Hi all, welcome to February’s Presidents message. It’s been an interesting month with a great club run, a change to our committee, and our first 2022 Expo meeting.

The January run to Colmslie Beach Reserve was very well attended with some interesting cars and some new members enjoying a day beside the Brisbane River. The success of these days is partly due to the location we choose and I remind everyone that your input for future runs is always welcome and will be considered at the next club meeting. Don’t be shy, tell us where we can go, in the nicest way possible, please!

At last month’s meeting, we dealt with the resignation of our Secretary Doug Murphy. Doug has been of great service to the club and I thank him for that. Doug is looking to spend more time on his personal projects and developments, I wish him well with this. Dave Sutton has stepped up to take the Secretary role and Jorg Peters has stepped up to be Assistant Secretary, thank you both, we all look forward to working with you.

Our first Expo meeting was held for the 2022 event where we began by critiquing last year’s event to look at what went well and what we might do differently. One item discussed was the provision of food and drinks. This has been done with club members kindly volunteering their time on the day (a special thanks to last year’s team, top effort!!) but it is a very labor-intensive job. I will soon contact club members to get your opinion on doing the same this year or perhaps sub-contracting this out to the likes of Lions or Rotary clubs? This means we lose the profit from food and drink sales but we also don’t tie up 80 plus volunteer hours on the day (approximately 10 people over an 8-hour period. Your thoughts are welcome.

On a personal note, I cranked up the Charger to go for a maintenance run, backed out of the shed then while closing the shed roller door noticed a wet spot where the car had been parked up? I put my finger in it, had a sniff, uh-oh, petrol. I looked at the car idling away in the driveway to see fuel dripping vigorously from the fuel pump area. I quickly turned it off and checked to see the fuel pump leaking badly. Not good for an almost new pump. I’m glad I saw it before heading out, having raw fuel pouring out while driving could have been catastrophic! I include below a “before” and “after” picture of the car to give you an idea of what 2 years of labor and countless dollars can achieve.

Have a great month, enjoy your vehicles and I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

Greg Holburt
COCQ President