Morning all! I hope, like us, you managed to have a decent long weekend (in NSW anyway) and with a bit of luck it might have given you a chance to start planning for Christmas and 2022.

Certainly signs are promising that, even though we’ve lost Gladys who has led the NSW charge, the state at least will be in a better place over the coming months. I’ll not get into a political debate about the pandemic, but suffice to say that it will have changed most aspects of your lives in one way or another, and my thoughts are with all of you that have had a tough time of it. Planning for a different and hopefully better and more predictable future is one way of helping ourselves feel more “normal” about what has been by any standards a weird and unpredictable period.

While I can’t speak for the other states’ progress towards a new normal, my thoughts are with you all too and I hope you can get back to doing the fun stuff soon.

So, first date that I think we can agree will have something happening is our Christmas Party and AGM, which will be on December 12th. This, for those not keeping up, is only two months away! So make sure it’s blocked out, and we’ll let you know the plan in the next few weeks.

While we are waiting, the AGM is a great opportunity for you to be a more involved part of the club by joining the committee, which keeps things happening and pointing the right direction. Given we have grand plans for the next twelve months, and quite a lot of change driven by covid, we can always do with more help, whether that’s in a specific role, as part of the motorsport committee or as a general member of the committee. Please give it some thought, and if you’d like to be involved, we’d love to have you! Drop me a line if you’d like to chat this through (and if you’d like to join next weekend’s call, please feel free to do so – drop a line to [email protected] and we’ll forward the invitation)

In terms of other stuff in planning, we are more hopeful than for a while that the postponed L2021 event could happen in 2022. It will certainly require some organisational effort (hence the ask for volunteers above!) but we need to get cracking on that, and it will be a topic for next weekend’s committee meeting.

As will the plan for the 2022 motorsport calendar. CAMS has been remarkably silent on the matter (apart from insisting on a timely renewal of my licence of course!) so we are hoping for more clarity as we come out of restrictions, but most likely local events will get going first, with interstate following as borders and travel restrictions are opened up.

Socially, we are optimistic that we will be allowed to hold the Kokoda Cafe meet this month (assuming the cafe opens) and from November, both Carrs Park and Kokoda Cafe events should be back to normal. We’ll try to get shed tours up and running again after our tentative efforts last time were thwarted by the lergie. So, if anyone would be willing to host a garage tour in November or even December/January, please let me know.

Finally, I’d like to think we can get something going for the trip around NSW which we were supposed to do in September. So, we’ll get that back on the agenda, and get views on timing and interest. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please let me know.

So that’s about it for this month, there’s not (obviously) been a lot going on to report on here, although overseas we have been watching with some admiration as for example Goodwood Revival got going (and even had enough petrol apparently!) and the US and European economies are starting to open back up and regain momentum. It’s good to see that international rallies are underway again (Rally the Globe has Carerra Italia underway this week) and hopefully that’s a sign of better things to come in 2022.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing lots of you at the Christmas Party and AGM (and for those interstate, if you are able to organise a Christmas Party, we will of course support you doing that), and in the meantime, we’ll let you know the outcomes of next weekend’s committee meeting.

Look after yourselves and your loved ones, and if you are able to get the car out, stay safe, upright and mostly on the black stuff,

Pip pip,
Ashton