Natmeet - 2008 - Victoria

[SPy vs. SPy]

With the dawning of the day it begins, you kiddies play safe in the sandpit over the next few days and take lots of piccies.

[Okibi]

Natmeet is over and it was great to meet old friends and make some new ones.

The Victorian club had put in a massive effort to run a fantastic event that ran very smoothly had had excellent drives, venues and meals.

It was a great time and it seems a lot of the ideas people discussed here had been implemented. While we're not playing for sheep stations seems some of the usual issues still linger.

We need to put the control of Natmeet back into the hands of all the National Clubs so that the clubs can standardise items like concourse and members have a proper understanding of how points are allocated before they commit/attend the event.

The benefit will be that clubs car run events under the National rules so that members can \"practise\" what is expected at Natmeet.

The great news is the South Australian club (this years Natmeet winners) have offered to run the next Natmeet. It sounds like it will be a great event.

Thank you to everyone who helped the W.A. team attend especially Lynn and Roger who kindly gave us their house and 2 cars to use while we waited for our cars to arrive in Adelaide.

[Wotsa]

Natmeet is run and done. Thanks to the MX5 Club of Victoria and the Natmeet Committee for conducting a marvellous event. It was great to meet some of the regulars on here as well as folk from all over the country.
For participants, I trust your journey home was as good as mine, through the Snowy Mountains!

[Okibi]

W.A. would love to run a Natmeet but last time we tried we only had 2 non W.A. bookings, Jean and someone overseas. (updated Okibi)

We will develop a survey to get serious expressions of interest, it should give an indication of the costs that we've paid this time around.

Given the event would be in four years time we realise how hard it is for anyone to commit to such an event (a lot can happen in 4 years!). But it would also give you a long time to save up the money.

Its the only way we can seriously consider holding a Natmeet.

Surveys will go to all the state clubs (as you have to be a member of a state club to attend), but i'm also keen to get the opinions from our forum members because if you're not a member of a state club then as clubs we possibly need to change to help accommodate different agendas.

All feedback is constructive.

Given Mazda spends some serious cash sponsoring the event ($12,500?? this year) I think it's important that the event is as inclusive as possible and caters for different budgets and age groups as much as possible. There was no way to be competitive at Natmeet unless you'd been to previous Natmeets and i'd like to do my best to change that.

I will provide a link to the survey once i'm back in W.A. and our committee has discussed it.

[redshoes]

Your comments are very interesting Dave. I've been sitting on the fence about joining the SA club for the past year. I am under the impression that none of the SA forum members belong to the club (may be wrong!) and also I don't understand why the SA Club members aren't active on the forum? This is such a wonderful community of obsessed people that I don't understand why anyone who loves 5s wouldn't belong!!

Perhaps you could share your thoughts on membership with all of us especially as you know the SA Club members and the SA Club!!

[Tom]

What a great weekend! Everything was so well organised, from the meals to the runs. Congratulations to the Victorian Club and the NatMeet Committee!

This was our first NatMeet and we are now looking forward to the next one in South Australia.

A few photos below....

The \"garage queens\" at the Concours


The racers at Winton


Morning tea at Bright


Tom

[Okibi]

Natmeet Photos moved to here :

http://www.aus-cartalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=386146

[jncook]

[quote="Okibi"]W.A. would love to run a Natmeet but last time we tried we only had 1 non W.A. booking and that was from someone overseas.

Does NSW count as overseas??? I actually sent off my cheque!

[Okibi]

Perhaps your accent confused them , I stand corrected: 1 overseas person and Jean

(you need to update your sig!)

[ASE05]

Wahoo, what a great w'end for Natmeet and a blast of a drive home Through the snowy mountains with a couple o Brisvegas folk then on our own after Cowra. I think we travelled on at least 93km of line marked roads from Cowra to Beaudesert Trucks on single lane roads are BIG , SE's have a wear indicator tag for the rear pads and race seats are meant for racing........

A big cheers to old and new friends met over this great w'end Michelle and I had!

We only got back last night at about 2200

[JBT]

For participants, I trust your journey home was as good as mine, through the Snowy Mountains!

We (ASE05s, APD and JBTs) ran up through Bandiana, Corryong, Cabramurra, Kiandra and Tumut to Gundagai. The area had as much rain that day as they'd had in the last 12 years ....it p1$$ed down on us and we didn't get to see as much as we'd have liked. Will have to do it again on the way to or from NatMeet 2010 . However, we did have two smelly NCs after running over some road kill and getting bits stuck underneath....pooowee!

There was no way to be competitive at Natmeet unless you'd been to previous Natmeets and i'd like to do my best to change that.

Why do you say that? Points accumulated for attendance at the activities, runs etc, concours d'elegance and track event. You just had to be in it and try. I can't see how previous NatMeet experience would have helped.

[JBT]

Concours d'Elegance collection



Parked at Falls Creek later that day - great run for ten cars to follow Samselectrics up and down the hill




The road to Mt Hotham after the morning tea picnic at Bright - woooobloodyhooo



Everyone on the track at Winton

[AJ]

ooooh.........a taswegian number plate

[JBT]

Yeah, there's always someone there to hold you up.

[Okibi]

..

There was no way to be competitive at Natmeet unless you'd been to previous Natmeets and i'd like to do my best to change that.

Why do you say that? Points accumulated for attendance at the activities, runs etc, concours d'elegance and track event. You just had to be in it and try. I can't see how previous NatMeet experience would have helped.

Well, lets hope this is taken as constructive criticism...

Because like most of the W.A. people, I had no idea that we received points for helping with Judging etc.

We hadn't been given a breakdown of the concourse rules so I had no idea I needed to bring my tonneau cover or log book. I knew I had to have the correct factory tools (because Simon had lost point from this at the Queensland Natmeet because he hadn't know - his first natmeet). For some reason they ditched the Modified section of concourse (my car isn't too original anymore).

Someone decided to dock the W.A. club 60 points (from the 100 we were expected to get) for putting our cars on the train to Adelaide instead of driving (even though we had to drop our cars off over a week earlier, got the dirty in transport and spent about $2k each on the Adelaide and back part of our trip. That didn't make us feel very welcome. (I don't think this was discussed with the National Presidents)

Also given we couldn't leave personal items in our car during shipping meant we didn't really have room for "costumes" for that dress up thingo. Not that any of use were really impressed with the concept.

We arrived late on Friday so never got points for bringing our photo.

Lets hope that with each Natmeet we can help improve things. We're not playing for sheep stations and we didn't really attend to be competitive but it did sour the event a little.

For me the event was more about meeting old friends and making new friends. It was also a nice break from work and a chance to spend some time in Victoria.