Thank you for the welcome Michael. I believe that my letter of the 15th March addressed to Simon Woodall, in his capacity as Membership Secretary of the MCC, should be brought to the earliest attention of all of those who subscribe to ' Classical Gas', whom I would expect to be interested in the competitive side of classic reliability trials.The bullet points have already received the full support of those listed in the body of the letter which would have contained more names had I the time to make contact prior to a visit to France connected with motor sport. It was Simon's intention to raise the issues at the last MCC committee meeting but he was unfortunately unable to attend owing to an unscheduled appointment with the NHS. Particularly in view of the forthcoming Referendum, for which responses are sought in a short term, it is appropriate that at least all subscribers, should be aware of the increasing level of concern with the direction in which our club is being driven. The letter reads as follows: Mr Simon Woodall,Membership Secretary,The Motor Cycling Club Ltd.,Ballards Place,Eardiston,Tenbury Wells, WR15 8JR. 15th March 2004.DearCLUB MEMBERSHIP.Thank you for your letter dated 22nd February providing me with a reminder regarding my subscription for the 2004 season. For the first time in thirty eight years I have been giving serious thought, like many others, as to whether membership of the club is now desirable. In your letter you have expressed an interest in knowing why my membership has not been renewed and consequently before responding with my own reasons I also canvassed the opinions of all of those listed who whole heartedly agree with the bullet statements detailed herein.I cannot emphasize too strongly my own view that the differing opinions between many club members and supporters, and some members of the current committee, who appear not to operate in the interests of the majority of competition members, will lead to radical administrative changes unless due note is taken of the grievances and action taken to rectify. Lack of positive action is not an option as current complacency will lead to a mini revolution in the interests of protecting over one hundred years of the club’s history. <spa
As one of the 'signatories' to Dennis' letter I would like to clarify a few points. In order to get the letter before the MCC Committee Meeting on 20th March it was necessary for Dennis and Giles to canvass opinion by telephone and, indeed, Dennis' posting to this website is the first time that I have seen the actual wording of the letter as sent. Whilst I am in agreement with most of the bullet points I have no personal experience of numbers 3 and 4 and I made this quite clear to Giles. I think Dennis is therefore being a bit 'bullish' in using the phrase "who whole heartedly agree with" when "who are in general agreement with" would be much closer to the truth in my case. Whatever, these are issues on which a significant number of MCC members feel very strongly and I sincerely look forward to another well-attended AGM when I'm sure they can be 'discussed-to-death'. Andrew PS - I fully expect every single one of the signatories to attend the AGM, or offer proper apologies for non-attendance. If you put your head above the parapet you must be prepared to be shot at.
This discussion worries me. I like being a member of the MCC; the officers, committee & members are a great buch of people with none of the personality disorders that abound in some of the "higher" forms of motorsport. Yes, we do need to examine our sport and make sure it is going in the right direction, but we must do it as friends. I agree with Andrew, anyone who has critism must attend the AGM to voice constructive critism & be prepared to help the MCC when needed. We must all remember that the committee and organizers put a tremendus amount of work in free of charge, without their hard work there will be no MCC. The reason for class O is the problem with MCC hills getting rougher and rougher. I used to trial a Morgan +4 but the hills are now too rough and the rebuild costs too expensive. Even using the Skoda, I eventually got tired of throwing the car at the hills as the only way of getting up. Now I've got a highly modified Dellow and love the rough hills, but this is a highly specialized machine and that is not what the MCC is traditionally about. There is a problem, and it needs discussion. Hopefully, we can reach a sensible solution, if Her Majesty's Government don't stop us altogether. Regards to all Peter
