishing the Club in their respective states, and for the hard work they are all putting into giving local members such a wide variety of activities and opportunity to enjoy their cars – thank you all!

Financially the Club is in good shape, and grateful thanks, as ever, to Kris for keeping the books balanced. The combined newsletter goes from strength to strength, entirely thanks to Tom’s patience and commitment, so thank you Tom! Elliott continues to keep you all informed of what is going on, in spite of his significant workload, so my grateful thanks Elliott.

Thank you to our VP Anne, and to Maurice for representing the Club as our Public officer, and for keeping the Club Plates register legal and above board. Mike Basquil continues, swan-like as ever, to keep the water calm in the motorsport world, for which we are all most grateful. Mike Donnan is keeping eyes on you all and your attendance at events, thank you Mike! Keith has now got the Concours planning and execution so slick you would hardly begin to know how much effort goes into it, so thank you Keith! And our General Members Geoff, James, Rob and Barry continue to support all the social activity to ensure we have an active and varied calendar – thanks gents! Importantly, we also have a new Webmaster, Seth Reinhardt, who has taken on the task of developing and running our website, so welcome to Seth!

On which subject, by the time you read this the NEW Club Lotus Australia website will be live, and you will have received an email from Elliott with your authentication code to allow you to set up your personal account; this in turn allows you access to the Members section, where in future the Newsletter and other member-only materials will be posted. Other than this section, the rest of the site is intended to become a more active public face of the club, and to represent all we do. So please do send our webmaster, Seth, any and all material you would like posted up – that can be photos you took on a run with a few friends, anything you want to put up for sale, or events you would like in the calendar (particularly, it would be great to include interstate events on the calendar so members in all states can see what is going on).

For those of you that use Facebook as your way of keeping abreast of happenings, we have also established a page (search for Club Lotus Australia and it should come up!) and we will be cross-posting any news and current affairs to there (but probably NOT “for sale” items!)

This year’s wet winter weather has played havoc with social events, and for the first time since I can remember, the All British Day at Kings School had to be postponed, and then cancelled. This is a great shame, as it has historically been a central event in the calendar, but plans are already afoot to conduct our Concours d’Elegance at the Christmas Party on December 7th instead. Following the success of the location last year we will be going back to Tunks Park in Lane Cove National Park, so block out the diary for Sunday 7th December, and we very much look forward to seeing you there.

However, as I write this, the sun is finally shining for the second consecutive day, so I am quietly hopeful that we might be over the worst and into the Spring weather. I had the Elan out for a run yesterday and am delighted to report that she seems to have weathered the dull winter months in remarkably good form! The same sadly can’t be said for a number of barn-find cars which have come to light in recent months, but at least they are appearing, and hopefully will find new lives with new owners willing to put in the substantial effort to resurrect them. If anyone is after a Plus 2 project car, I know of one in central Sydney that needs a significant investment of time to bring her back to life!

October sees us visiting Grahame Burton’s Shed – Grahame has recently taken on the distributorship for AVO shocks, and will have his shock dynamometer (I hope that’s how it’s spelt!) operating on the night so we can understand a little more about the technicalities of shocks and corner weighting. His shed is at the rear of 97 Crinan St, Hurlstone Park; enter via Wallace Lane and, as there is no parking in the lane, park in the side streets.

October also has us at the next round of the CSCA sprints down at Wakefield on 26th, preceded by the Triumph Owners Club Driver Training Day on 25th. For anyone thinking of sprinting next year, or just interested to find out more, this is a great event to attend, as it gives you access to the track and lots of helpful types willing to share advice on car set up, preparation and all that comes with sprinting. I would encourage you to try it, and stay for the Sunday too, to join in the fun – last time I looked we already had 14 of the first 19 entrants in the field, so it should be a great weekend.

And please note in your diaries that for our General Meeting on 11th November we have been invited back to Bruce Mansell’s shed in Chatswood so I am looking forward to catching up with lots of you then too!

I think that’s enough from me – with the finer weather coming, you really want to be out in your car rather than reading about it!

Have fun, take care and keep it upright and on the black stuff.

Pip pip,
Ashton