It is my pleasure to present the Presidents report for the Volkswagen Owners Club for the year ended 30th June 2022.
The club is in good health, both membership wise and financially. Club membership has remained steady this year, with 117 paid up members at the end of June, compared to 127 last year. Approximately 29 members did not renew their membership at the start of the year but these were replaced by 19 new members joining throughout the year. The clubs Facebook group continues to be popular with new requests to join on a near daily basis. The page currently has 1175 members. Unfortunately we don’t get to see tooooo many of them at our events / outings !
Our monthly club meetings are held at Qualitat European and we thank them for the continued use of their premises and the parts discount they offer club members, and also thank Vagn Dyson for his time opening up the workshops for us to have a look at what they are working on. Turnouts at club meetings have generally been around the 12 people mark, not sure what we can do to attract more to come along. This year, due to the pandemic, we held several of our monthly meetings in parks and these proved quite popular. One was held on the Vellenoweth Green in St. Heliers and another in the waterfront park by the Onehunga motorway. In both cases the club provided dinner and the evening was enjoyed by a reasonably large number of members.
The Covid-19 Pandemic and a long Auckland lockdown meant that a lot of events became “non-events” this year.
Our major event for the year, the Spring Jamboree, had to be called off due to the Covid lockdown, we did however have a “socially distanced” , “not the spring jamboree” gathering at the Vellenoweth Green in St. Heliers on the appointed date , followed by a drive out to Karaka for a coffee. Had quite a good turnout of vehicles. Hopefully we will be able to have our normal Spring Jamboree this November.
Several other events that we participate in, such as the Raglan run in December, the Ellerslie Concourse show in February, and the Brit Euro show in March were all cancelled this year due to the pandemic lockdown.
In mid January we were able to take part in the Kumeu Hot Rod show , the event was supported by a good turnout of club members.
Other club events held over the last 4 months included a run to Clarks Beach in Karaka, a run to Shakespeare Park on the Whangaparoa Peninsula, a dinner at the German restaurant Mitten Drin in June for the annual Worldwide VW Beetle Day event. Reasonable turnouts at all these events, although the weather on the runs was pretty ordinary !
Thank you to all our members who come along and support our events, it is always good to see you.
Finally I would like to thank committee members who have helped in organising, setting up and running events, without you nothing would happen. Special mention and THANK YOU to Terry Sawyer for the work he does for the club as Secretary/Treasurer and helping with organising events etc.
Knut Erbs
President – Volkswagen Owners Club ( Auckland ).