Concours - Christmas Party & Show 'n' Shine 2005

Chevrolet Car Club's 2005 Concours Overall Winner... Congratulations to John Kostiuk - 1968 Pontiac Firebird Convertible!

The Concours and Show & Shine were held on Sunday the 4th December at Cheltenham Park in Cheltenham. It is a beautiful oval set in amongst the trees and is an ideal venue for displaying cars. The oval was in magnificent condition with just a little bit of rain overnight, and the parkland was great.
There were some 20 cars booked in for the Concours (remembering it needed to be pre-booked this year) and another 30 odd cars were in the Show & Shine and on display around the oval. There was quite a regular turnover of cars and members during the day.

The 'Jumpdevils' entertained us for the afternoon playing an excellent mix of Rock 'n'Roll and Blues. That's John on Bass, Neil on Guitar, James on Sax and Damien on Drums. You'll see them again at our next Concours! More info about them can be found at their website www.jumpdevils.com

The Concours was sent up as per normal, with the club marquee, and the regalia tent and the catering was undertaken in the pavilion beside the oval. The set up crew were all in place promptly at 8am and this included Geoff Taylor, Bill Bailey, Mike Bridges, Bob McIvor, Ron Baker and Les Whitehead with Ellen and Jon Burstow preparing for the photographing as well as helping with the set up. The whole arrangement went very swiftly and we were ready to go by 8.45am. The gate opened slick at 9am with Bob McIvor and Bill Bailey on the gate directing the cars to Ellen who was taking the photograph's then on the to Geoff Taylor and Ron Baker lining up the cars. The first judging team who were doing the Sports cars and this was George Tahitis together with David O'Neil and Ron Baker were ready to start at 9.30am. Michael Klein had his team of Trevor Teague, Gary McGuigan, Bob McIvor and Mike Bridges starting shortly afterwards.
Meanwhile beside the oval the band organised by Jon Burstow was tuning up and getting ready to entertain the members. Down at the pavilion Nola Davis with George and helpers was getting the tea and coffee ready to be served at 11am and also for lunch which was right on time at just before 12.30pm.

The lunch team was very well organised headed by David Beal and Robert Goldman together with helpers. They did an excellent job on the hamburger lunch, which was appreciated by all. We had lunch ticket so that we didn't all go there at one time and this worked very well with no. big queues. Because we all had tickets we know how many lunches were served and that was 98. Jon and Ellen Burstow were arranging the printing of the Concours certificates and keeping the statistics and this progressed throughout the day. Because the judging was done on one car at a time it meant that the sheets came in progressively and they were able to start printing the certificates (always the slowest process) at about 11am.
Whilst lunch was on the printer was going flat out printing certificates because the judges had all finished by 12.30pm with all the certificates being ready by 2pm. Now this must be a record.
Listed in our Bow Tie magazine you will find the winners of the Concours and also the winners of the Show & Shine together with details of points awarded.

With the final presentations at 2.30pm we had an early finish at 3pm. A big thank you to all those who helped pack up and so by 3.45pm everything was ready to go back to the club rooms, the kitchen was clean and the grounds were spotless and we could all say it was a great day. The only problem was that we did have a bit of wind but the old club marquee was well able to handle this.
Just as we were about to leave it was the hottest part of the day with the sun shining down on an oval that looked immaculate.
I would like to thank all those members, whether named or unnamed (can't remember them all - apologies if I have missed any), who helped out on the day and made it so successful.

Brian Comport
Member # 850