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BMW Informal Social – Merle Hay Food Court, Des Moines, IA at 6:00 pm – April 13

Choose Your Own culinary adventure.  Check out the link to the mall website to choose your dinner.  In the past due to COVID the food service had ended at 7:00 so we have moved the time up to 6:00 pm to give everyone a little more time.  Currently the website shows they close at 8:00 but to be on the safe side.

Merle Hay Mall, 3800 Merle Hay Road,Des Moines, IA 50310

https://merlehaymall.com/

Contact email: Alison Bell, alison.bell@bmwia.org

Annual Spring Drive – Brucemore Mansion in Cedar Rapids – April 24

The 2021 edition of the Annual Spring Drive will begin in Des Moines and end in Cedar Rapids at the Brucemore Mansion in Cedar Rapids on April 24, 2021.

The spring tour will leave BMW of Des Moines at 9:00 am and head east to Newton. At Newton we will exit Interstate 80 and follow US 6 to the Amanas where we will join US 151 to SW Cedar Rapids.  A lunch stop will be determined as the drive gets finalized.

The drive will then progress through Cedar Rapids with a tour of Brucemore Mansion in the heart of the city. A tour of Brucemore Mansion explores more than 130 years of Eastern Iowa history of the 21-room mansion including a self-guided tour through the Queen Anne mansion, which investigates the art, furnishings, technology, architecture, surrounding landscape, and stories preserved at Brucemore.

The tour will be self-guided of 6-8 people at a time with the others touring the outdoor areas of the Mansion. The fee for the tour is $10.

For more information about the Brucemore Mansion, visit the following websites:

https://www.brucemore.org/visit/take-a-tour/guided-mansion-tours/

https://www.bmwia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2021-Spring-Drive-Info.doc

Tech Session – Virtual Garage Tour – Saturday at 1:30 pm – February 20

As our social distancing continues for the foreseeable future, we are going to attempt to do a “virtual garage tour” on Saturday, February 20th at 1:30 PM, using one of the online conferencing solutions.

We’ll start with Mike Myers’ (my) garage where his i8 is on the lift for the winter and we can take a look at his new 2021 X3e as well. We will then move on to anyone else who might have a webcam set up to share their garage. My plan is to have the webcam/phone on a fixture and use a wireless headset to avoid making everyone motion sick with a handheld solution. We can experiment during the event to see what works best should we decide to try this again.

If you would be interested in showing your garage or would like to express an interest in “attending” this event, please contact Mike Myers at treasurer@bmwia.org. We will need a positive expression of interest for you to have permission to join the conference.

BMW Informal Social – Virtual Wine Tasting Friday at 6:00 – 7:00 PM – March 12

While in-person socializing is still significantly limited until we get broad vaccination availability, we do need and want to socialize however we can with our fellow club members.

Allan and Gina Graham, owners of the Johnston Winestyles Tasting Station, and longtime supporters of our club activities, have offered to include Iowa Chapter members in one of their upcoming virtual wine tasting events on Friday, March 12th at 6pm.

Here’s how it works: Prior to the event, the wines to be sampled will be announced and interested members may acquire “wine tasting samples” (or actual full bottles of the wines), to be tasted. Cost of an individual tasting set of the 5-6 wines is $10.00 per person. Then through the Internet “magic” (or at least it seemed so about 9 months ago!), we’ll tune into the live on-line tasting via Zoom. Allan and Gina will provide us an overview of each sampled wine, its origin, growing region and winemaker background and then encourage participants to voice their opinions on the wine. They are knowledgeable and fun hosts. Typically, following the tasting, special purchase discounts are applicable for those wines.

So that Allan and Gina can anticipate the number of BMW Club participants and need for wine samples, please RSVP to Rick Talbot, 515-782-1429 or rickminir59@gmail.com , no later than Friday, March 5^th regarding your intentions to participate and whether you intend to buy the set of wine samples. Rick will provide you with details on acquiring the wine at Winestyles prior to the event as well as Zoom login instructions for the night of tasting. Even if you can’t make the on-line tasting, Johnston Winestyles offers on-line ordering and on-site curbside delivery. Check out their wine, beer and cheese selections at: https://winestyles.com/johnston/ . Their store is located at 8460 Birchwood Court, #500, Johnston IA 50131 (just north of I-80; east side of 86th Street, behind the former Burger King & Village Inn).

Hope to see you at the event! Please support our local small businesses!