Does River City Mini's Club still exist?
 

I've been being a bad person and utilizing my high-speed internet connection at work (if you live in far western Goochland you understand :grin: ) to look through a few of the postings here and I was looking to see if there was a MINI Club in Richmond, VA and I ran across this forum but I don't see much posting activity. I do see quite a few MINI's zooming around on my way to/from work (a shout out to all of you that run up and down Route 6 and I64) so I was hoping there were some more MINI minded folks out here in Central VA.

No, it doesn't exist anymore. I was a club officer for a short time and developer of the twisty back roads drive to Cooper Vineyards :). We used to do ice cream outings and drives periodically. The club fell apart..............most of the people I knew sold their MINIs or moved out of the area.

.....but that doesn't mean we can't start a new club though :thumbsup: :grin:.

Wife and I live in the Short Pump area, so if you see me around in my Horizon Blue/Hot Chocolate JCW Clubman, don't hesitate to shout out! I drive down Broad quite a bit. I purchased 3 MINIs from Crown MINI, but purchased the Clubman from a New England MINI dealer back in the fall. It is the only one of it's kind in VA and maybe the country :cool:.

Well I guess two MINI's could be considered a club! :nod:

You're going to have to post some photo's of her/him so I can know what I'm looking for! I pass through Short Pump quite a bit, usually on 64 sometime on W Broad and every now and again on Three Chopt. I try and stay off W Broad in that area just because the traffic is so d#@%*d bad exspecially during the peak shopping seasons! I mostly drive 64 and River Road West on my commute to/from home but I try to find some out of the way roads to cruise down just to have a reason to enable "sport mode" :grin: so if you have any reccomendations, I'd love to hear them. Who is your salesperson at Crown? I deal with Paul Baldwin and I have found him and the dealership to be very pleasant, helpful and they seem to go out of there way to provide some of the best customer service around. I'm pretty new to the whole MC scene and I've only had Sarah Jane since March but I've had to take it in for a couple of minor issues three or four times now and Paul has really done his best to have everything prepared and waiting for me so I can drop and go. I'll be dropping SJ off Monday to have some custom stripes put on, get the oil changed and have them look at a couple of other minor things that have cropped up so I may be without my ride for a day or two. The best thing about taking the girl in for service is that they always wash and detail her and she looks fantastic when I go to pick her up!

I'll look forward to the photos and seeing you around on the highways and byways.

Cheers,

Hey Mat,

I was in the club for a bit before it finally just kinda fell apart, like Mike mentioned. But I'm always up for getting something going again! I live in the West End and travel on Three Chopt and West Broad frequently. And I may have seen you recently on Broad St., as you're the only other blue w/ white sport stripes I've seen in Richmond.

Yeah, RCM hit the skids a while back. I am still motoring though in my 03 DS/W Cooper S. I see quite a few MINI's around the Chesterfield/Richmond/Henrico area. I think many of these newer types bought there MINI's for the "gas mileage" and because "it was cute". They seldom wave at you when you wave. Hampton Roads is doing a run to Cooper Vineyards on the 17th. I cannot make that run due to a prior engagement.

Richmond Area club
 

We are proud new owners of an 06 Convertible. Would be great to have a club here to have some events, get together with other owners. Since there is no club here maybe facebook would be a great place to start. Any Richmond, Va area Mini enthusiast can "friend me" Stuart G. Laird and we can see where it goes from there.

Well welcome to the MCS family! I'm a fairly new owner, I've on had Sarah since March of 2010 and unfortunately she has been sidelined at the dealers for the last two weeks with an issue with the A/C compressor and she also needed repairs to the convertible top which is apparently a not uncommon issue with the 09 MCS. :cry: I'm hoping she will be coming home soon or I've threatened (in a nice way of course) to sue the dealership for visitation rights!

Enough of that, it is quite heartening to see that there is some interest in reviving the club or maybe starting a new one. That would be a great thing because as everyone knows, any excuse to drop the top and scream down some twisty back roads is a good one. I don't really do the whole "social media" thing since living in FAAARRRR western goochland we don't have any type of high speed internet (other than Hughes net which has problems with VPN connections) and I'm just naturally distrustful of things like that. I do however check this board quite a bit from work (ssshhhhhhhh) or anyone can reach me at matmonk@hotmail.com. I'm always looking for new routes to drive where I can push Sarah's limits and my own feeble driving skills, and maybe a club of like minded individuals would make that pursuit even more fun!

