Page 4 - Microsoft Word - miniz-digest-92-97.docx

but the northern and western suburbs were hardly touched. Although all are safe,
unfortunately all our Christchurch members live in the eastern suburbs.

Robin & Jess Mellish’s house is badly damaged but liveable. Robin’s collection is mainly in
glass fronted cabinets that need a screwdriver to open. Some of the glass fronts blew out
but most of the collection is unbroken, although many bottles are piled against the glass so
straightening it up will be a job and a half.

I managed to speak to Val Fretwell the day after the earthquake. Her house is/was
immediately above the epicentre. The house is a write-off and Val was lucky to get out
alive. As well as minis (15,000), Val collected other things such as Whisky jugs (which
hung from exposed beams!) and plates. Probably nothing will be salvageable as the house
will have been ‘red stickered,’ meaning it is too badly damaged for anyone to enter and will
be knocked down complete with contents.

Robin has managed to contact some of the other members. A few days after the
earthquake Trevor Harvey had still not been able to look in his bottle room and see how
bad the damage was. Eric & Sheryl Sutton had the most damage from the September
quake. They had got the place looking good again and we had the AGM and barbecue
there, two days, or was that a lifetime, before the February earthquake. The September
quake wrenched one of Eric’s cabinets off the wall and threw everything off the bar. It
appears that the second quake was a repeat. Neither Robin or myself have heard from
any of our other Christchurch members.

On a brighter note the AGM weekend stated off well with a pot luck dinner at Robin & Jess
Mellish’s house. Robin has one of the most extensive collections in NZ and, although all
but one couple had seen it before, you always see something new. The couple that had
not seen it before was Graham & Maree Ramsey from
Brisbane. It is the second time these Aussies have
joined us for the AGM and, hopefully, they enjoyed the
experience the second time also. I think that they had
left Christchurch before the earthquake.

Saturday morning saw us touring the bottle stores,
starting with Whisky Galore. This was a specialist
Scotch shop that carried a small but hard to find
elsewhere range of miniature Scotches.

Unfortunately
three days
later it ceased
to exist
(except on
line), for the
time being at
least.