Chairman’s Report
- March 2022 by David Tomlinson
Yet again the pandemic has interrupted our activities. We made the call to cancel all March club events, and I believe it was clearly the right thing to do, as the “wave” of Omicron reached its peak in Rotorua around mid-March, with 3000 cases locally. I am aware that even some triple vaccinated branch members caught the virus, so it was definitely in our best interests to have another month off. Many other events continued to be cancelled, but I did manage to get up to the Classic Car breakfast at the Jukebox Diner in Hamilton on the first Sunday in March, also winning “car of the day” and “farthest travelled” so I got some MTA fuel vouchers and a restaurant voucher. Fleur and I had also entered Taupo branch’s annual rally in March, but this was another one of the many casualties of Covid. In early April I was supposed to take part the last week of a three week national rally of Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars, but this event was another casualty, so for the first time Fleur and I took part in the “Oil Down”, a coffee and cars meet at the lower carpark at Tauriko Shopping Centre in Tauranga. There was a very good turnout of cars, but I was told it was down on the usual number. While it was mainly American cars, there were a few Europeans, and a few Aussie, Japanese and UK cars. In March the NZ Ferrari Owners Club had their AGM in Rotorua, and we had tried to get an owner to take Alex for a drive without success, but we did manage to get him a drive around the carpark in a 2013 Ferrari California at the Tauriko gathering. All drivers present were very friendly, and genuinely interested in all the cars on display. We will be back. The cancelled R-R/B Club tour was replaced at short notice with a weekend event as this magazine goes to press in Taupo. Fleur and I entered, but at the last moment we lost our child minder, so I went ahead and managed to win the poker run rally with a borrowed co-driver. Our hand was two pair, “9 high”, and no one else got better than a pair. I took our recently overhauled 1933 car, and there was only one other Rolls-Royce there amongst a slew of Bentleys. I came second in the 2
Side Curtains February 2022
