VCC FAR NORTH FOCUS MAY 2024

Far North Focus

May 2024

Club cars taking part in the Brian Parker Memorial Rally, on Bev & Matt Sharpe’s front lawn at Haruru.

Who’s Who for 2023/2024

Chairman Keith Lyndsell keithlyndsell@gmail.com

Vice

Secretary Naomi Mason vinomi88@gmail.com 09 408 1376

Treasurer Robyn Mackay wmackay116@gmail.com 0211062275

Northern

Southern

Buildings Officer Warren Mackay wmackay116@gmail.com 021 1036 4333

Beaded Wheels Rep Murray Cormack m.g.cormack@xtra.co.nz 09 407 7255

Communications Officer Margaret Ilton 4ed.focus@gmail.com 0221008119

Editor Margaret Ilton 4ed.focus@gmail.com 09 4068565

Committee: Winston Matthews, Murray Cormack, Robyn Mackay, Naomi Mason, Keith Lyndsell, Tom Deverall, Steve Edwards, Margaret Deverall, Margaret Ilton.

The full list of the elected officers is circulated with the minutes of the 2023 Annual General Meeting.

Club Cleaning Roster

May C & M Ilton

June R & W Mackay

July C & M Ilton

August D & B Francis

September N & V Mason

October Everyone

November M & T Deverall

December Winston & Glenis

February Marg & Marg

March P O’Dell

April M & T Deverall

Caffeine & Classics

3rd Sunday every month 9.30 to 12

Next date: Sunday 18 May

Taipa Beach Resort

During the month and preferably before the main calendar event, please give the clubrooms a thorough check over. This includes cleaning the toilets, hand basins, checking kitchen, table tops, window ledges, sweeping the floors etc.

If your cleaning date does not suit you, please swop with someone else.

Thanks for supporting the running of the Club.

Window cleaning, washing walls etc. will be done at working bees.

Take note of any required maintenance and pass on to:

Building Officer - Warren Mackay 021 1036 4333

For any further enquires please contact our Club Captains.

The Far North Branch of the VCC has a policy that pets are not brought to any Club events. We do ask that this policy is respected please.

Calendar of Club Events 2024

May

11th Saturday 1 pm AGM with a monthly meeting to follow.

11th Mother’s Day Run after the meetings

19th Caffeine & Classics

June

8th Saturday Monthly meeting 1 pm

16th Caffeine & Classics

29th Molloy Trophy Warren and Robyn MacKay

organising

July

13th Saturday Monthly Meeting 1.00 with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

20nd Saturday Prize Giving & Annual Dinner

Mangonui Sailing Club

21st Caffeine & Classics

August

10th Saturday 10 am Monthly Meeting followed with Mid-Winter Potluck Xmas lunch.

Parts shed open at 2 pm.

18th Caffeine & Classics

24th Daffodil Run

September

1st Father’s Day Run

14th Saturday 1.00 Monthly Meeting with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

15th Caffeine & Classics

21st Working Bee @ Clubrooms 10 am

October

12th Saturday Monthly Meeting 1.00 pm with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

19th Dunny Run

20th Caffeine & Classics

November

1-3 Nov Far North Tour [Northland]

9th Monthly meeting 1 pm with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

9th? November Wheels of Mayhem

17th Caffeine & Classics

December

14th Saturday 10 am Morning tea & monthly meeting starting at 10.30. Potluck Xmas lunch to follow meeting.

2025

January

4 th ? Jan Taipa Show and Shine

18th Saturday Picnic

19th Caffeine & Classics

February

8 th Saturday Monthly Meeting 1 pm with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

16th Caffeine & Classics

22nd Saturday Northern Captain’s Run

March

8th Saturday Monthly Meeting 1 pm with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

Southern Captain’s Run

16th Caffeine & Classics

April

12th Saturday Monthly Meeting 1.00 pm Parts shed open at 2 pm.

19th Saturday Brian Parker Rally

20th Caffeine & Classics

May

11th Saturday 1.00 AGM Meeting with monthly meeting following AGM with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

12th Mother’s Day run

18th 16th Caffeine & Classics

June

14th Saturday Monthly Meeting 1.00 pm with Parts shed open at 2 pm.

28th Molloy Trophy

Club Notices

AGM

11th May 2024

Far North Vintage & Classic Car Club

Notice of Meeting

Far North Vintage & Classic Car Club

Annual General Meeting

Held at Clubrooms, Aurere, Taipa.

Saturday 11th May 2024 @1.00 pm

Agenda

1. Attendance

2. Apologies

3. Minutes of Previous AGM 9th May 2023

4. Matters Arising

5. Correspondence

6. Presentation Audited Financial Accounts for year ended 31st March 2024

7. Reports: Chairman, Club Captains

8. Election of Officers for the coming year

9. Reappointment of Auditor for the coming year

10. General Business

A Nomination form is included at the end of the Focus.

