February 2020

Hi all,

Wel­come to 2020. It’s hard to believe we are now into our sec­ond month of the year already. I hope every­one has had a good rest and break over the Christ­mas peri­od as we have a very busy year planned at the club.

For those that do not know we are turn­ing the big 5 0 this year. Well the club is. We start­ed in Decem­ber 1970 and this Decem­ber marks the 50th birth­day of our club. Our club, I believe is the old­est sur­viv­ing Hold­en club and one of the largest FX FJ clubs in Australia.

This year we are host­ing the state titles in Octo­ber, there will be more details to fol­low in the com­ing months, but ini­tial plan­ning has been good, and we have already secured a major nam­ing spon­sor. I, with the state titles com­mit­tee have already checked out the venue for the event and it looks like a fan­tas­tic venue to host the state titles.

This year is also a Nation­als year and we will be mak­ing the trip north this time to Cooma, New South Wales. It is impor­tant to men­tion here the heart­break that the com­mu­ni­ty in East Gipp­s­land and South­ern New South Wales have recent­ly expe­ri­enced with the dev­as­tat­ing bush fires over Jan­u­ary, it is even more impor­tant now to sup­port the nation­als and sup­port those local com­mu­ni­ties in and around Cooma and on the dri­ve up to Cooma through East Gippsland.

The Aus­tralia Day run was a nice enjoy­able run and every­body that attend­ed had a great time catch­ing up and just relax­ing real­ly. This month’s run sees us down Cran­bourne way at the Blue Hills Rise Retire­ment Vil­lage for the bare­foot bowls. More details are in the newslet­ter. In March we will be head­ing to Arthurs Seat to the car muse­um and lat­er in the year I have planned a week­end away to Echuca.

I have includ­ed in the newslet­ter 2 spe­cial awards by our mem­bers (and wife’s) that have been received recent­ly. First­ly, Jean Hed­ing­ton receiv­ing a Senior Achiev­er Award at the Vic­to­ri­an Senior of the Year Awards held at Gov­ern­ment House in Mel­bourne in Octo­ber 2019 for her com­mu­ni­ty spir­it to her local com­mu­ni­ty of Kyne­ton. Sec­ond­ly our sec­re­tary and life mem­ber Rod Grum­mitt receiv­ing a medal (OAM) of the Order of Aus­tralia in the recent Aus­tralia Day awards. Con­grat­u­la­tions to both and what fan­tas­tic peo­ple we have in the Ear­ly Mod­el Hold­en Club family.

You may notice the newslet­ter cov­er is dif­fer­ent. It is a repli­ca of the cov­er of the EMHC Newslet­ter cov­er of August 1977, this is in keep­ing with the theme, of cel­e­brat­ing our his­to­ry, in this our 50th year.

I would like to wel­come every­body back and hope every­one has a great 2020 and it is every­thing you wish it to be.

Stay safe and hap­py travels.

Jason.