Visits to Ryders in Avondale for a roast lunch and movie have featured in the Auckland Mercedes Club events calendar over the years. The site was severely flooded in Anniversary Weekend floods last year – it wasn’t so much flooded as turned into a water course. After much work, not yet complete, the movie theatre and kitchen are back up and running. The committee thought it would be good to support the renovation work.

The site has a great collection of old buildings and movie memorabilia. There are some cars hiding in garages but not on display. This didn’t deter the club members who seemed to find new things to see or discuss among their cars in the car park.

On what was the hottest day of the summer so far, we had a good turn out of members who enjoyed catching up and a roast lunch. Trevor presented Roy and Marianne Hobson with their gold name tags to acknowledge that they have been (very active) members of the club for over 20 years.

It is BYO movie and after much discussion the committee settled on Cars, as Mike was sure he had a copy at home. Turns out not, but after some action on TradeMe he had three copies, one of which he watched through to make sure that it met quality standards. The other two he gave to Sue for her very new grandson.

I think that everyone had seen the movie but we all enjoyed the air conditioning and our snack packs – did I mention it was hot. I was particularly taken by the references to traffic cones in the movie – and the movie was released in 2006.

Thank you to Mike and Deepa for organising the event and the high quality snack packs.

Philippa West