November/December

For me, I would ditch the November NEC show as there is to much modern stuff and do either the September Manchester Classic show or probably more relevant the March? Classic Restoration Show at the NEC as most members are either restoring a car completely or doing ongoing repairs/maintenance…….

Now that would be a fantastic feature in Floating Power and I bet would spread very quickly….

I am humbled…… 😆 😆

[attachment=0:1xhmd31t]Toc Forum.jpeg[/attachment:1xhmd31t]

Hi All.

A couple of responses to ‘matters’ posted here. Re the electric Traction, I had a call from John Gillard today, who is talking about giving me an article on the tech details of the electric Traction. Knowing John, I can’t believe he saw this thread here (he doesn’t believe in computers), so it must be pure chance that he had the same idea. I’ll put it in FP when I get it.

Regarding the average age of members, funnily enough I was talking to John Oates at the NEC last Friday and he commented that it would be interesting to know the same thing. We all assume that all members are about a hundred years old, but maybe that’s because the members who turn up for gatherings are all ‘greybeards’. John felt that trying to find out members’ ages would create a stink, but I wonder…. Perhaps a questionnaire on the back of the cover sheet that goes out with FP? We could also ask things like “Are you male, female or trans”…. that might produce a few letters to the Editor 😆

What are your thoughts on this?

Cheers,

Ed.

@TOC Editor wrote:

Hi All.

A couple of responses to ‘matters’ posted here. Re the electric Traction, I had a call from John Gillard today, who is talking about giving me an article on the tech details of the electric Traction. Knowing John, I can’t believe he saw this thread here (he doesn’t believe in computers), so it must be pure chance that he had the same idea. I’ll put it in FP when I get it.

Regarding the average age of members, funnily enough I was talking to John Oates at the NEC last Friday and he commented that it would be interesting to know the same thing. We all assume that all members are about a hundred years old, but maybe that’s because the members who turn up for gatherings are all ‘greybeards’. John felt that trying to find out members’ ages would create a stink, but I wonder…. Perhaps a questionnaire on the back of the cover sheet that goes out with FP? We could also ask things like “Are you male, female or trans”…. that might produce a few letters to the Editor 😆

What are your thoughts on this?

Cheers,

Ed.

It would be interesting to have some insight into club age groups. It might be informative for the club as well. Not sure about the rest of your suggestion…….

The club having a healthy bank balance is a major asset for all members. Should the need arise to fund production of new parts or in the future need a home for the spares the money is there to do things.
The point about wealthy pensioners is so true, pensioners now will go down in history as the most affluent ever. That is a sad and worry fact but sadly true.
I am probably going to get shot over my next comments but here goes. I went to the NEC and to be honest I was not impressed with the stand. Stuck at the back of a larger general Citroen stand. Very drab with no one thing to pull the people in. Cars were good but nowhere near enough information on the placards for each car, a mirror on the floor to show the underneath would have made a point of showing how advanced the car was for it’s time. Where were all the big posters of club activities over the last year? Where was the poster announcing it is the 40th birthday of the club next year? Why was there no mention of the fantastic spares club? People now like to join a club and have a social life thrown in, especially the other halves who through patience and money shared have a vested interest in the car.
I visited the stand twice, once in the morning and introduced myself and the wife to a couple of people. Great reaction and lots of chat about our car and of those on the stand. My wife was made to feel welcome and was chatting away for ages. Our second visit was I admit late in the day and people may well of been tired but we were virtually ignored and it seemed we were interrupting a private party. Harsh words and I am sorry if I offend anyone since they took the time to attend for the club but without honest feedback we never learn.
The club needs to attract younger people and increase membership or it will die. We are all getting older and as I know from my near fatal stroke in June we are all here on a limited ticket. We need to show a person with a family that the car is viable to use for a family, that spares are readily available etc.
I apologise in advance if I have offended anyone, that was not my intention and I will put my money where my mouth is and will volunteer to help at the next show.

