Happy May, and happy autumn!

As we rush towards our increasingly fabulous joint Lotus 75th and CLA 50th Celebrations in Leura at the end of June, it would be remiss of me to fail to remind you one last time to book in! There are one or two rooms still left from our allocation at the Fairmont Resort and Spa, so book in for the event online here and you will then receive the code to get you a preferential rate for your room at the hotel. Or book in elsewhere for the nights if you prefer. Easy!

The itinerary is building out fast, with an amazing representation of the Past, Present and Future of Lotus. This includes our Guest of Honour, William Taylor, joining us from his role at Classic Team Lotus, Mike Bennett kindly bringing his gorgeous Lotus 12 (the first ever Formula 1 Lotus), Brian Caldersmith putting together a fabulous slide show of the history of the Club and the Lotus marque in Australia, and our great friends at Lotus Australia/Simply Sports Cars joining us with the Emira to represent the recent present and, importantly, the great future. If we are really lucky, there may be another surprise guest too!

The weekend kicks off on the Friday evening with registration and informal drinks, opportunities to catch up, chat to our guests and get ready for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday will see us running our own version of a show-and-shine event in the hotel carpark, followed by your choice of activities from a long list of options, or entirely up to you! There will be a few drive routes, and with the Lotus Emira present, perhaps the chance to get behind the wheel. And plenty of local sights to see, attractions to visit or you might want to simply hang out at the hotel, use the skating rink, or spoil yourselves at the spa.

Saturday night is our fabulous gala dinner, with guest speeches from William Taylor, Mike Bennett and several overseas contributors (read out by locals!), all interspersed with good food, wine and lively conversation; there may even be some prizes and such like.

Sunday morning we will have a leisurely breakfast before saying good bye to friends and heading home, hopefully via the scenic route!

So if you haven’t made up your mind to come yet, hopefully something in that itinerary gives you reason to join us – to date we have nearly 90 attendees, which is fantastic! We’d love you to be there, so please get onto it quickly as we are starting to come under pressure from the venue to confirm numbers and release any remaining rooms. It’s only seven weeks away!!

Aside from the planning that is going into that, we have the next round of the CSCA championships at Pheasants Wood on 17th June hosted by our lovely friends at the MG Car Club of Newcastle, so it would be great to see lots of us supporting that.

And of course our Tyre Kicks continue to attract a fascinating mix of the stalwarts and new members – I never fail to be surprised and enchanted by the variety and breadth of conversations held at these events. This month we will be at Carrs Creek on 14th as usual for the second Sunday of the month, and at Gough Whitlam Park for the 21st.

A date for your diary for July – we have been invited to Charlie Frew’s establishment in Hornsby for the 16th July for a morning of shining up your car using his top of the range preparation potions and polishes (my words, not his!) while supping coffee and eating bangers – full details to be published on the calendar shortly.

So if there’s nothing in there that appeals, let me know what would, and we’ll see what we can organise!

Meanwhile, keep safe upright and mostly on the blackstuff.

Pip pip,
Ashton