2023 President's Picnic
25 October 2023 / Words by Ian Combes, Photos by Rob Wilko
My apologies for the lateness of this report.
The Presidents Picnic is the most important event on the Club’s calendar, and what a great venue – the historic Ebenezer was stunning as always. This year it was even dry and well as being sunny, which made it more pleasant. What a wonderful surprise to discover on the day that one of our Club members has a direct link the establishment of the church – amazing. A lovely and moving speech too.
It is such a relaxing environment to spend a day in and a great opportunity to walk around and talk to as many people as possible.
As always, there was great support from the Ebenezer Church volunteers who are always great hosts. This year, Joe and I made a special point of going down after lunch and expressing our gratitude for the work that they do. And of course, as always, we made a $200 donation to the church. Thank you to everyone who chipped in for that.
Thank you to the many Club volunteers who helped on the day in many different roles so that it all ran like clockwork – and it does take a lot of volunteers.
A special thanks to Michael Soulos who organised the day, with help from Joe Kovacic and John Purcell. This was Michael’s last President’s Picnic as Club Captain after 11 years in the role – that is some stretch. Many congratulations to Michael for all the hard work over those 11 years!
Next year, John Purcell will be overseeing the organization of the event, so if you have ideas of how to improve the event – you know who to see. It has been suggested (as an example) that we should maybe more of a picnic atmosphere with activities. At the end of the day, we will do Club members find enjoyable.
Many thanks to Joe Kovacic who not only organised our Careflight charity collection on the day as usual that raised $735, but also organised a coffee van for us.
Congratulations to the winners of the show and shine awards.
Best on Show was taken out by a lovely white NA entered by Joshua Vlaski who only joined on 6th Sep 2023. Actually, the final decision (which was tough one) came down to a choice between a number of really clean and neatly presented NAs.
The People ‘s Choice was won by a (very popular) Pink Plastic wrapped ND entered by Keyi Sun – a very recent member having joined only on the 14th September 2023 - and also lives in Queensland! Wow.
The Ladies Trophy was won by a yellow NC entered by Lea James.
The NA Class was won by a blue NA entered by Peter Willing. Amazing car considering what it used to look like!
The NB Class was won by a red NB entered by Marc Gibson.
The NC Class was won by a red NC entered by Simon Trickett.
The ND Class was won by a black ND entered Marlene Cosier.
An innovation this year was parking the different models of MX-5 in groups – that made walking around and looking at the cars much more fun.
This year unfortunately, we had to take the hard decision to drop the Concours competition. Participation has been declining continuously over recent years, and the support this year was the lowest yet. While we may have seen last minute entries, it just isn’t possible to leave that decision to the last minute. Next year we will round up an organising committee to look after it. So, if you are keen on Concours – put your hand up!
Finally, a piece of jewellery was handed in on the day that was found on the ground near the church. If you can describe it well enough, we will arrange to return it to you. If no one claims it, we will donate it to the church.
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