A normal monthly meeting will follow the AGM.

In Memory

Colleen Brownlie, who has been a member of our Club, passed away on April 7. We extend to her Family our condolences and support.

Mother’s Day Run… May 11

Dave & Dorothy are arranging a run ending with afternoon tea. They have Plans A & B to cover all weather outcomes. The run will leave from the clubrooms after the May monthly meeting Please…

to give Dorothy & Dave an idea of the number of people attending the afternoon tea, contact Dave Ph 0274068812 by the 6th of May with your RSVP.

Thanks.

Club T-Shirts

Currently, Robyn is arranging the formation of the upgraded club emblem with DD Gold, Commerce St, Kaitaia. When this is completed, all Members will be able to independently contact DD Gold to arrange the purchase of club shirts. We will let you know when the shirts can be purchased.

Parts Shed

The parts shed will be open from 2 pm to 3.30 the day of our monthly meeting. For any ‘needs’ between meetings, please contact Peter Mason.

Club Trophies

Yes, it is nearly ‘that’ time again. For those with a trophy please get it back to the clubrooms sometime shortly, so they can be checked over and prepared for the prize giving in June. Many thanks in advance for getting this done.

From the Chair…

The Brian Parker Rally was run in the Paihia area, and it was an enjoyable run, ending with a quiz won by Gloria & Murray Cormack. The Ilton crew came 2nd followed closely by the Lyndsell crew.

It was good to have an entry from Waikato, Lorraine & Brian Cossey.

They were spending time in the Far North before the meeting of the Early Ford group when they checked in at Winston’s Museum.

We have started our new series of midweek runs with a visit to the Lodestone Solar Farm.

And that was followed by a picnic lunch and workshop visit to Joe Oliver.

It was an excellent run with two very interesting visits.

A grand day out, in the words of Wallace and Gromit.

If anyone has suggestions for suitable midweek runs (social visit, shed visit, place of interest, etc.) please contact your local Club Captain.

I went to the Northland Branch Swap Meet, there was a good attendance, met up with a few familiar faces and there was a good display of vintage cars and Hot Rods.

There were many interesting stalls, but although I came away with a few items, none of them were car or bike parts!

In May we have the Branch AGM, followed by the monthly meeting and the Mother’s Day run.

Three events for the price of one!

See you at the Clubrooms on the 11th.

Keith “Look on every exit being an entrance to somewhere else.” Tom Stoppard

Northern Club Captain’s Report

Once again, we have had a very rewarding month with activities many of us have enjoyed.

Our Brian Parker Rally was a great success with our thanks to Ron and Beryl Shugg for organising it. Again, a very social outing.

We were treated to a display of 24 V8 Ford cars along with their 48 occupants to an afternoon tea supplied by club members, after our April monthly meeting.

They were keen to go through our parts shed and I think there were some dollars collected. They presented our club with $100 in appreciation for providing them with food and refreshments.

Another friendly encounter!

A big thank you to Malcolm who has offered to digitally record all the manuals & books which currently are in boxes in the clubrooms. Once recorded we will know what we have and can look at ways to utilize or dispatch them.

A mid-week run arranged by Marg and Claude Ilton to the solar farm at Awanui was of huge interest to the 20 of us who had booked to go. It was well worth the visit, and we had two very informative staff taking care of us. From the solar farm, we headed into Kaitaia, to visit Joe and Jane Oliver who had invited us to have our picnic lunch at their place. The men were totally in their element and blown away with not only the displays in Joe's many garages but being treated to a ‘working display’ on the back of his property, with a saw & wood splitter which Joe has built along with an enormous mulcher.

Joe and Jane are very happy to have members of the second ‘sitting’ for the solar farm, to visit them. Book in with Marg Ilton as the 2nd visit is being organised currently. Next up, is our AGM followed by the May monthly meeting.

Following the monthly meeting, Dave and Dorothy Duirs are treating us to our Mother’s Day run. See you there.

Margaret

North Island Club Captain’s Tour

March 2024

Murray & Gloria Cormack

A well-established event in the VCC Calendar is the North and South Islands Club Captains’ Tours, alternating between the islands each year. This year it was in the lower North Island, and in the capable hands of NI Club Captain, Glyn Clements and his wife Cathy.

The idea of an extensive tour in this area had great appeal to us as we did not have great knowledge of many of the roads and places in this neck of the woods. The starters’ gate was at Whanganui and relative to Shackleton’s trip to the South Pole, our journey there was pretty uneventful, arriving ready to go in a different vehicle from that with which we had left Kerikeri. Mechanical misadventure is part of VCC tours.

