24/08/2023
** IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT **
Churchill Crew sadly and regretfully have to announce that Costco have ordered us to shut down the event permanently at their venue.
We believe in transparency to eliminate rumours and gossip, so have shared the email comms that have been received highlighting the reasons why below, it’s so disappointing to report that the cancellation is due to yet another repeat of the minority spoiling the event for the majority.
However, we also need to state some facts from our end, Costco highlighted to us only the once in very brief detail about the urination issue, once we were made aware we promptly addressed this in our posts for you all to rectify this, in addition our staff were monitoring this at each event.
At no point were we advised a consecutive time that the issue was still ongoing and they had incurred costs, there was no indication/knowledge of the level of detail that can now be seen in this email trail, nor were we ever informed that their staff sighted people urinating and that they felt uncomfortable and unsafe in their workplace.
To add, our staff also never sighted people urinating at the events.
The positive relationship we thought we had established with Costco after the first event, collaborating with them on opening night, their staff getting involved, them marketing the Costco brand, signing people up for membership and us promoting their brand as well each month, it all appeared so positive.
We are in complete shock that this relationship has drastically changed from first event to what it is now, it certainly raises a lot of questions.
We can’t help but feel used, unfairly dismissed and completely robbed of any opportunity to address / rectify these issues.
How can you fix something if it hasn’t even been communicated to you in the first place?
We reached out to Costco 3 times pleading for them to reconsider and offered a resolution proposal, sadly all of our contact was ignored which is so disappointing given we were treated with this exact same unprofessional behaviour and disrespect by Churchill Centre Management.
We ended up having to engage SAPOL to mediate and obtain a response from Costco, it never needed to come to this but we thank SAPOL for their assistance, they have been a great supporter of our event and had only good things to say about how the event was being managed.
Please know this cancellation has not been flowed down by SAPOL.
Costco’s eventual response…
“I must not have hit send and instead it went to my draft file”
At the end of the day we’re all human beings and should be treated with equal respect, being Costco is such a large company and their alleged business values, we would’ve expected professionalism and effective communication like we have always given them right from the negotiation stage when we were starting this event back up.
We really thought they were going to be different and truly wanted to support the event and local community.
We put so much time, effort and I myself, put my own personal money into this event to put this on for the Adelaide car scene, to have this shut down for good is heartbreaking.
We are absolutely gutted.
This event brought friends, family and the car scene community together for an all inclusive great night out, we were supporting local family business and raising much needed funds for charities.
We had also established a loyal dedicated team and rostering to safely manage the meet to satisfy Costco and SAPOL from a safety aspect.
There were even bigger things to come to this event which put a focus on the kids, some great ideas that we had been approached about, this will now potentially never be given its opportunity which is just so sad as these young kids are the next generation of car enthusiasts.
Their smiles being amongst all of your amazing cars, playing with their little RC cars and dancing away to the music was a major highlight for us to see each month.
I want to thank my team of volunteers for all their hard work, loyalty, help and effort they put into this event, we had some great times and so many laughs/banter, at the end of each event I left with a happy heart and was so damn proud knowing the event was supported not only by you guys but my awesome team who have now become good friends.
Thanks must also go out to our food trucks, stall holders and DJ’s who supported our event, we encourage everyone to please jump on their FB/Insta pages, give them a like and show them some support if you see them out and about, if you have any upcoming events, we highly recommend you consider collaborating with them and reaching out to see what they can offer, these are all local family businesses that would greatly appreciate the support.
Churchill Crew will regroup and see if there is opportunity to take this great event to a new venue where we are actually going to be welcomed, respected and supported as the true car enthusiasts we are.
Stay tuned for updates and we hope you all
support us in potential endeavours we may start up in the future.
The car scene doesn’t deserve to die!
Let’s keep it alive, support car events new & existing!
One last thing, we please ask for everyone to be kind and respectful to us as a team, please think before posting a reply / reacting to this announcement, this was a very hard post to write, we tried our absolute best to fight for the event to continue for you guys, it has been a super tough pill to swallow.
Stay safe
Churchill Crew
