Presidents Run — Echuca – Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th November 2020.

Arti­cle by Jason King

Well, Janine and I start­ed the run ear­ly and decid­ed to head up to Echu­ca on the Fri­day night. In a way I’m glad we did as the traf­fic leav­ing Mel­bourne was bad, so we decid­ed to head up via Heath­cote and not Bendigo.

The rest of the club mem­bers left on Sat­ur­day morn­ing with mem­bers leav­ing from the club rooms and meet­ing oth­er mem­bers at the ser­vo on the Calder Free­way. By all accounts when the con­vey arrived to pick up the Bendi­go mem­bers at the Beech­worth Bak­ery every­one had a smile on their face, espe­cial­ly Kim Radenic who has been itch­ing to get his ute on a club run.

Whilst the mem­bers were mak­ing their way to Echu­ca, Bob and Dot Stone could­n’t wait and arrived at the hotel ear­ly, so Janine and I had a nice long chat to Bob and Dot in our Hotel room until the cav­al­ry arrived. The first to arrive was Ray Edsall who was just pass­ing through and was going to say in Bendi­go the night. Short­ly after Ray had arrived the mem­bers start­ed to fil­ter in. Every­one con­gre­gat­ed (whilst social dis­tanc­ing until their rooms were ready).

Our first adven­ture was to the Beer Shed. The Hold­en Muse­um was not open on this week­end as Tony the own­er of the Hold­en Muse­um post­poned his reopen­ing from lock­down for a few days. On arrival at the beer shed, we were wel­comed by a very enthu­si­as­tic own­er Neil. We all had a few ales (as the Vic­to­ri­an Pre­mier said — We got on the beers), although Richard Fox and a few oth­ers had not arrived by this time as their maxi taxi that they had booked seemed to have tak­en for­ev­er to pick them up.

A very infor­ma­tive ses­sion was held at the beer shed, we could have stayed there long after we left but we had a din­ner reser­va­tion that we all had to get. At din­ner it was nice to catch up with every­one, as it seemed it had been a long while since we had chat­ted to each oth­er face to face. after din­ner we all met up in an area at the hotel and had a few more refresh­ments and enjoyed the night. Word has it a cer­tain club mem­ber went to din­ner and for­got to take his (or hers) wal­let. mmmmmm

In the morn­ing we woke up to see Kim Radenic, jack­ing up the rear of his car. It appears that he has some rear sus­pen­sion issues. We all went down the street to have break­fast at a cafe that we had booked and had an enjoy­able break­fast and chat and explored the local shops. The mem­bers all start­ed to then make their own way home.

I do know a num­ber of club mem­bers did go back to Rick Kings­ley’s place in Bendi­go, to assist Kim Radenic in fix­ing his ute, so he could make the jour­ney home.

All in all, it was an excel­lent week­end away.

Mem­bers with earlies.

Jim and Kay Bish­op
Tris­tan Coote
Ray Edsall
Rod and Sharon Grum­mitt
Richard Fox
Jason and Janine King
Rick Kings­ley
Kim and Janine Radenic
Derk Tuik

Mem­bers without.

Gary and Les­ley Beard­s­ley
Pres­ley Eas­dale
Gary and Judy His­lop
Ian and Jane Maclean
Tim Sells and Michelle
Dot and Bob Stone