Just seeing what other miniacs there are local(ish) to me, here in Stansted.

No I am not a stalker but its just nice to know incase theres ever a meet on or something.

Mini Club UK covers East Anglia and Essex including Stansted and is mainly New MINI :)
Mini Club UK - Powered by vBulletin (http://www.miniclubuk.com/)

MINI Space - MINI Club Finder - creative projects, competitions, events, thoughts and ideas, by MINI (http://www.minispace.com/en_us/clubfinder/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=mini%20club&utm_content=Search%20%3E%20Topics&utm_campaign=ic_google_mini_space)

You can probably make some friends and join a club. I wish I had made some friends, bit disappointed not to have, but Im not very good at making new friends. I live in east london so I do get to shows within 2 hours ish. I dragged a mate along (he has no car, probably wont go again as bit boring for him) to two shows, london to brighton and mini in the park (santa pod), both were really good and I enjoyed driving in the convoy at london to brighton, loads of minis, best part of it. I definitely recommend you do that next year. Strangely they never updated their website.

Incidentally there is a show tomorrow (4th sept) british mini fest, its too far for me to go but if you live near there perhaps you might be interested in going: Mini Fest (http://www.britishminiclub.co.uk/about-the-club/our-mini-events/item/17-mini-fest)

I also recommend the modern mini magazine, I get this every issue. Unfortunately its bi-monthly and a little sparse on content (used to get vw performance mag) but its the only one.