Fredericton Area British Automobile Club

Virtual FABAC “Driveway Cars & Coffee”

Many car clubs organize a weekly or monthly “Cars & Coffee” meet during the summer season where they meet to exchange gossip and admire each other’s cars. FABAC has not followed this tradition but often has met for a drive and a meal (a favourite pastime of our group) or an ice cream.
Usually by now, FABAC would have one or two small events planned. COVID-19 has put an end to that for the time being. A number of us have been meeting online using Zoom each Tuesday morning at 9:30 AM where we have some interesting discussions and exchange the latest news. Why don’t you join us? At our first ever Virtual Business Meeting held on May 6th we decided to try a Virtual “Driveway Cars & Coffee”. The rules are quite simple:

1.     Shine up your LBC or SOB(short for Some Other Brand)
2.     Position your car in your driveway
3.     A coffee cup or other beverage container must be showing in the photo. Other props, including people are allowed
4.     Artistic license and imagination is encouraged. However, we ask that you keep the PG movie rating in mind (Parental Guidance advised).
5.     Submit your photo to David, our FABAC Blog Administrator for posting.
6.     Note that there are no trophies, ribbons or cash prizes involved here, just an opportunity to show off your pride and joy.
- Phil

Wednesday FABAC Virtual Meeting

(Screen grab by DN)

Last night (06 May 2020) was the first virtual meeting for FABAC. Thanks to David Nielsen and his techie fingers, we met up on Zoom (https://zoom.us/). After a bit of experimentation with other utilities, we've found Zoom to be easy and quick to setup. It's also free.

Gary started us off with a few notes and an update to what's been happening.
Phil discussed the 'Coffee and Car' program that's become popular. More information may appear here.
Rita and Bob let us know they are still planning their very popular Grand Lake run for August (Yippee!).
Because the website has been so busy and Larry's videos have been so popular, we discussed other hobbies we could display to showcase the talent in the club. Joe offered to make some driving videos and I offered to contact another member about his very interesting hobby.
Much discussion was held regarding the possibility of holding a picnic in the near future. David has contacted the provincial department of fun-n-games(?) and see what we are allowed to do.
The Moncton group has invited us on a drive-by. There was limited information on the occasion and no one indicated any interest.
We discussed why more folks haven't joined in on the breakfast gatherings or this meeting. We wonder if food isn't the main attraction.
Gary gave us an interesting update on the sale of his TR6. It seems that seller's remorse has set in.
Kelvin's 70th birthday is coming up this Saturday (the 9th) and we'll be doing 'something' to celebrate.

Stayed tuned to the site.
Bob E.

Thirty-sixth (and last) in a series

Tucher and Walther “space man” Robot

This completes the presentation of my collection. Many thanks to David for staying on duty for 36 consecutive days to post the series, as well as for his gentle editing.
- Larry

(It has been a pleasure, Larry. I have thoroughly enjoyed your contribution to our site. David)

Tuesday Morning Breakfast Chat

Thirty-fifth in a series

More Steampunk. Tucher and Walther’s “Voyage to the Moon”, inspired by Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon”.

BTW: This from the Queen's Printer Guide

Rule 7. Hyphenate all compound numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine.

Examples:
thirty-two children
one thousand two hundred twenty-one dollars

Breakfast chat this morning at 9:00 (BYOF)

Use same link from Phil's email.

Someone must need this—auction today May 5.
https://vr2.vortexauction.com/jardine/auctions/8084-automotive-auction-starting/968839-1969-jaguar
- Mark McN.

Thirty-fourth in a series

For steampunk fans. Tucher and Walther flying boat. This boat can be operated via an electric motor (in this case) or the steam engine. As this is a limited edition collectors item, the boiler has never been fired. There is a YouTube video of it powered by steam. The propellers are moving much faster and it truly looks as if it’s ready to take off.
- Larry

Virtual Meeting Agenda

     It's becoming more apparent that even with the relaxation of the current social isolation protocols that it may be some time before we can get together physically for a face to face meeting or even our car runs. So we're going to try something different to allow us to at least virtually meet as a group to allow us to discuss these things.

   David has put some significant effort into making this happen via the use of Zoom, a virtual conferencing system, and has already had several very successful Tuesday breakfast meetings.

    That in mind, Phil and David are now prepared to try scale up the virtual Breakfast meeting into having our first monthly virtual meeting. The details of which will be shared with you from Phil in the coming days.

     Here is a bit of an agenda to get us thinking about opportunities and ideas for us as a club to maintain some form of communal club contact:

First, some expected news in that our Quebec City tour to be lead by John D has been cancelled for this year as has the British Motor Festival in Windsor.
Now in terms of how we might go about maintaining our Club while in this current state:
Do we want to maintain some level of club contact? The virtual meetings so far have shown this to be the case so how do you feel? Do you have any ideas on how to do that?
Do we want to get together for a car run at some point? If so, how do we do this while maintaining the current and future Covid19 social distancing/isolation protocols?

       David and others have made some great contributions to our web site both entertaining, light-hearted and informative. Do you have ideas for expanding the use of this site for staying in contact?
      I'm sure there are other "outside the box" ideas out there so let's hear from you.

      Looking forward to our first virtual meeting and making contact. It's already been too long.

      Hope this finds you all well.

               Gary