One of our friends and a long-time Mini enthusiast, Peter Dunbabin, was lucky to escape the bushfires in Victoria last week. Peter managed to escape in his new MINI, but lost everything else - including his collection of 2,000+ model Minis and all his Mini memorabilia; posters, photos, brochures, etc.

We have donated a box full of TME merchandise to help kick-start the rebuilding of Peter's collection. It is only a small gesture, but one I know Peter appreciates.

Ian (Sports850) has also today offered a box of "doubles" from his extensive collection, including models and other bits and pieces.

As Peter does not have a permanent address yet, and he has relatives living close to me, in Geelong, I have offered to act as a collection point.

If any other ausmini members would like to donate something to help rebuild Peter's collection, you can send it to me and we will see that it gets to him.

A point I should make is that Peter did have all his belongings insured, so is covered for the main material goods (cars, white goods, furniture, etc) but he said that it is the little personal items that meant so much, that can not be replaced. He also said that his collection was insured separately, and that means he will be able to buy more models without feeling guilty about the money he is spending. However, as we all know, there will be items in the collection that are simply irreplaceable, and others that may now be very expensive to replace.

I feel that by helping Peter with whatever we can to help build his collection up, will enable him to concentrate on spending what he does get from the insurance company on either finding the harder to get items to replace those he lost, or even spending the money on more important items to get him back to a sense of normality.

Also, I have heard from another of our readers who also lost everything, including the Mini they had bought for their 2-year-old daughter, to rebuild to be her first car. The little girl was very upset at losing the Mini, but cheered up when told they will get another one when things settle down a little. ("It has to be a red one", she said).

I think that in the event we get doubles of items donated to Peter, we could pass them onto this other family. They will also be looking for a good restorable Mini in time, so anyone that has a spare Mini they may wish to sell (at a really good price), then they should keep this couple in mind.

Thankfully, I do not know anyone personally who was killed in this disaster, but I am sure some members of ausmini and some of the readers of TME will have been directly affected by having relatives or friends who were lost. Our deepest sympathy and support goes out to those people, and all others so affected, and hope there is something we can do for them as well.

In the meantime, I hope that we can get some support for this drive to rebuild at least one person's collection of Mini memories.

Thanks,
Watto.
Craig Watson
The Mini Experience
PO Box 186
Newcomb
Vic 3219
Ph: 03 5250 4842 or 0427 537 443