I did see the post about the Hampton MC club heading to Coopers Vineyards in two weeks but that is a little tough for me to do given that I'm 45 miles from Richmond than add on the drive to Hampton. If anyone would like to get together and plan something similar, that would be awesome!:grin: I'm always up for going to Cooper Vineyard since they have some of the best Port I've ever had and it goes quite well with cigars, popcorn or sitting out in the yard! I did create a scenic route on my Garmin that is a round trip to 5 or 6 of the eastern wineries that worked pretty well. It was about 138 miles round trip and I stuck to back roads as much as I could so it was quite a pleasant drive.

I'll look forward to hearing from everyone and maybe meeting more Mini enthusiasts! :thumbsup:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...wOnPenguin.jpg
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...arMiniConv.jpghttps://www.northamericanmotoring.co...shCorgi101.jpg

Let me know if you guys would like to meet up sometime for ice cream or whatever. I'm game. :thumbsup:

The Hampton Roads and DC Metro MINIs doing the drive to Cooper Vineyards on July 17 will be stopping at Bruster's on Staples Mill Rd to pick up those of us from the Richmond area. The event is great (I'm a co-founder :wink: ), cars are great, and people are friendly......and the wine is yummy :nod:. I plan to go, unless something comes up last minute.

That road trip keeps sounding better all the time!! Now that I finally got Sarah Jane back from Crown yesterday evening, I'm itching for some wheel time! Since you're the co-founder, you should know what the route is going to be or is it something you make up at the last minute (for security reasons of course)? :lol: Is there a chance you could add another stop to meet up with some of your western Goochland comrades? I talked with the wife about the road trip when I first heard about it last week and she seemed to be up for it and the timing works out better than this weekend (sorry Stu) so maybe it would be possible to meet up with your crew and join the winery convoy! :grin: :grin: :thumbsup: And if the wife makes a last minute change of mind (we know women would never do such a thing) I would even be game going by myself (I can drive faster and push the curves harder) since SJ is that much fun to drive and the port at Cooper Vineyards is soooooo good. :nod:

Mike & Stu,

I'm now feeling like an alzheimers ridden fuddy duddy!!!:sly: I've been bragging on the Port at Coopers and over the weekend I realized I was thinking of the wrong winery! The wife and I were heading into beautiful downtown Goochland on RT 250 after dropping the Corgis off at the groomer and I passed a sign for Coopers Vineyard which set off some alarm bells in the head (I thought I had to drive a little further for the Port). So I went home and looked at the bottle of port, Lo and Behold it is from Horton's not Coopers! So now I officially admit the mistake and to looking like an idiot.

Mike, the wife and I are really interest in joining the run on Saturday, and I've thought of a second meeting place, what do you think about the Rockville/Manakin exit? We could meet at the park N ride lot off of the westbound exit ramp or if you are coming down Broad Street, we could meet in the Food Lion parking lot. Also we were going to head up to Horton's after we left Coopers so if anyone wants to join us, that would be great. I will try and map out some twisty roads so that everyone that doesn't have a passenger that gets motion sickness can have a wee bit of fun. Stu, I know you said you might not be able to join the run this weekend, but if you can make it, it would be great to meet you. If not and your interested in going to Horton's, let me know and we can schedule a run later in the month or sometime in August.

John

My name is Dave Sanders. I'm the VP of the Shenandoah Valley British Car Club. While our club focuses on "older" British cars - think MG, Triumph, etc - several of our members also drive modern MINIs, including me. We are having our annual car show in Waynesboro, Va, from October 1-3. Friday kicks off the event with a reception and the show is Saturday. There will be an awards dinner on Saturday evening. We'd love to have more MINIs at the show and if we get enough we'll open a class for them. In the past, they've been lumped together with the "classic" Minis. (We actually get more modern Jag sedans than MINIs at the show.) "Judging" is by participant's choice. More details can be found at http://svbcc.net/CarShow2010/carshowintro10.htm
or please PM me.

Cheers,

Dave

It's great to see some interest in getting a club back in Richmond. We've had a few HR MINI event up in Richmond, and unfortunately, it's just been the HR group, up there.

Like Mike eluded to, the drive over to the winery is a fun little jaunt. He did a whale of a job searching out those roads. So much in fact, that when RCM dissolved, I just had to keep the tradition going.

The Cooper winery event last year had nearly 160 MINI's in attendance, slightly down from nearly 200 in 2008.

The drive will start at Brusters ice cream on Staples Mill road with a drivers meeting at 9AM and we'll hit the road at 9:30 sharp. There is a group meeting at Crown and heading to Brusters, much like the HR MINI group is doing from the Peninsula. Follow the developments at our thread: http://www.hrmini.com/component/opti.../topic,3540.0/

BTW, if you're interested in in MINI events, between HR MINI, DC Metro and Tar Heel MINI's (All of which will have members at Cooper) you can find something to do at least twice a month if you don't mind driving!