Our people numbers varied between 30 to 35 for the nine days of the tour, with VCC members from Central Otago to the Far North. We were immediately struck by the complete camaraderie, enthusiasm and genuine support individually and collectively by all participants. This was supplemented by great hospitality at the various VCC branches, who provided evening meals and open parts sheds along the route. We often underrate the sheer horse-power of the free time given by VCC members for the benefit of others.

Our vehicles varied from an amazing but unfortunately brittle 1922 Essex through to a plucky ’86 Citroen 2CV and a couple of MX5s, with many other great cars in between.

I hear you; you want to know where we went… Firstly, VCC tours are about driving quiet country roads, and those we encountered on this tour were indeed quiet but also mostly sealed. No easy ride

though - we quickly learnt that Glyn likes distance and the whole nine yards!

Day 1 was social, with a meet and greet session in Whanganui.

Day 2 was Whanganui-OhakuneWhanganui, with stops at Jerusalem up the Whanganui River, Ohakune and the Tangiwai Memorial. Back through Field’s Track to Whanganui. All sealed roads so far and wonderful scenery.

Day 3 Whanganui to Napier. We meandered to Taihape with long patches of gravel roads. High and narrow with the MX5s grounding frequently and complaining loudly. The afternoon section was the Taihape-Napier road including ‘Gentle Annie’. Sweeping rural vistas with a winding but sealed road, and long views to steep but generally clean farms.

Day 4 included a Napier local run, with visits to beaches, Te Mata Peak (steep), Havelock North and other scenic areas. The next day included a free morning, which we used to walk the Napier waterfront before driving north to inspect the Esk Valley flood damage, still very much evident one year after the event. In the afternoon we had a relaxed run to Dannevirke.

Day 6 out of Dannevirke saw us on narrow gravel roads motoring across high hilltops with long look-outs towards lunch in Pahiatua. The afternoon section was on sealed roads with spectacular scenery, to reach Masterton at day’s end.

The next day was a local run with visits to Martinborough, Cape Palliser and lighthouse (253 steps, only for an intrepid few!) and Lake Ferry, followed by a loop back to Masterton.

Day 8 in perfect weather we drove to Castle Point (another lighthouse!) before meandering to Palmerston North in the afternoon.

Brian Parker Rally

The final day was Manawatu Branch VCC feature rally, the Ruahine Ramble. This was the 60th Anniversary event. With entrants from many branches, three different length routes plus a timed portion, it was a full and interesting day and a credit to the branch. A very pleasant lunch stop at the domain in Kimbolton followed by a night meal at Manawatu clubrooms topped off a great tour.

Club Captains’ Tours are possibly not the most popular events in the VCC Calendar, yet to us they provide incredible bang for your buck, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the area. Certainly, touring in a vintage car is not without its moments, but what better way to appreciate Heartland NZ?

A very big thanks to Glyn and Cathy and all the other participants who made it possible.

We thoroughly enjoyed the whole nine days.

Murray and Gloria

[Apologies from your absent-minded Editor, who had this great contribution last month, in plenty of time for the April edition and did not include it.]

‘People who ask me what I’m doing tomorrow, most probably assume that I even know what day of the week it is!’

Marg Ilton

A fine collection of cars gathered at the Waipapa car park for this special rally with their equally fine owners looking forward to the drive ahead.

It is always so special to hear the early model vintages drive in at the pre-run gathering. The conversation levels always drop, as all take a glance to see which vehicle is arriving, as the sound of them is so engaging.

Unsuspecting shoppers also slow their stride and look in total surprise as the cars drive in sounding so good. I’m sure the club cars add an interesting dimension to the shopper's day.

We had a perfect morning for the run following some rain overnight. We enjoyed a good turnout of members.

Our run took us south to Oromahoe, with the first stop being a visit to the cheese factory.

While some of us only saw cheese, others soon sussed out older vehicles, not ours but cars that lived there. That was an added bonus for the stop.

While at the cheese factory, Bev & Matt Sharpe read the run directions well and as we would be passing the end of their drive, they had a brilliant brainwave about a photo shoot for the club cars on

their front lawn, which has the perfect backdrop of the Bay of Islands.

Directions were quickly added to the run, with a “follow us so you don’t get lost’ tag, to ensure all arrived for the photo shoot. And what a glorious place to line the cars up, it was.

Thanks so much, Bev & Matt for your generous offer and forward-thinking.

From the photo shoot, we had a leisurely drive through the Waitangi Golf course & Treaty grounds back to the Phat House Brewery at Haruru.

