We’re back from the EIM Mini-MINI Meet at Mini Meet East Meets West!
Check out our Gallery for some pictures of our time in and around Winona. The companion NAM thread at EIM Mini-MINI Meet at Mini Meet East Meets West 2009 has links in individual posts that will take you to even more online photos from this event.
A special shout out to deanman for the superb planning and execution…thanks much!
A great time was had by all! There were so many highlights; here’s a short list of a few that immediately come to mind:
– Unexpectedly meeting up with new EIMers Sandy and Denny at our Garvin Heights Park picnic
– Even more unexpectedly discovering that new friends Peggy and Steve from Council Bluffs were also renting a cabin at the Waumandee House Resort and their helping the Iowa MINIs take over the place
– Running into Gary and Linda from Moline at the Show and Shine
– The great meals together at the Monarch House in Fountain City, WI and the Jefferson’s Pub and Grill in Winona (oh, and breakfast at Perkins too!)
– Watching Bill get his fanny handed to him by Linda playing pool 
– The scenic motoring in SE Minnesota, along the Root River Valley, and on the way out to and back from the nice cabins at Waumandee
– Getting to check out all of the awesome classic Minis up close (and the new MINIs too)
– Joining up together for the panoramic event photo
– Lots of great conversation and laughs with good MINI friends
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I’m the proud new parent of a Mini since June 08 and am interested in participating in this event. How do these types of events usually work?
Hi Lauri! Welcome to the site. If you haven’t already you’ll want to jump on over to the North American Motoring website and checkout the Eastern Iowa Minis forum. We have a lot of information there so it should help you out with finding out more about our upcoming events!
There is a link to the North American Motoring forum at the top of this site. 🙂
Hi guys!
I’ve been looking at all the neat pictures posted on this site. I see a lot of familiar faces and some of them I can put a name to. But since there are so many of us and more to come how about a page that shows the MINI and their owner? What do you think?
Happy Motoring!
David
David, I’ve actually been doing a lot of thinking along these lines. At one point I was considering addition of a Frapper map on the website that would show locations of our EIM MINIs (i’ve been collecting MINI “portraits” from our events to use for this purpose).
Fundamentally, we need to be very careful about using personal information (i.e., names) and then associating it with correlative data like a geographic location. We promise a level of confidentiality to everyone who supplies us with their contact data and we intend to keep that promise.
Now, a Frapper map (to the town/city level) of members with a picture of their MINI and their NAM handle might be less problematic. Would that be useful to you?
Yea, that sounds fine but it should have the first name as well. I’d rather call someone by their name than their NAM handle.
David, we can float this with the group and see if there are any objections to first name associations (either with, or in lieu of, their NAM handle). Seems reasonable to me.