President’s Report – March 2025

Hello everyone, and a final reminder that the Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday March 11^th immediately following the Monthly General Meeting which commences at 7.30.

A lot of news from the February Committee Meeting.

On the events front, at the time of writing this the All British Day at Echunga would have been and gone, and 56 MG Car Club cars were entered. On April 27^th the Jaguar Drivers Club of SA is hosting a Just British Car Club picnic at the Birdwood Motor Museum, replacing the cancelled McLaren Vale Vintage Classic and the Victor Harbor British Classic Tour. At the time of writing, 27 MG Car Club cars were entered and more than 100 cars all-up will be there. As both the cancelled events had been MGCC ‘points’ events, the Committee decided in February that the picnic at Birdwood would be treated the same way.

Two motorsport events to note . . . the MSCA Super Sprint Round 1 at Mallala on the 16^th of March; and Round 1, Club Trophy Series Hillclimb at Collingrove on March 30^th.

The annual Waikerie Show’n’Shine is on Saturday May 3^rd and they have a website with details. This will not be a Club event but members can, of course, take part as individuals.

Further into the future, the second annual Mallala Ladies’ Day has been confirmed for Sunday September 21^st, so put that one in your diary too.

From time to time the Club receives invitations to provide MGs for a specific parade or display, usually only about six cars. Selecting participants has been a topic which has vexed the Committee for its past three meetings and we have agreed on the following process:

First – as we do at the moment, all external requests will go the Committee to weed out any which are inappropriate for any reason (e.g., cost, requirements such as having four people walk at the four corners of each car taking part – yes, it happened last year).

Second – a call on every member of the Club to register an interest in taking part in any parade/display. A formal notice to this effect is in this magazine and on the website.

Third – the step above will create a ‘Parade and Display Pool’ of interested participants and our P&D guru Lynden Burns will gather information from each of those members including preferred contact details, car details etc.

Fourth – when a request for cars in a parade/display has been approved by the Committee, Lynden will send details via an SMS simultaneously to each member of the ‘Pool’ asking if they want to take part. Replies must be via email only to Lynden and will be accepted in a strictly first in-best dressed basis. So if there are 12 members in the Pool, and an event requires six cars, the first six people to accept Lynden’s SMS will be those taking part. Emails are, of course, all marked with date and time so this process is transparent.

There are multiple ways we could have organised a selection process and the Committee robustly debated all of them, but the process is above is what has been agreed and it ensures every member of the Club has the same opportunity to participate. The process only applies to ‘external’ requests, such as those from a Council etc. It does not impact on any event run by the Club, such as the Kimber Run.

You will recall that last year, the Committee approved seeking a Government grant to partly cover the cost of a new and larger shed, replacing our existing shed and carport with something big enough for technical nights etc. To cut a long story short, we’ve now abandoned that as there were a lot of unforeseen restrictions and fees which would have resulted in a big cost blowout to the Club and rendered the project unfeasible. Quite correctly, the Committee pulled the plug. Lynden Burns and Berry Treffers spent many difficult hours on this project and the Committee has thanked them for a great effort.

Finally, we haven’t forgotten the results of the 2024 Member Survey and a draft Action Plan incorporating the main findings of that will be discussed at the March Committee Meeting.

That’s all for this month, I hope to see you at the AGM.

Safety Fast!

Stephen Marlow
President.