And if nothing else, sign up at HR MINI to keep abreast on MINI events in eastern and central Virginia!

Wow! I didn't think this was that big of an event!

I assume that if the wife and I want to meet the group at Brusters that would be ok? Thinking about the different ways to get to Coopers, I can understand why you would meet at Staples Mill, I'm guessing that you're probably going to head down 33 and cut over on a couple of back roads on your route. If you continue on down Shannon Hill Rd after you leave the winery, there is a pretty good road that I take on some of my "scenic route" fridays that has a couple of good twists to it. Of you can always continue down the road and end on Rt 6 in Columbia and then you can take the little backroad where I almost experienced a MCS vs Bovine event (I think the Bovine would have won! :eek2: ). Of course you probably know these routes anyway! I'm still planning on heading up to Horton's after the group finishes at Coopers (I have to replenish the Port supply and the wife likes the new white chocolate wine they have) so the invitation is open for anyone who would like to go with us.

I'll check out the link, and of course I like driving, that sort of comes with MINI ownership!

:thumbsup:

Unless maacodale has changed some roads, we drive down 33 for a couple of miles and then turn right onto Ashland Rd, then a left onto Greenwood Church where things get really twisty :cool: :grin: and then you go by the golf course on the left and we meet back up with 33. The route continues on the other side of 33 via the back roads.....sort of parallels 33 (but much more fun) all the way down to the vineyard :thumbsup:.

Tickets Needed?!?
 

I'll address this to whomever, I checked out the link for HR Mini folks and one of the first things that caught my eye was the fact that folks were buying tickets for the event, are we too late for this, and what are the ticket prices? :confused:

Also it sounds like part of the proceeds are going to Animal Rescue, is that right? If that's the case, it would be WAYYY easier to talk the wife into going since that is one of our major social causes!

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...shCorgi101.jpg

First off, the route is the same as I originally ran in '08. I know better then to mess with a good route. There are some excellent curves on that route. I wouldn't change it for the world!

You can go to http://www.coopervineyards.com/ and purchase your tickets. They'll email you a reciept. Print that out and they'll simply check you off at the event. They make it real easy. Worse case scenario, you can buy tickets at the event, but you'll pay 20 bucks instead of 15.

There will be a group from Animal Connections on site with some of their rescue dogs that can hopefully find new homes with some really cool MINI owners. They also plan to have an auction/raffle for the Animal Connection folks. HR MINI is asking everyone that attends to bring food or supplies to the winery. We raised over $200 and over 300 pounds of supplies for the Highland County SPCA during our Fall Colors Run. I'd like to see 1,000 pounds at the winery!

Hey everyone, the Cooper Vineyards event starts tomorrow at 11. Got my first mod in the mail yesterday........hope to get them on the car tonight :-D

8:45 – 9:00...will be at Crown MINI to pickup anybody there
9:00 – 9:30...meeting up with HRMINI and DC METRO MINI folks at Bruster’s on Staples Mill Rd here in Richmond
9:30 – 10:30...drive to the vineyard via the twisties
11:00 - ?...wine tasting and MINI fun

I'm looking forward to this! :thumbsup: I'll just meet everyone at Bruster's. I'll be coming solo for the event since the wife has decided she doesn't want to go (that's ok though, I can drive faster and push the car harder)!:grin:

Me too! My wife has to work all day, although she knows somebody who is affiliated with the vineyard and was going to work the event so we could get a bottle of two of free wine :cry: :lol:

I'm jealous! I'll have the wife and Sister in Law along. Weeee.

Mike, I'm really looking forward to seeing your Horizon BLue Clubman!

New Club for Central Virginians
 

Hello and friendly greetings to those who have waited patiently for a Mini Club. A new one exists! Please point your browser to http://wwww.centralvirginiaminiclub.blogspot.com to join/follow the organization's development and activities. Happy Motoring and Happy Easter!

Glad to see y'all up and running. Make sure you keep us down here at Hampton Roads club MINI and the DC metro MINI guys informed of your plans. We'd be glad to join up with ya!

And welcome! Let me know if ya need any help with anything.

Awesome!! :thumbsup: :grin: Let's plan an event and do some motoring :cool:.

Thank you!
 

Best regards and thanks for the support! Tim and I are really excited about the opportunity to gather new Mini Friends (hmmm, that should be a trademark, eh?!).

I just went to your link (which my version of IE hates) and it looks pretty good. I did notice on the map that it appears your in Charlotesville which I took to be a Bing error until I noticed your profile! I guess since I live half-way between RIC and CHO that should be a good thing! I'll look forward to seeing some meets showing up so I have a chance to go out and play!