On the 1st Feb 2015 Robin & Tracel started the day as usual, it was a Sunday so no work to worry about, just a peaceful day at home. As the day progressed Tracel noticed that Robin was not himself, lethargic, no energy something was not right. Towards the evening things where not improving, in fact getting worse so Tracel rang for an ambulance. The ambulance duly arrived with 4 paramedics on board, they came in and started checking all of Robin's vitals. The initial checks showed nothing of any significance so they carried on doing more tests and talking to Robin about what ever, then with out warning in mid sentence Robin had a massive heart attack. The 4 paramedics worked for a long time, it seamed like an eternity to Tracel, trying to revive him, unfortunately without success.

Some of you will be asking at this point what has this got to do with the MOA, well Robin and Tracel were members of the club some of you may know them as Robin Gibson & Tracel Devereux. Tracel had the moke and Robin was the mechanic, in fact Tracel still has the Moke although it has not been driven much in the last 2 years. Saying that I had a talk with Tracel this week and she has just had a service & safety check done and the Moke is ready for the road.

In August 2016 Tracel contacted the club wanting to advertise a project moke in pieces plus some other spare parts, she wanted nothing for them just wanted to get rid of them. This Moke was originally to be used as spare parts for Tracel's Moke but Robin may have caught the bug (became a Mokee) and was considering restoring it for himself. We did not like the idea of just giving it away to someone, so we suggested to Tracel that the club take the Moke and sell / dispose of it with any proceeds going to a charity of her choice, She agreed to the proposal and chose the Heart Foundation with the hope that someone may benefit from her loss.

I took the trailer down to Gippsland and met up with Ann and Cliff, loaded it all up and dragged it home. Now what? First decision; are we looking at a big bunch of spare parts or a restorable vehicle, to me it looked restorable but I wanted a second opinion before making any recommendation to the committee. I asked Terry to come up, we went through everything and came to the conclusion it is restorable but to get the best return we would need to re-assemble it to demonstrate it to be a complete / near complete Moke. Terry also suggested that a raffle could be a good way to get a good return for the chosen charity.

I will stop waffling on, the vehicle has been reassembled and is basically complete with the help of a few surplus bits. The engine has been started, sounds OK with no smoke and I have actually driven it around my yard.

At the last committee meeting it was decided to proceed with the raffle with the proceeds going to the Heart Foundation. All of the approvals have been obtained.

There will be 500 tickets up for sale at $10 each with the first prize being the Moke ready to restore, or to sell, or what ever the winner wants to do with it. Some minor prizes are being worked out with our advertisers also. Tickets will be on sale from March until the end of May (unless sold out earlier) with the draw to take place in early June.

Peter H.