For members who have been wondering why there has not been a president’s report since April, please accept my apologies. I was overseas for a month, and unfortunately, whilst away, my wife Sue became seriously ill and has been in hospital ever since we returned. My thanks to Vice President, Richard Sellers, and Secretary Duane Kaak for holding the fort in my absence.
There was very sad news in early June, with the passing of Life Member and club stalwart, Bill Berlemon. Bill, sadly, contracted lung cancer some time ago, and despite bravely battling the disease, and spending many weeks in hospital, passed on 10th June 2026. Bill is survived by wife and fellow TSOA Life Member, Margie, and children Mark, Tania, Dean, Kate and Peter. Bill was one of the great servants of TSOA, having been president for many years, and also social secretary, along with Margie.
Despite Bill’s health issues, he insisted on co-hosting the 2026 Club Weekender in the Barossa, just a short time before his passing, and after he had only been out of hospital for a few days. Bill and Margie have run the Weekender for many years and put in countless hours making this event one of the real highlights of the club year.
Bill will be sorely missed by all who knew him. His funeral was at Enfield Memorial Park on 18th June, where a large turnout heard about Bill’s involvement all his life in a wide range of community groups, where he almost invariably became one of the leaders and hardest workers. Ian Rigby, who has been a great support to Bill and Margie since he first became ill, spoke on behalf of our club. There were many TSOA members in attendance, to pay their respects to this remarkable man. Our thoughts remain with wife Margie, son and TSOA member Dean and his wife Lisa, and the rest of the Berlemon family.
We had the traditional pizza night as a thank you for all those members who have contributed to the running of our club and events in the last 12 months, prior to the July meeting. As president, I am well aware of the effort that a small, but dedicated group of members put in, and I am very grateful that we have such a great group in our club.
After being the club webmaster since the inception of a club website, Life Member, Roger Lange is relinquishing this task, and I thank Terry and Sue Dowden for taking on the role. Thanks Roger, for putting in such a great effort over so many years. I am also sure that Terry and Sue will continue the good work in the future.
I would also like to thank TSOA member Chris Marshall for offering to become the club auditor and adviser to the club and Treasurer Lisa on all matters financial. Chris is a very well-respected chartered accountant and senior partner at Accru Harris Orchard and will help us navigate our way through the challenges of running a taxable not for profit. This is more significant in the next two years when we run the 2027 TSOA Nationals.
As discussed at our July meeting, subscriptions are now overdue, and whilst most members have paid for the new club year, treasurer Lisa has had to make numerous phone calls to chase up the small number of recalcitrant members who have yet to pay. This is a thankless task which is very time consuming and should not have to happen. The concessional registration scheme requires us to report to Department of Infrastructure and Transport (DIT), unfinancial members on the scheme, who then have their registrations cancelled by DIT. I implore all members to make the effort to pay subs promptly and ease the workload of those volunteers administering the club.
There have been several social events since my April report, and I thank the organisers, and social secretaries, Charlie and Carol Onody for making these happen. The most recent event was organised by Dino Vettese, and after a shaky start, numbers-wise and venue-wise, it ended up highly successful, with 27 attending the lunch at the Gumeracha Hotel.
For something completely different, we had two Corvettes on Stage, owned by Ian Young and Dino Vettese. These are current models, with slightly better in-line performance than some of the slower Triumphs (with 6.2 litre V8’s and over 400kW of power), but I am sure that handling would not be comparable with a well set up TR. Thanks Ian and Dino for showing us two immaculate super cars.

It was also great to welcome back former TSOA SA member, Jon Williams, after many years living in Queensland. Jon has a very well set up saloon which he races, and hopes to joining the likes of Duane, Neil Martin and Bryan Young in keeping the Triumph name alive in MSCA and other race events in the future.

Alex Smithson
President