Newsletter April 2023

Published in Apr 23

Club Night

The April WFTR Club night will be at The Foresters Arms, 173 London Road, Bagshot, GU19 5DH, on 04 April from 7:30 p.m. During the evening we will discuss the important issues brought up during my TR Register Group Leader meeting at Gaydon on 11 March (more detail below). Also final arrangements for Drive it Day addressed below. Club nights are friendly and inclusive as witnessed below:

Planned Events For The Next 3 Months

23 April – Drive it Day at Amberley museum being organised and sponsored by our group. We now have a total of 87 TR’s registered with more to come I am sure. Barry Green and I visited Amberley last Friday to refine our plans for the day which all look good. We need 10 volunteer marshals from WFTR members to come down with us on 14 April for a detailed recce and briefing of what is to be done on the day. I have a couple of names already, but please let me know if you are willing to come and also act as a marshal on the day. I am sure we can organise some car sharing. At present we have 18 cars and 33 members from WFTR registered. Looks like this could be a great event!

13 May – Fish and Chip run. For registration and details see: https://wftr.co.uk/event/fish-chip-run-2/ We have 9 cars with 17 members already.

19 – 21 May – Tour of the Mendip Hills. For registration and details see: https://wftr.co.uk/event/tour-of-the-mendip-hills/

27 May – A trip to the hovercraft museum. For registration and details see: https://wftr.co.uk/event/hovercraft-museum/.

09 – 12 June – Long weekend in Wales. Fully subscribed.

25 June – Cream tea run – a great favourite (see below). For registration and details see: https://wftr.co.uk/event/cream-tea-2023/

TR Register Issues

As referred to above some important issues were discussed at a recent TR Register Group Leaders meeting. A summary of these is as follows:

• TR Action – Wayne Scott is stepping down as TR Action Editor having done this task for the past 10 years.  Options were discussed as follows:
  • The content needs addressing – what should be in and what should be out?  Many technical issues have been addressed over the decades.  Importantly it is considered that the whole social scene section should be removed.
  • Reduce from 100 to 84 pages.
  • Change from 8 to 6 issues per year.
  • Who will be the new Editor – are there any volunteers amongst us?
• Group Areas and Directors:
  • It was generally considered that Group areas should remain the same across the country unless minor adjustments are called for. In this case WFTR will remain as South East region.
  • How are area Directors elected?  It was considered that this should be done at regional level – so keep it within the region.
  • If there are no volunteers to take on the Regional Director role each of the Group Leaders in the region would take it in turns, one year at a time to perform that function.
  • The role of Regional Directors will be to provide regional feedback to the new Membership Director on the restructured Register Management Team..
• Currently the Register is governed by the Articles of Association (AoA).  The proposal is to:
  • Split out the legally required elements of the AoA into a separate document to meet Companies House legal requirements  “with no textual or contextual change”
  • Take the other elements which concern the running of the company on a day by day basis into a separate document  “with no textual or contextual change”.  However, should change be required to this new document for example to reflect implementation of the future strategy this could be done by the Management Team.
  • A vote at the AGM will be required to implement this change.  The work has been done and it was an explained to us how.
• TS2 The car is considered to be “tired”, especially after 9000 mile tour around UK last year, and requires attention.  The following options were proposed and discussed:
  • Tidy up and put it a museum.  Perhaps withdraw for use outside on occasions.  Phil Read the donor of the car [in the 90’s] was there and was horrified that this was being considered.  He would buy the car back if this option was followed.
  • Tidy up what requires doing and run on as is.
  • Carry out a major restoration which could cost up to £50K.  The options of using apprentices at Gaydon as a project to keep rebuild costs down or asking a reliable supplier to do the work at a favourable rate.  

I would like to talk through these issues with you at Club Night to get some feedback so I can inform the Management Committee of WFTR views. If you are not coming to Club Night then enter your views in the comments box below this page.

The TR Register AGM is to be held at Gaydon on 16 April and you can sign up to go here: https://www.tr-register.co.uk/event/2023/04/3100/TR-Register-AGM-2023-sign-up-here. Regrettably I am unable to go and hope somebody from WFTR will go so we can get some representation and feedback. As I write this there are 57 members registered to attend which is a quorum so it could be that these members will vote on important issues that will impact us all from the Register perspective. If you are unable to attend then please try and use the proxy voting mechanism which can be found at: https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/EfGek0P6dq

Sam Ridgard asked me to remind you all of the Register Track Day on 04 May at Castle Coombe which is great fun which she and Tony go to. If you are interested see: https://www.tr-registershop.co.uk/castle-combe—4-may-2023-14945-p.asp

Summary

Some of us went stock car racing at Aldershot last weekend and also to the Classic Restoration show. We also have members going to the non WFTR sponsored spring vehicle meet at Newbury on Easter Monday. So lots going on and to consider as we emerge from another winter. Let us hope it stops raining soon and we can get back into our TR’s for some more memorable days out