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| Carmen, Boris, me & Bas at Camp |
Mini Clubs | o.t. World | Trailer |
Saturday 14th
Don't remember at what time I got up, but while I still was in
the process of waking up a guy walked up and said; 'You must be
Anne Krijger' (or words along those lines anyway :) Turned out to
be Carl 'THE Mini-owner of Ohio' Thompson IL, who had been asking
everyone whether they were/knew me and finally had asked at the
gate where I was staying. After a nice breakfast (if you like
stewed tomatoes that is) I became an honorary member of the Mini
Owners Club of Belgium (MOCB in short) and followed Andy onto the
grounds of the BHMC to put our two Mini's in the Mini Clubs of
the World display.
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| Carmen, Boris, me & Bas at Camp |
Mini Clubs | o.t. World | Trailer |
Being the well organized man that he is Greg Fripp IL had made
a list of provisional meeting points and times for all the events
taking place that weekend. This enabled IL-ers to meet and greet.
In hind-sight there was nothing provisional about it though :)
First meeting point was at the Wildgoose stand on the BHMC
grounds. Around 12pm we met Greg & Marcel there again, as
well as Russ and Rachel.
The speaker at that time was desperate for some more clubs to
enter the club competition, so Andy and I enrolled the MOCB, not
knowing what the competition would entail. We would find out soon
enough...
But first we listened to a interview (if you want to call reading
questions from paper that way) with Dr Alex Moulton, the designer
of the suspension of the Mini. (Yes a Mini _does_ have suspension
! :)
The competition seemed very simple; push a Moke around, which had
mirrored steering and hit some drums hard enough to let them fall
over. Why we decided to let the only non-smoker, Andy, take the
wheel while Boris (who had a multitude of excuses not to drive
:), Carl and myself pushed the Moke I can't remember. I do
remember being totally out of breath after this little exercise.
Time to get some refreshments. In the mean time more clubs had
signed up for this 'fun' so we strolled around a bit looking at
the various Mini's on display and caught a couple of the other
clubs cheating a bit here and there :)
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| Dr Alex Moulton (middle) |
& Carl | Push (Andy,Boris,me,Carl) |
Around | and Around |
The next assignment was a bit easier; pull a scaled model Moke
through a zig-zag course to a Mini, disassemble it, get it and
all the people through the Mini, reassemble and pull it back
again. Carl had spend a good 15 minutes measuring all sides of
the model as well as the room inside the Mini between the doors
and the steering column ('Do the math' :), only to find the
latter was removed just before the start. Although we never made
it to the prize giving (we were inside the museum at that time),
I'm sure we did very well on this one. Boris was a bit over
enthusiastic and fell down while pulling. Hurt the rest of the
week it did.
With two people who live in places where Mini-parts are few and
far apart it was then time to have a look at all the trade
stands. Carl's search for a model ERA body kit looked promising
but turned out to be a lot harder than it seemed at first. Boris
ended up buying his first part of the week, many would follow,
and regretted not buying even more that first day.
Since the BHMC host a variety of special Mini's we then headed
on into the museum. At the entrance we met John England IL and
his wife Yvonne.
Loads of pictures were taken, among others of the rally-Mini's
that won the Monte Carlo rally in the 60-ies, the #1 Mini as well
as a Mini designed by David Bowie; a totally chromed Mini. By the
time we were done looking at all these fine Mini's (and some
other cars for that matter) the events of the day at the BHMC
came to an end and we headed back to the camp-site.
There we met with a big blonde dude; Jukka Harkola IL from
Finland and a couple of his mates. Dinner was a bit undefined
again (undercooked Cumberland sausages I later learned) but was
needed to be able to take the drinking that came afterwards :)
While looking at some of the pics MTB had brought, I saw a black
Mini cabrio with red roof and black Mini-trailer. Turned out this
was the guy who they'd met the year before and who had told them
about the Mini Seven Club Netherlands (MSCN) which had got their
whole adventure started. The weird thing was that this was
exactly the Mini a colleague of mine had been describing of a
neighbor of his packing, probably leaving for the IMM as well.
And it turned out it was. What a small world we live on... During
the club presentations we counted at least 25 different
nationalities present, most of which had brought their Mini's.
The party that followed in the party-tent is a bit hard to
describe, although I can remember everything, honest I can :)
It ranged from your basic Mini-talk to stripteases and warm
bodies rubbing together.
In short, we danced, talked, drank and were merry. If you want to
have some fun, invite MTB, Andy, Boris, Arnoud, Jukka and let
Carl.... be Carl :)
(I'm sure someone will now correct me and tell me I did forget
something or someone :) And of course the band made the mistake
of playing 'living next door to Alice' again. A hit ever since
the IMM '95 in Sweden :)
I have no idea at what time we got back to our tents. I do
remember some of us having a bit of trouble getting there on
their own accord though.
Carl opted for spending the night with Arnoud (I love the way
that sounds :) and I got back in Boris's (or was it my ? :) tent.
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| Jukka | Carl Inmar & Yvette |
Carl | Carl & Boris | Boris | Bas |
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| Carmen (me in back) |
Carmen & Jan-Willem | Wave | that | Bonairian | Flag |
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| Where's | Your | Shirt ?! | Andy.. | ||
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| Ready | To | Rock | and | Roll ? | Time to go... |
