Every year since 2006 owners have submitted photos for inclusion in an annual Mini of the Month calendar. If you would like to submit a photo for 2021, or just want to buy the finished calendar, here is the latest information from John and the folks who take care of this project.

Well, it’s September and time is running short to submit your MINI or Classic Mini photo entries to be included in the voting to select the photos for the 2021 Mini of the Month calendar.  For those of you who have already submitted photos, thank you. For everyone else, I look forward to seeing all your MINI and Classic Mini photos soon. Voting to select the photos to be published in the 2021 MINI of the Month Calendar(s) will occur in late September/early October which will be here before you know it so don’t delay.

Calendar photos for 2021 must be submitted by September 20, 2020.

In my last email I mentioned that Lulu.com, the publisher of our calendars, has completely overhauled their website and that the new calendar creation tool was not yet available. I have recently received an email from Lulu indicating the new and completely revised calendar tool will be available in late September. This fits our schedule pretty well as long as Lulu delivers the tool on time and there are no glitches in the new release. For those of you who want to know the reason for this change, the previous versions of the calendar tool used Adobe Flash which will no longer be supported by Adobe after the end of 2020.

I encourage all participants to visit the MINI of the Month website for full details. MINIoftheMonthCalendar.com

Please review the photo guidelines, schedule and samples of some of the previous winning photos on the website. We have quite a few photos submitted every year that do not meet the minimum requirements for format, resolution or quality. Here are some key points to make sure your photos are of sufficient quality to be used in the calendar:

• Photos must be high resolution to be sharp and clear when enlarged and printed on the final calendar – at least 3 megapixels, if possible. More is better.
• Photos must be in landscape (horizontal) format (width is the largest dimension).
• Most photos will have to be cropped to fit the 8½” x 11” format of the printed calendar. Many cell phones now make photos with very wide aspect ratio. Compose your photos so they can be cropped without losing important picture elements.
• By submitting photo(s), you are giving permission for your photo to be published in the calendar. If you submit a photo taken by someone else, you must provide a statement indicating that you have the photographer’s permission for the photo to be published.
• Photos entered in previous years may be resubmitted for 2021 as long as they have not been previously published in a MINI of the Month Calendar.

All the details are on the website. You can also keep up to date with the latest calendar information by visiting the MINI of the Month Calendar Facebook page: facebook.com/MINIoftheMonthCalendar

For each submitted photo, please include a descriptive caption (100 characters or less) and the first initial and last name of the photographer and/or person submitting the photo. Captions should contain information about the subject, event and/or location where the photo was taken along with any other interesting information. Please keep this in mind. If I have to track down winners to get caption information after the voting is over, it just slows down the preparation of the calendars.

Also, if you know of MINI events you would like included in the calendar, please send the date, location and name of the event. This is especially important for non-US participants since I do not have access to most non-US MINI events. Most major US MINI events are included in the calendar, but some events have not finalized their dates before the calendar is completed. Non-US participants can also send dates of important holidays in your part of the world if you would like them included in the calendar. We now have quite a few participants from several other countries. I would like to include significant dates, events and holidays for all MINI of the Month participants.

The worldwide pandemic caused many of this year’s planned events to be cancelled or rescheduled. It is possible that some 2021 events could also be disrupted by the ongoing pandemic. We’ll include event dates as we know them, but the calendar is finalized in October and we have no guarantees that events will take place as scheduled once we get into 2021.

Photos, comments or questions can be submitted to: MINIoftheMonth@gmail.com

If you send links to your photos stored on a photo sharing website, please make sure that the original full resolution photos can be downloaded. Many of these sites only save much smaller, lower resolution photos to download.

2021 MINI of the Month Calendar schedule:

September 20, 2020 – Deadline for submission of photos

September 25, 2020 – Start of voting to select winners

October 18, 2020 – Voting closes

October 23, 2020 – Winners announced

November 6, 2020 – 2021 calendars available for purchase

Sunday October 20, 8:45 AM to 5 PM

Via hilly, curvy highways and byways we’re heading to Farmington in Southeast Iowa. We’ll lunch at the Bridge Café and Supper Club (no coat and tie needed) then head back to Des Moines passing thru Fairfield, Fremont and Oskaloosa. There are several pumpkin patches along the way but no ‘Fresh Egg’ signs were seen.

The convoy will meet at Petco in Southridge Mall. Drivers meeting at 8:45 AM and departure at 9:00 AM. It’s about 300 miles and will take about 7 1/2 hrs, including a pit stop and lunch. RSVP via Facebook or email to Laura no later than midnight, Wednesday, Oct 16 and please note the number in your party. Fill up the tank, charge the walkies, don your shirt and name badge and prepare to motor!

PLEASE NOTE: It’s a NO GO if the day is going to be a wash out with rain. We’ve done this on rainy days and it just isn’t any fun. Final decision will be made Saturday night and posted so stay aware.

It’s time for our last grand driving event for 2017. As we have for 15 years we’ll be joining up with the Eastern Iowa MINIs for a day of entertaining driving. We’ll be departing at 8 AM sharp from SE Polk High School, 7945 NE University Ave, and heading to the Casey’s in Pella, 414 S. Clark Street (Exit 42 off Hwy 163 then north). Here we’ll meet up with the Eastern Iowa MINIs and at 9:30 AM we’ll all head out for a motoring adventure through the beautiful Iowa countryside. After a couple stops along the way we’ll have lunch in Eldon and end our drive near Iowa City around 3:30-4:00 PM.

So get your club shirt washed and ready to go, make sure MINI’s tank is full, and don’t forget your name badge and FRS/GMRS radio (Channel 7, subchannel 21). We’ll need an accurate head count for lunch so please RSVP with the number in your party by this Wednesday, October 11th. If you’re not able to go the full day please feel free to join us for as long as you can. And if Pella is closer to your home feel free to meet us there.