Our meetings are held at the Royal Canadian Legion Br. #263 at 1025 Ridgeway in Coquitlam -- 8pm. For the Coquitlam-challenged that would be one block North of Austin and one block East of Blue Mountain.

Come on out to the CMEC museum in the former QM Stores building out at the former CFB Chilliwack on Sunday, July 5th and bring the kids for what promises to be a great event complete with Justin Foulkes-Taylor's famous Aussie-rules pig roast, rides in a genuine T-55 main battle tank, and lots of fun with your fellow collectors. If you haven't been out to the museum yet you owe yourself a look, as they've done wonders in a short period of time and have some incredible stuff. Plus it's fun, damnit! Some of our collector friends from the U.S. should be coming up too.

WCMVHS members who so wish can stay overnight the Saturday prior where rumour has it some more fun is to be had :) Show up anytime on the Sunday to hang out, with the barbecue and festivities to follow after the public leaves around 1600 hrs/ 4 pm. Cost is $20/ person just to cover costs of the barbecue etc. (filled up a main battle tank tank lately?) and you're welcome to bring any munchie or liquid contributions to the festivities you care to tote.

This event and anything you attend on Canada Day is considered a 'Club Event' should you be worrying about what you can and can't do on your 'Vintage' plated vehicles, and such was entered into the minutes of the last meeting should it come up.

Please see the CMEC website at www.cmedcentre.ca for directions to their location if you've never been before. For those newer members who may not have been out that way before, it's a beautiful part of the Lower Mainland very close to both Cultus Lake and the City of Chilliwack proper, and you can easily drop the rugrats and the wife off at the Cultus Lake waterslides and sneak on off to CMEC for a few hours and still stay this side of a divorce! Contact Harry Moon at hmoon@telus.net for further information.

There are an impossible number of Canada Day events taking place this upcoming Wednesday, July 1st, and though we don't seem to have any organized participation in any of them - please take your vehicles out and help people remember why we HAVE a Canada to celebrate annually.

You'll have to look up the details on Google or your favourite internet search engine, but this year there are events at Heritage Park in Chilliwack, a few in North Van, one in Langley (not at the airport this year, unfortunately) and many others in all the communities and suburbs which make up the Lower Mainland. As previously mentioned, feel free to take your Vintage plated vehicle out to any
of these events, as participation in Canada Day festivities is a "club-sanctioned event", and this was discussed at our last meeting and entered into the minutes.

The Freedom Route 3 posters have been printed and will be distributed amongst the Legions on this year's route by John Hawthorne and Pat Papworth as they recce the route later this month (May 2009.)

The poster copy reads: "A Convoy of 30 historic military vehicles will depart  Abbotsford / Chilliwack  and travel through British Columbia's Interior making stops at Merritt, Kamloops, Chase, Salmon Arm, Enderby, Vernon, Kelowna, Peachland, Summerland, Penticton, Oliver, Osoyoos, Keremeos and Princeton. This Convoy is being conducted in the 65th Anniversary year of "D" Day to honour our Veterans who liberated Europe and the Pacific,
so please come out and see some of the vehicles and equipment that helped make it all possible."

For those of us who were on the last two Freedom Route events, no introduction is necessary - for those who weren't able to get away last time, do yourself a favour and book some holidays/ sick days or take a leave of absence to come along on this next one, as the Okanagan and Shuswap are THE places to be in the middle of the summer, and the crowds of veterans and general public we get out at these Legions etc. in these Okanagan communities has to be seen to be believed - and the same goes for our welcome!

All military vehicles are welcome to come along on part or all of the convoy (we start right after the Abbotsford Airshow this year), and we typically camp out each night and share breakfast duties ('pull KP') in turns. Your webmaster has been on both of the previous 'Freedom Route' events and wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

More details will be posted here as they become available. Please click on the poster image at left for a larger version.

