Report
on the MG Car Club Council meeting held on Saturday 17th March 2007
from Al Barnett, V8 Chairman, attending as the representative of the
V8 Register
The Council meeting took place on Saturday 17th March at the Four
Pillars Hotel, just outside Oxford. The meeting started at 10.30 and
finally closed around 18.00. The majority of the proceedings were
spent discussing future arrangements for the Club magazine. Below
you will find a short personal summary of the most important points.
Club Chairman's introductory remarks
The Chairman, Peter Best, stated that the Club's finances were in
their worst state for 10 years but that more detail of the results
for 2006 and the more promising forecasts for 2007 would be given
by the Treasurer, John Dutton, later in the meeting.
Peter Best mentioned he would be visiting Nanjing Auto in Beijing
next weekend as a guest of NAC to celebrate 60th anniversary of that
company. Nanjing appears very supportive and aware of MG heritage
matters. He recorded thanks to Rob Gammage and said that final interviewing
was in progress for a replacement. The role will have the title "General
Manager". The Chairman announced that Victor Smith had resigned
from the Executive Committee over a difference of views with the Chairman.
He thanked Victor for his very valuable work, particularly his recent
efforts on building the new Club website. Peter Best drew the attention
of the meeting to the fact that he believed that directors have worked
harder in the past year than at any time for many years.
Treasurer's Report
John Dutton first apologized that because of pressure of work he had
not yet been in touch with CRB treasurers. He promised to do so in
the future. Overall Club losses for 2006 were £110.000 (GBP
110,000) which is £80,000 (GBP 80,000) worse than expected in
the budget prepared in January 2006.
The main cost was the Club magazine package comprising a copy
of the slim Safety Fast! and a copy of MG Enthusiast. The net cost
for 2007 was £152,100 (GBP152,100) considerably greater than
the cost of producing Safety Fast! when it was produced as an in-house
publication only two years ago.
Regalia made a profit of only £800 (GBP800) against a budget
of surplus of £16,800 (GBP16,800). It had been decided that
regalia will once again be returned to third party sourcing to a specialist
contractor. It was suggested Registers may also wish to use the service.
In fact the V8 Register already uses the proposed outsourced contractor
for its own regalia supplies and has found the contractor to provide
a good service.
Motorsport made a very small loss of £1,000 (GBP1,000).
Racing will have better PR in future following the decision to retaining
John Horton, a PR professional, to advise the Club on promotion and
publicity for the motorsport actvities.
Reserves remain above £300,000 (GBP300,000) and are expected
to remain that way. The Club should break even in 2007 and then return
to profit.
Building report - Kimber House Abingdon
The garages/storerooms block in the car park alongside the Club Office
in Abingdon is now in use with very minor works still to be completed.
They should then be signed off by the building inspector shortly.
The total cost of the works was £62,000 (GBP60,000) against
a budget of £100,000 (GBP100,000). That good outcome is down
to the excellent work of Maurice Standish (architect) and Ron Gammons
(project manager). The portakabin at the back of Club Office, previously
used as a store, is empty and should be removed within a week. Resurfacing
of the car parking area will be carried out when the portakabin has
gone.
Ron Gammons presented a proposal for a modest extension to the
existing Club Office building, in place of the planned conservatory,
to provide a 600 sq ft meeting room, estimated cost between £27,000
and £32,000 (GBP27,000 to 32,000). Initial impressions of Council
members were favourable.
Club's
motorsport activities
The race meeting at Castle Combe will be on Saturday 15th September
2007. This is a popular venue and could be a possible occasion for
a V8 Register gathering - more later. This would combine an opportunity
for V8 enthusiasts to get together and enjoy a day spectating what
is usually some very exciting motor racing.
The sponsor for the Club's motor racing championship, the Total Butler
Championship, has been replaced by Peter Best Insurance.
Ron Gammons, who leads the Club's motorsport committee, commented
motor racing is expensive and difficult to attract good grids. The
overall costs for entrants are 50% higher in UK than in Mainland Europe.
It was reported that Sharon Smith, the Club's Competitions Racing
Secretary employed at Kimber House, has resigned with effect from
4th April 2007.
