Safety Fast! Notes for October 2005

The Notes this month are brief on account of our summer holidays. It seems odd to be writing October's Notes on the last day of August, but I've probably already missed the 'deadline' by a couple of weeks!

My GT has spent most of the summer tucked up in the garage. Although there are rear seats of a sort, there's no satisfactory means of attaching a child seat as they are designed to be fitted using lap and diagonal belts. I know that a previous owner had seat belts fitted in the back for their children, but the laws are a bit clearer these days. We can get a child seat in the front and Oliver, our son, will take any opportunity to go out for a drive in "Daddy's racing car". For some reason he seems to understand it is 'special' in some way and will always point out an old car (usually as a "racing car"…) when he sees (or hears) one. But he's usually had enough by the end of the street and no sports-exhaust yet made can drown out a whining two year old!

As far as events go, it's all over for the year bar the shouting. Providing that a suitable venue can be found, our final event for the season should be the Kimber Production Car Trial on 23rd October. Please call Bruce Weston on 01963 440941 for more details or visit the website.

I'll give you more details of the SW Centre Dinner in the coming months, but I can confirm the date to be Saturday 11th March 2006.

Your committee has been provided with a package of information relating to the proposals for Kimber House. The document presented in Safety Fast! last month was a summary of a much more detailed document which is available on the main MGCC website or from Kimber House. I urge you to study the document and make your views known to a member of the committee. A vote shall be taken at the October Council meeting and it is vital that your committee represents your views. The whole issue has been surrounded by emotion and subjectivity so, if you have strong views either way, it would be useful if you could record them in writing. It is important that the decision is taken on an objective basis - we're planning for the future of the club we love, not holding a vote of confidence on the management. Personal opinions are very important and we very much want to hear them. We would also like to hear from any members able to comment based on professional experience. Please e-mail your comments to me (address above) or give me a call for snail-mail address details. Given the publication date for these Notes, time will be very much of the essence so you will need to be quick off the mark.

Finally, as the evenings darken and winter closes in, your committee will be gathered around the log fire at the Ring O' Bells planning the programme of events for next year. Was there anything you particularly liked this year? Was there something you missed, or something you would like to see more of? Have you any comments about a particular event that could help to make next year's incarnation of the event better? Your committee is made up of volunteers of varying experience (for experience read age), owning/driving various MGs from old to new and with various interests in motorsport ranging from hillclimbing to trialling to socialising. I think we're a pretty all-inclusive bunch, but your input is nevertheless vital in ensuring that the programme of events we put on in the SW Centre is matched to the interests of the membership. We cannot take account of your views and ideas if we don't hear them - so please, please make them known to us. We're here to organise stuff for you guys; let us know what you want and we'll do our best to organise it!

Neil Lock
neil@port-z.fsnet.co.uk

01275 817915 (before 9pm please)
SW Centre website: www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgccsw