PRESIDENT’S REPORT JULY 2024

Hello – I’m back in the harness after a wonderful cruise taking in Italy, Greece and Croatia (all great) and a day in Dubai (not great). Thanks to VP Steve Bowra for holding the fort in my absence – by all accounts he did a great job, no surprise there.

Lynden Burns has been busy on the Parades and Displays front – including working with Motorsport Secretary Steve Bowra on a Ladies . . . Start your Engines day at Mallala on August 11th. Have a look on the website for details. And speaking of motorsport, great to see our Patron, Peter Cundy – reporting regularly on what a good time he’s having competing in the UK!! Does he ever get time to do any surgery . . .

I was very pleased to see the news that we’ll be hosting the National Meeting again in 2026 after our resounding success last year!! And please watch out for details of next year’s NatMeet at Albury Wodonga, I can see that planning is already underway and the early program looks great.

One of the items raised at the June Committee meeting was the need to have an advertising officer to do some legwork on getting more sponsorship for the magazine. Laurie’s got some ideas on this but we need someone to work with him in putting the ideas into practice. If you’ve got experience in this area please get in touch with Laurie or me. Thanks.

We also need a couple of people to help organise Lunch Runs as two of the team have had to regretfully retire from the role due to ill health. Lunch Runs have always been a very popular Club social activity so if you can step in to help ensure they continue each month, please contact John Davies on 0413 647 728 or Mike Greenwood on 0412 701 850. Thanks again.

In June we had our first guest speaker for the year, Gavin Farmer, who was working as a freelance motoring writer in the UK during the crucial 2004-2005 years of MG’s history. Gavin gave fascinating insights into MG Rover’s relations with BMW and plans to move into the high performance luxury market alongside BMW, Mercedes and Audi. He also revealed some interesting detail on the development of the ZT260 from the ZT190 – an engineering feat which never recouped its investment. I’m hoping to get at least one more guest speaker before the end of the year.

Well, it’s good to be back, despite the cold!!

Cheers, and Safety Fast!

Stephen Marlow
President