The quiz to establish placings for the event kept all occupied while we enjoyed a well-deserved drink and waited for our lunch to arrive.

Thank you for planning a most enjoyable run, Beryl & Ron.

Crackers, cheese & chutney later, were a perfect end to the day.

Omnium gatherum…

Thinking of our Members who are working with health and daily circumstances which are challenging.

You have our support. Don’t hesitate to contact other members for a chat or ask for support if we can help you.

Remember when… maybe not! Buggy Wrenches

Far North Caffeine & Classic Potholes, glorious potholes.

Caffeine & Classics rested this month, while the potholes got lots of attention in front of the venue.

May Saturday 11th

AGM & Monthly Club Meeting 1 pm meeting at the Clubrooms

Solar Farm & Oliver Visit.

Contributed by Peter & Karon White.

We all met at the car park by the park in Awanui, to take a drive to Lodestone’s new Solar Farm in Gill Road.

We were given the Health and Safety briefing and an introduction to the capacity and development of the site by Jason.

At maximum it can generate 30MW of which 23MW goes in the local Power Grid at present. That’s enough to supply 7700 houses. Later batteries will be added to store the surplus and release it into the grid at night. This is the first large installation of many in NZ, and all the materials were made in China, and sent over as a complex kitset, that took a lot of sorting before being installed using a lot of local labour.

Then it was on with Hi Viz vests and hard hats for a short tour.

It’s not until you see a drone shot of the site you realise just how big it is.

Not all the ground was usable as when queried about the depth and effects of the peat soil Jason explained that they had to drive the uprights down to the clay base layer under the peat and then test load it. In some cases, it was too deep to make erecting the solar panels viable. As they had to have the ‘I beam’ support piles specially dipped to an approved thickness of galvanising to withstand the corrosive effects of the peat. For this reason also, the solar panels are erected in pairs rather than single panels on the supports which would have significantly increased the number of piles needed.

The panels are tilted automatically by small motors set at regular spaces along the line of panels in order to follow the sun and while we were there, they moved about a degree every ten minutes. At night they are set at a level position for safety and also in case of strong winds. This can also happen at any time during the day if there is a storm, to protect the panels and minimise wind turbulence. If it is cloudy they also level out as this gives a better power output. But normally they turn to face the sun and follow its path during the day.

We were shown one of the transformers and inverters which then supply a larger transformer at the road which feeds to the “National Grid’. This equipment was set at least 1 ½ - 2 meters up off the ground to protect it from any possible flood.

The underground cabling system must be massive as each row of panels feeds into one of these setups (I believe there are 4 around the site) Jason also kindly offered, if we brought our cars around behind the office, to

send up a drone and take a few shots and to give an idea of the size of the farm.

After many thanks, it was back into our cars and off to Joe and Jane Oliver’s home to have our lunch in a sheltered BBQ area behind their house, where they provided tea and coffee.

Joe then gave us a guided tour around Joe’s inspiring collection of “JOE BUILT” equipment and pieces of machinery.

This included the “LOG” 5 th wheel caravan that he has not long finished buildingalmost.

The 3-axle Nissan and Thames van that he has rebuilt and modified to take the 5th wheel tow hitches and a 3-axle heavy articulated trailer he has built to cart his tractor gear around.

Some of you may have seen the caravan on TV as it was started as a COVID lockdown project. The project includes the custommade pipe bender he made to bend the hoops for the Log body. Joe is clever with all things mechanical and if he wants something he will get inspiration from what others have done and improve and improvise in building his own.

Joe also showed us through his impressive workshops

He went on to show us his collection of small tractors and various implements that he has built for them.

Our visit included a demonstration of the log splitter and drop saw combination on a little tractor he has adapted to do his firewood.

A very interesting day for those of us into all things mechanical.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

-Maya Angelou

The most expensive vehicle to operate in 2024??

In the Focus for May, we have had photos contributed by: Murray, Dave, Marg D, Naomi, Keith, Rosco & Marg I.

Reports, notices & contributions from Keith, Marg D. Gloria & Murray, Peter and Karon.

Thank you for your support.

Far North Vintage Car Club

Annual General Meeting

11th May 2024

Nomination Forms

It is preferred that completed forms be with the secretary by Friday 3rd May.

Nominations for all officers’ positions will be accepted from the floor as well on the day of the AGM.

I nominate

For the position of

Signature of proposer

Signature of seconder

I accept nomination for the above position

I nominate

For the position of

Signature of proposer

Signature of seconder

I accept nomination for the above position ……………………………………………………………………

All positions within the club will be voted for at the AGM.

Please return your nomination form to: Secretary FNVCCC

Naomi Mason

23A Okahu Rd

KAITAIA farnorth@vcc.org.nz 09 4081376