NARC

PRESIDENT’S RUN
The day looked promising – a cool breeze and mostly blue sky, unlike the previous day’s nearly constant dripping.

By 10.30-ish as NARC time goes, a goodly collection of members had gathered at the home of David and Carolyn. After a sumptuous morning tea featuring fresh scones, taken in one bay of the pristine new shed, we were invited to adjourn to the next bay along to view David’s Velocette motorbike.

All present were amazed at how this bike had mysteriously multiplied into a comprehensive collection of Velocettes, each with it’s own story told by David. A 200cc flat twin drew much attention, especially when started with one kick after allegedly having stood for much time. A Norton sidecar outfit as used by David’s father when he started installing 32 volt electricity around the district also takes pride of place, particularly so when considering that it could (and most likely did!) carry three workmen, an extension ladder and up to half a ton of glass lead-acid batteries to a job. A large, unrestored Yamaha road bike of much more recent vintage was claimed to be part of David’s miss-spent youth (his own words), but it’s recently used look prompted queries about when said youth was due to finish. The usual thanks and presentation of glasses was duly carried out by El Presidente.

A convoy then travelled to the Clare Botanic Garden, otherwise known as Brian and Maureen’s garden.
Set on three and a half acres, this was the ideal setting for a casual chat amongst the groups that formed and re-formed. Water was a common topic, prompted by the progressive replacement of lawn areas with more garden beds (featuring roses) and of course we all had to walk through the gate without a fence (ultimately destined to enclose a rose garden). Brian and Maureen are to be congratulated on their enthusiasm and commitment to making a prime position into a lovely garden. The official thanking ceremony  was again performed by Graham.

Farrell Flat was the next destination, with a mixture of cars leap-frogging along the convoy. Gentleman Ian Denton in the model T waved on the faster vehicles, but there was no excuse for Craig’s blatant overtaking of Cossy! Shame on you, Craig. On arrival at Gally’s Meeting House we were met by the Burra contingent and an impressive lineup of vehicles graced the main street of Farrell Flat, pleasing all except the hotel proprietor who didn’t appreciate the opportunity of an added business attraction.

Our members graciously complied with the request to move their cars closer to our lunch venue. And what a lunch venue! Garry and Sally (hence “Gally’s”) have excelled themselves with their renovations and extensions of a historic business premises and delivered a magnificent lunch to compliment the setting. As we overflowed into the smaller of their conference rooms, there was a great advantage for those of us labelled “that mob” by Sally - we had former town resident Ian Denton at our table to give us a running history of the buildings and their former occupants. After lunch members set their own itinerary for the rest of the afternoon, concluding another great NARC run.

A total of 40 members attended, with the following cars of interest, roughly in order of birthdate:-

1912 Ford T model    Jenny and Ian Denton
1913 Essex     Cossy and Jules
1927  Buick     Graham and Rosemary Goode
1927 Buick (Essex?)    Pauleen and Craig Thomas
1928 Alvis Silver Eagle   Jenny and Roger Cross
1929 Ford     Jan and Kevin French
1930 Chev     Jan and Ken Porter
1948+ Holden     Brian and Maureen Cornish
1960-ish Studebaker Lark   Glen and Eileen Dawes
1963 Valiant S series    Margaret and Laurie Nancarrow
1965-ish Ford Fairlane   Moranne Coombs
1968 MGB GT    Merv and Adrienne Matthews
1979 Mercedes 450 SL   Dale and Joy Morphett

Sadly, the rest were moderns!

John Birrell

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Events/Runs . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.