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Avenue of the Giants Weekend Run - Sat. March 23, 2024

Saturday will be a very full day of cruising from Novato up through the Avenue of the Giants and ending at Eel River Brewing in Fortuna. Sun...

Recap - March 10th Run MINIS For A Cause - Chico



MINI’s for A Cause (MFAC) March 10th 2019

Well the day started a little strange!!! Sat at the meeting point, I was confused why there were only 3 cars there – and all were from my own family. I knew more people were coming!!! I had informed that departure was 8am sharp – but nobody else was to be seen. Oh no I thought – this isn’t going to be well supported. A short time later I got a call from Lucila to tell me that she along with 4 other MINI’s were waiting at a different Starbucks in Pleasanton. My family and I hastily jumped in our cars, headed over to the other side of town, and met up. We now had 8 cars heading out from Pleasanton – but we were 20 minutes behind schedule. It turns out that the event details had been sent out with the wrong meet up location. My bad – will be more diligent next time.

Anyway, at 8.20am we were on our way. Our route was going to be the most direct as the distance was quite long and we had a time deadline to meet. The sun was shining for us – but sadly the roads will still wet from the rain the night before. So much for spending hours detailing the car. But hey – it was for a good cause and they could be cleaned again at the venue.

After 1.5 hours of driving north we were heading towards Yuba City where another 4 cars were waiting to join the caravan. We pulled in (a little behind schedule) to have a short bathroom break and our newly formed caravan of 12 cars hit the road again.

We continued north heading to the Butte County Golf Club picking up 1 last member about 20 minutes outside the venue. This was our lovely Joy Edwards who is our most northern member of NorCal MINIS living just south of the Oregon border. I called ahead to the event to inform them that we now had 13 cars on their way and would be arriving around 11am.

We arrived at the golf course in glorious sunshine where many cars had already been parked up ready for the show and shine. Our group was directed to our relevant parking spots and we all jumped out and started to detail the cars. Once the preparation was finished we picked up our welcome packs and voting forms and started to wander around looking at other MINI’s and judging the cars by category. 



Once this was completed – it was time to get some lunch and join in the raffle / silent auction. Some of our members were lucky to win raffle prizes. Sadly, nobody from NorCal won anything in the Show and Shine. Shortly afterwards, people started to split off and head their way home having had a great time.

The show was organized by Lew Allison from Chico MINI’s to raise funds for the children who were victims of the Camp and Car fires last fall. As we all know this devastating situation destroyed everything that people owned. I would like to thank Lew for pulling this together and allowing NorCal MINI’s to be part of the event. My thanks also go to the NorCal members who both turned up on the day and to those who could not make it to the event but made a cash donation. Our members raised $1,240 between entrance fees and donations. This was topped up with another $500 from club funds to bring our total contribution to $1,740. Well done!!!

Simon Tildesley (President)

PS. Check out all the great photos from the event!