This is always a GREAT event and is hugely attended by the military vehicle collectors on both sides of the border in addition to the Commemorative Air Force (nee Confederate Air Force), local museums, the US Military and countless others. Last year I believe there were somewhere around 100 military vehicles of all shapes and sizes present and aircraft you will not see anywhere else outside of the pages of reference books. In the military vehicle end of things I've seen Stalwarts, M114s, a British FOX, countless MBs and GPWs of every description, GTB 'Burma' Fords, CCKW/ CCW/ Airborne CCKWs, M274 Mule w/106 Recoilless - every version of Dodge WC imaginable -- it's like a mini-convention down there. Plane-wise I could go on for hours, but if you've seen the movie 'Midway' there's just about every carrier-based and WWII creature there including Grumman TBF/TBM Avengers, F4F Wildcats, F4U Corsairs - an SBD Dauntless once - a Douglas Skyraider - privately owned AH-64 Apache and AH-1 Cobra gunships - Supermarine Spitfire...if you can name it, chances are someone will bring one. There were tons of L4s and L-19 'Grasshopper' spotter planes, an O-2 "Oscar Deuce" Cessna Skymaster Vietnam era FAC plane -- unreal stuff. The year before last some of us took the shuttle to see Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's jaw-dropping collection of aircraft as well, and I believe that's on this year as well for those so inclined to drop jaws (myself among them.)

We have a bit of an ongoing bet with the Washington and Oregon collectors to see who can show up with the most vehicles -- the Canadian contingent or the American one -- and it's just about the only bet that nobody loses. As such we encourage everyone to bring a vehicle or two, and if you don't have one - ask one of your collector friends who may have more than one vehicle if you can borrow a spare to take down. We have so, so many vehicles in our club that never see the light of day because owners tend to drive 'the favourite' or understandably can only drive one at a time -- and I'm sure one or two of them would like to show more than the one off at events like this.

We traditionally have a convoy of our own members heading to Arlington which this year will leave on July 9th. We camp out on the airshow grounds and typically have a bit of a low-key party with our American friends (Gin'n'Tonic, typically...tally ho, what-what?) in the evenings, but you're free to leave after airshow hours to check out the local eating establishments or go shopping or what have you located nearby.

For convoy details please contact convoy commander John Hawthorne by clicking HERE, or watch this space for further updates as I get them (timings, rendezvous points etc.) You're also free to travel down there on your own (the actual airshow is the Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and meet up with us at some point during the show. PLEASE BRING YOUR CANADIAN FLAGS! Also, if anyone has one, we're looking for a giant Canadian flag to fly from base camp - and maybe a Red Ensign? I may be able to borrow a couple locally but my memory lately is worse than atrocious.

Last summer after the Galiano Gun shoot event, a number of us went to a park on Galiano for what was supposed to be a local 'Show and Shine' event of collector vehicles, but some incredibly rare vehicles showed up from all over - Mainland, Island, Interior, US - including an ultra-rare Tatra car of a design that puts the weirdness of the old-school Citroens etc. to shame. The military vehicles however were the hit of the little gathering, and as we pulled out, I had a lady come up to me with her kid who said she'd heard the military vehicles were there in the park and rushed there from the ferry terminal specifically to check them out.

Galiano is a great place to visit at any time (I first went there with Scouts) but summer the best time of all. If you're tempted to go the Island with your vehicle for a visit - pick this weekend and check out the Show'n'Shine too. Ask Don Robson for details at: dfrobson@telus.net

As you're all undoubtedly aware, our own Artificial Reef Society of B.C. has been doing to our navy what all the years of the Cold War could not: sending them to the bottom of the briny deeps!

ARSBC started off with the old freighter GB Church a number of years ago and quickly followed up with HMCS Chaudiere - then long out of commission and sitting noseless in Esquimalt as sort of a floating parts donor for the remainder of her class still in service. A few ships later and we get to HMCS Annapolis, currently being stripped of valuable commodities and items which may prove hazardous to recreational divers where she's currently moored at Gambier Island.

The task of stripping the ship prior to her scuttling is a task Herculean, and a number of our members have been volunteering their time not only to help, but to be some of the last people to see the ship on the right side of the waves ;) If you want to join one of the work crews heading out to Gambier, they meet at the Blue Coffee House in Horseshoe Bay prior to heading out, and members are advised to pack their own lunch and dress appropriately for a trip across open water in a small open boat (i.e., wear layers, bring something waterproof, and since it's BC -- be prepared for anything and everything in terms of weather and water and temperature extremes.) Contact WCMVHS member Thomas Houghton for details, which would doubtlessly be easier if I had Thomas's email or phone number. Hmm. Details also available at the Artificial Reef Society's website at: www.artificialreef.bc.ca