Wow, that’s a bit of a broadside. I wonder who Dennis feels he is speaking for under the umbrella of ‘competition members’ Is it all of the entrants to the MCC trials or only the 10% or so who regularly get golds? I feel there is a problem with 2 similar but different motorsporting disciplines running side by side and both bearing the name Classic trial. The ACTC one day events are all about intercompetitor competition and a good event will have the field distributed throughout a range of scores with hopefully a clear (but close) winner. I have always believed that the MCC events are about competition against the club. Under these circumstances there are a number of winners. With MCC events the dangers lie at both ends of a spectrum. On the one hand the ‘all shall have prizes’ view will lead to a pretty unsatisfactory event and I sense that Dennis feels that the club may be moving too far in this direction. Alternatively the club may choose to set hills that ultimately no-one can climb and I feel that sometimes there has been a move too far in this direction. The aim however should be to produce trials somewhere in between while realising that circumstances beyond anyone’s control ie the weather may mean that sometimes the club has a crap day and the majority get medals and other days the event is really tough. Also you can never please all of the people all of the time. The change in ‘one up rule’ may have been introduced in a less than perfect fashion but in my view it shouldn’t be invoked often enough to matter much. In other words MCC trials should not normally have sections that only one vehicle can climb. I appreciate that the change has produced some perverse class awards, but in my view all class awards on MCC trials are perverse. There are a lot of other concerns expressed some of which I have, like Andrew, no experience of. Clearly there is an impression that protests are viewed pretty poorly by the committee. I generally feel that protests are a bad idea, perhaps it’s the term ‘protest’ that I don’t like, however it is important that mistakes in the results can be rectified where possible. I think this has been made worse by recent problems around restarts and I will post my views on this later. The non-inclusion of hills felt to be too rough for some classes must refer to Bamford. The committee has made efforts to rectify this. Clearly there is a need for discussion and the AGM should be lively. Perhaps we should have another class, ‘Class 0 at the other end or Class 10’ to be entered by those who feel the existing events are un-competitive. This should include all the normal sections plus a few rough and tough ones that could be subdivided. This would allow a winner and runners up and could provide a use for the redundant class awards. Tony
Thank you for the welcome Michael. I believe that my letter of the 15th March addressed to Simon Woodall, in his capacity as Membership Secretary of the MCC, should be brought to the earliest attention of all of those who subscribe to ' Classical Gas', whom I would expect to be interested in the competitive side of classic reliability trials.The bullet points have already received the full support of those listed in the body of the letter which would have contained more names had I the time to make contact prior to a visit to France connected with motor sport. It was Simon's intention to raise the issues at the last MCC committee meeting but he was unfortunately unable to attend owing to an unscheduled appointment with the NHS. Particularly in view of the forthcoming Referendum, for which responses are sought in a short term, it is appropriate that at least all subscribers, should be aware of the increasing level of concern with the direction in which our club is being driven. The letter reads as follows: Mr Simon Woodall, Membership Secretary, The Motor Cycling Club Ltd., Ballards Place, Eardiston, Tenbury Wells, WR15 8JR. 15th March 2004. Dear CLUB MEMBERSHIP. Thank you for your letter dated 22nd February providing me with a reminder regarding my subscription for the 2004 season. For the first time in thirty eight years I have been giving serious thought, like many others, as to whether membership of the club is now desirable. In your letter you have expressed an interest in knowing why my membership has not been renewed and consequently before responding with my own reasons I also canvassed the opinions of all of those listed who whole heartedly agree with the bullet statements detailed herein. I cannot emphasize too strongly my own view that the differing opinions between many club members and supporters, and some members of the current committee, who appear not to operate in the interests of the majority of competition members, will lead to radical administrative changes unless due note is taken of the grievances and action taken to rectify. Lack of positive action is not an option as current complacency will lead to a mini revolution in the interests of protecting over one hundred years of the club’s history. <spa
ReplyDeleteAs one of the 'signatories' to Dennis' letter I would like to clarify a few points. In order to get the letter before the MCC Committee Meeting on 20th March it was necessary for Dennis and Giles to canvass opinion by telephone and, indeed, Dennis' posting to this website is the first time that I have seen the actual wording of the letter as sent. Whilst I am in agreement with most of the bullet points I have no personal experience of numbers 3 and 4 and I made this quite clear to Giles. I think Dennis is therefore being a bit 'bullish' in using the phrase "who whole heartedly agree with" when "who are in general agreement with" would be much closer to the truth in my case. Whatever, these are issues on which a significant number of MCC members feel very strongly and I sincerely look forward to another well-attended AGM when I'm sure they can be 'discussed-to-death'. Andrew PS - I fully expect every single one of the signatories to attend the AGM, or offer proper apologies for non-attendance. If you put your head above the parapet you must be prepared to be shot at.