Silverstone International meeting
2007
Track day: There is a possibility of MGs on Track (a branch of
the MG Car Club) offering a track day session on the Friday afternoon
of the long weekend meeting.
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Register
parking:
Each registers wanting dedicated car parking facilities on the inside
of the Circuit must provide a name as their register contact for
assisting with parking control by 1st May 2007. This is a matter
which will have to be resolved at the next V8 Committee meeting
due to be held on 21st April 2007. The V8 Marquee and dedicated
car parking alongside usually attracts over 150 V8s on each day
and is very popular, so we need a few volunteers from V8 Register
members to assist for an hour or so on each day with parking control.
Could any volunteers contact Al Barnett please.
Gymkhana: Abingdon Works Centre will run the Gymkhana on
the Club Straight.
California Cup will be organized on Saturday by the South
West Centre.
Concours and Pride of Ownership will be run by Anglia Centre.
Cars for Sale will be organized by SE Centre.
Silverstone programme: A full colour programme will be prepared
and printed by Octane Media and will cost £5 (GBP5). As sales
were poor in 2006, this year Registers will be encouraged to sell
programmes at their parking areas.
Main Club Marquee will be run by John Innes. The V8 Register
will have a display in the main marquee directing those interested
to the V8 Marquee. There will be some sort of evening meal, probably
a BBQ alongside the Main Club Marquee - cost around £15 (GBP15)
per head.
V8 Marquee: As usual the V8 Register will once again have
its own marquee. As the V8BBQ arranged for several years by Clive
Wheatley alongside the V8 Marquee has been so popular and well attended,
we plan to to have another V8BBQ this year. Dr Gavin Bailey is the
contact for bookings - see the V8BBQ information page and the online
booking form.
V8BBQ
information
V8BBQ booking form
Future
of the Club Magazine production arrangements
There followed no less than 3 hours of discussion on the future
of the magazine, presently a package of two magazines - a slim Safety
Fast! and a copy of a commercial magazine, MG Enthusiast. In a report
circulated to Council members, including an update circulated only
a matter of a few days before the meeting, the Board recommended
termination of present contractual arrangements with Octane Media
which includes the production of Safety Fast! and the supply of
a copy of MG Enthusiast. Termination would apply from the June 2007
issue. The Board's recommendation of an immediate notice seemed
to get lost in the efforts to be even handed, fair, reasonable,
forgiving, generous, tolerant etc.
Eventually we got back to basics: some members may like the new
magazine arrangements which give them MG Enthusiast, but the cost
is simply unsustainable and as a Club we simply can not afford to
continue this way. The update note circulated earlier in the week
reported Octane Media had hived off MGE to a separate company, which
has limited assets and there was reasonable concern over the risks
that might arise from that move.
Eventually, after most Council members had had the opportunity to
speak, we took a vote. It was close but the Board proposal was carried,
I voted for it. As a result the contract with Octane Media will
be terminated promptly so the June 2007 issue of MG Enthusiast will
be the last under those arrangements. The Board will decide how
we will produce a revived 100 page Safety Fast! monthly magazine
from July 2007. We have an existing editorial team of John Day,
John James and Andy Knott. They are very enthusiastic and will welcome
articles.
They indicated they would like an article on: So you want to
buy an MGBGTV8 and an article in a similar vein on the RV8.
Volunteers please - because I have said we will do it! As
we already have three comprehensive V8NOTES on what to look for
when buying an MGBGTV8, copies were sent promptly to the editorial
team with an offer to provide an article as soon as required.
Market Research Survey
Malcolm Eades gave a presentation looking into the results of a
market research survey done by a subsidiary of NOP. The company
had asked 200 ex Club members why they left the Club. No easy answers
but the data will be circulated to all CRBs.
Membership of our Club has declined slightly, but that is a common
problem with classic car clubs. Currently we have between 11,000
and 12,000 members.
Club
Website
John James stood up to say how much work Victor Smith had put in
on this enormous task. The Chairman said he appreciated Victor's
efforts and he hoped the site could go live in a couple of weeks
time. He my be being a little optimistic; even though the trial
site seems excellent Victor tells me there is still quite some work
to do although it was launched on initial testing on Thursday 15th
March 2007 at www.mgcarclub.org.uk
The meeting closed just after 18.00 and I arrived home just before
20.00.
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