MINI Meets

Went to the NEMO organized preview showing of the new Italian Job tonight, in Braintree – surprisingly not so far away as I expected (only 45 minutes driving back, with a little “Italian Job” style)!
What a lot of MINIs and Minis … and a great film too; some nice tributes to the original movie – especially the “MINIs driving down steps” and “MINIs driving through the pipe” sequences.
Good to see everyone from previous meets … Jay, Jason, Chris, Gavin … and so many other people.

Drove to MINI Peabody today to get their opinions on the Union Jack, and met Steve (CapeCodMini on MINI2) who was having some car work done. After getting both our cars washed, we took some pictures:

As for the flag … I love the look of it FROM A DISTANCE. But the installation needs to be better. I have heard from Jeff (who proposes painting a flag – expensive) but I have not yet heard from the flag supplier (although they have been in contact with Jeff).

Today I drove to Rhode Island to the NEMO meeting to discuss the clubs activities and nominate some new volunteers. The discussions included proposed events for the year, and the replacement of long term volunteers including treasurer and contributing editor. For better or worse, I volunteered myself for the latter.
NEMO is an established club, and there is some (semi)friendly hostility to the new MINIs … there was a lot of talk about the recent explosion in membership (due largely I expect to the new MINI, and the fact that Hrach, NEMO President, works at MINI Peabody. I expect that many new members, being new MINI owners, will not remain with the club unless it improves its relationship to the new cars.

The other side of the Mini/MINI discussion is that there were only three MINIs present at the meeting – two owned by the hosts, and mine – the classic Minis are all “tucked up in bed” for the winter (which seems sad to me).
I was very pleased again with the performance of my new car; the rain sensing wipers worked very well, as did everything else. The trip computer claimed that I averaged 33mpg (and 54mph – easy traffic). My manual calculation suggested 30.7mpg which is still good (better than my old MC was doing recently).
Talking of my old MC – Hrach told me that it was sold by him on Friday. I hope the new owner enjoys it as much as I did.