ReplyDeleteThis discussion worries me. I like being a member of the MCC; the officers, committee & members are a great buch of people with none of the personality disorders that abound in some of the "higher" forms of motorsport. Yes, we do need to examine our sport and make sure it is going in the right direction, but we must do it as friends. I agree with Andrew, anyone who has critism must attend the AGM to voice constructive critism & be prepared to help the MCC when needed. We must all remember that the committee and organizers put a tremendus amount of work in free of charge, without their hard work there will be no MCC. The reason for class O is the problem with MCC hills getting rougher and rougher. I used to trial a Morgan +4 but the hills are now too rough and the rebuild costs too expensive. Even using the Skoda, I eventually got tired of throwing the car at the hills as the only way of getting up. Now I've got a highly modified Dellow and love the rough hills, but this is a highly specialized machine and that is not what the MCC is traditionally about. There is a problem, and it needs discussion. Hopefully, we can reach a sensible solution, if Her Majesty's Government don't stop us altogether. Regards to all Peter
ReplyDeleteWow, that’s a bit of a broadside. I wonder who Dennis feels he is speaking for under the umbrella of ‘competition members’ Is it all of the entrants to the MCC trials or only the 10% or so who regularly get golds? I feel there is a problem with 2 similar but different motorsporting disciplines running side by side and both bearing the name Classic trial. The ACTC one day events are all about intercompetitor competition and a good event will have the field distributed throughout a range of scores with hopefully a clear (but close) winner. I have always believed that the MCC events are about competition against the club. Under these circumstances there are a number of winners. With MCC events the dangers lie at both ends of a spectrum. On the one hand the ‘all shall have prizes’ view will lead to a pretty unsatisfactory event and I sense that Dennis feels that the club may be moving too far in this direction. Alternatively the club may choose to set hills that ultimately no-one can climb and I feel that sometimes there has been a move too far in this direction. The aim however should be to produce trials somewhere in between while realising that circumstances beyond anyone’s control ie the weather may mean that sometimes the club has a crap day and the majority get medals and other days the event is really tough. Also you can never please all of the people all of the time. The change in ‘one up rule’ may have been introduced in a less than perfect fashion but in my view it shouldn’t be invoked often enough to matter much. In other words MCC trials should not normally have sections that only one vehicle can climb. I appreciate that the change has produced some perverse class awards, but in my view all class awards on MCC trials are perverse. There are a lot of other concerns expressed some of which I have, like Andrew, no experience of. Clearly there is an impression that protests are viewed pretty poorly by the committee. I generally feel that protests are a bad idea, perhaps it’s the term ‘protest’ that I don’t like, however it is important that mistakes in the results can be rectified where possible. I think this has been made worse by recent problems around restarts and I will post my views on this later. The non-inclusion of hills felt to be too rough for some classes must refer to Bamford. The committee has made efforts to rectify this. Clearly there is a need for discussion and the AGM should be lively. Perhaps we should have another class, ‘Class 0 at the other end or Class 10’ to be entered by those who feel the existing events are un-competitive. This should include all the normal sections plus a few rough and tough ones that could be subdivided. This would allow a winner and runners up and could provide a use for the redundant class awards. Tony
ReplyDelete