Jeffrey AronsonOver the past few months, I’ve worked with teams creating RTV courses at the Land Rover events of the Minnesota Land Rover Club, (Gilbert, MN), the Gulf Coast Land Rover Club (Robertsdale, AL) [both partner events with the Association of North American Land Rover Clubs (ANARC)], and the Rover Owners Association of Virginia’s (ROAV) Mid Atlantic Rally (Arvonia, VA).
These Rover rallies attract hundreds of enthusiasts from different states and require thousands of volunteer hours before and during the event. I found them well-organized and well run, and enjoyed renewing long-time Land Rover friendships and meeting enthusiasts new to me.
Dave Sweetapple’s Vermont Rovers column always spoke to the “Small is Beautiful” ethos, and in his memory, Rovers North reminds enthusiasts that you don’t need to devote a weekend’s time and a long drive to enjoy your Land Rover. The annual All Metal Dash, Petersham, MA and Maine Misfits and Rover Bits, Greene, ME, benefit from their relatively small size and laid-back atmosphere. Examples of similar events extend throughout North America.
Rudy Samuels started the San Francisco Bay Land Rover Club last March. “We’re a free enthusiast social club,” he wrote, “dedicated to Land Rovers in the San Francisco Bay Area. We currently have a ‘cars and coffee’ type monthly gathering of vehicles. Each meeting, we give out a ‘Golden Land Rover’ award.”
David Cérame, Honolulu, HI, founded the Hawai’i Land Rover Club in Honolulu this year; they held their first event at Velocity Land Rover this past July. “I formed the club to bring together different people and their love of Land Rovers,” he noted. “Out here, they are rather rare and support for service or help with them is even more rare. This event will serve to enlarge the community.” Rovers North supports 60 events annually, and we honor all the volunteers who make it possible for Land Rover enthusiasts to gather together – just as Dave Sweetapple did.
As we go to press, we send our best wishes to our North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida enthusiasts and shops during this extraordinary hurricane season.
Jeffrey Aronson
Editor, Rovers Magazine
[For more information on the San Francisco Bay Land Rover Club, see @SFBayLandRoverClub, on Facebook and/or their website. The Hawai’i Land Rover Club maintains an Instagram page @hawaii_lrc ]