Hi All.

In no particular order (and I’m sure I will forget some of the comments I meant to pick up on), here are some ‘observations’….. I think Baz is perfectly within his rights to comment on the lack of attention he received on his second visit to the NEC stand. One of the things the club ‘management’ is trying to do is to get honest comments from members. I get the feeling, while chatting over a pint, that sometimes there is an air of “I’ll get this off my chest now, while we’re at the bar, but there’s no point grumbling to the club as nothing will happen”. I’m convinced that’s not true. At this year’s AGM Cleve effectively said “Tell us your thoughts, good and bad” and that meant the meeting lasted about one hour forty minutes. There’s little point in having ‘open meetings’ if no one is going to say a dicky bird. When the Club Spares thing was going on, one member told me a long story over a pint (or two..) about ordering a part from club spares and it didn’t fit (of course the blow-by-blow account took a lot longer to tell than that). I waited for him to run out of steam and then asked whether he’d told anyone ‘in authority’ about this, as the club was trying to find out what was true and what was ‘legend’ regarding problems with spares. His reply? “Well, you know me Bob, I don’t like to make a fuss”. Well, that was bloody helpful then!

I agree with Baz (having spent time on the NEC stand over the past few years), that sometimes it reminds me of a private club and I do get ‘twitchy’ when I see stand ‘staff’ deep in conversation with each other. One of my many incarnations as a youth was as assistant bar manager in a disreputable drinking club (they’ve all gone out of business now we have 24 hour licensing 😀 ) The first thing I was told was ‘keep your eyes open even when you’re re-stacking the shelf. The job is to serve people, even if you’re in the middle of something else’. So, I can chat to other members while on the NEC stand while keeping my eye out for visitors who may want a bit of information. Unfortunately, I agree with Baz, that many well-meaning members who man (and ‘woman’) the stand don’t seem to have this skill and it ‘does my head in’ to watch visitors giving the so-called buying signal, and our lot are all nattering amongst themselves.

On that subject, I thought the NEC on Friday (the day I did stand duty) was very good for visitors. I personally gave out two or three membership leaflets and someone else told me he’d given out four or five. The problem we have is that we have no way of tracking whether people join later as a result of the NEC, other than the anecdotal evidence. John Oates tells me there is no logic to how the membership applications come in. I think he said he suddenly had five in a week, but there was no tie-in with anything that he was aware of.

Regarding the two topics of how much money the club has in reserve and the quality of the NEC stand, this is quite interesting. The NEC costs the club a fair amount of money each year. As far as I know, the stand is ‘free’ but the materials we put on the stand cost money and, where vehicles have to be trailered to the NEC, the club pays for trailer hire. The club also has to fund ‘the organiser’ staying in a hotel for three or four nights. There are two different trains of thought in conflict here. Those who say the club holds too much money in reserve will be happy that the club uses some of that money to cover costs like the NEC, while those who question the value of the NEC stand will point to the cost of the stand as one reason why we should stop doing it every year. The balancing act that ‘the management’ have to achieve is to have a reasonable stand background, while not spending a fortune making a new backdrop every year. I noted that this year’s backdrop was cobbled together from the materials we used last year. So, I guess this is an unwinnable discussion.

I’ve done the NEC for five years now and my own observation is that it’s the cars that draw people onto the stand. If you watch people wandering around, you see them suddenly spot the cars and then come straight over for a closer look. The big draw this year was Martin de Little’s rear wheel drive Citroen. I saw more people go straight to this than all the Tractions. But the Tractions drew in a lot of people too. So, it’s not clear to me that the ‘quality’ of our stand makes a lot of difference (which is not the same as saying we shouldn’t try to make the stand look good).

Finally, as other people have said here, if anyone’s unhappy with the stand then the answer is to try to get more involved next year. But, at the end of the day, I think any criticism is very useful, so please keep giving your opinions. I’ll certainly print any relevant letters in FP.

Ed.