Chairman's Chunnerings

Where has our summer gone?

Northern Centre Events have included:

• 2 visits to Tatton Park Knutsford - the last included a Tombola raffle for fund raising for the Charity "CRY" which was very successful and raised £534
• Cholmondley Pageant of Power which unfortunately was a virtual wash out although some very brave members did come including our national chairman John Keener
• Oulton Park Classic weekend which was a good weekend although the weather again was a bit iffy!!
• Gold Cup weekend at Oulton Park with the Sunday being superb weather ,a change on the Monday provided much entertainment on track

Personally I travelled many miles this year in my AH 100/4, mainly on a visit with 4 other Austin Healeys to the Shetlands Classic Car show in Lerwick. An interesting trip which included over 1000 miles motoring, with a visit to Orkney and Northern Scotland on the way home. The car show in Lerwick had over 180 cars showing plus some commercials, motor bikes and a superb selection of pedal bicycles ( about 100)

It has been much easier running our Centre this with a an invigorated committee and I must thank them all for their valued contribution. However, there is still much  to be done.  With three active sub centres in Tyneside, Wales and Scotland I would like to see more Northern Centre activity in Yorkshire where there is some great driving to be done and I know from our membership records, we have a large number of members. To that end, I would like to set up a drive across to the east of the Pennines for a Pub Outing one weekend to try and meet with as many Yorkshire area members as possible hopefully tying up with the very active Tyneside Sub Centre.  If there are any members in Yorkshire who would be interested in providing a focus in the region for the Drive and/or for setting a more regular sub centre meeting point, then please contact me, Ken Broster to so that we choose a convenient venue and timing.

Our next event is the AGM in November and it would be great to see members old and new to influence what we do as a club over the next year, please do make the effort to come along. Details are on the coming events page. Following that, our New Year Lunch will be on Sunday the 6th or 13th January at the Plough & Flail at Mobberley, where we hope to have a great lunch to close the year in style at the Austin Healey Club Northern Centre.

Next year will see the International weekend in Scotland being led by our illustrious Centre Director Tony Curran - Good Luck to him and his team - the event is fully booked with some 250 cars attending.

Make sure your cars are put to bed in comfort this winter.

  Ken Broster

   Chairman AHCNC

Webmaster's Witterings

Well I'm amazed that I'm still here and online, I've learnt so much about the internet, protocols and html this last 6 months that the stuff is coming out of my ears which is a shame, because, if it stayed in there between the ears, I could  have made much greater use of the progress that we have made so far.  A number of times, I have made minor changes to the back office of the website only to find that on opening the website, the front page has turned into non-sensical hieroglyphics! Still, with my Frogeye finally off to Merlin Classics for painting and the winter approaching, with autumn storms raging as I type (a bit of a fib as I am actually writing this in the sun kissed island of Dominican Republic - but the storms are raging in the UK), I can spend more time in front of the computer working the website.

I hope that members and non members alike have been able to take full advantage of what I think has been a very full and dynamic Coming Events page. We have been able to promote a number of events from around the region and our Events Co-ordinator, Mike Stonier, has kept me busy with a steady stream new events and updates. We were able to get a number of late changes out on the website and we delivered CPOP entry badges through the coming events page in a way that I think would have been difficult via snail mail.  We are planning to use this medium more next year so stay tuned!  Thanks also to Jen Short from the Tyneside Subcentre for keeping the events and updates rolling in from the North East. Don't forget, if there is an event in your local area that you want to publicise in our events listing, then please contact Mike Stonier or use the link on the coming events page.  We have already started on next years Calendar so don't delay!

I am really grateful to the contributors who have helped bring the website back to life with a string of articles and reports from the various Healey going's on around the region, please keep them coming in as they really are the life blood of a thriving website - I would be delighted to be able to claim that if there is a Northern Austin Healey somewhere in the national media, "You read it here first!"  I hope that every one has enjoyed the string of stunning pictures on our Home page and I am particularly pleased with the current "Pot of Gold" from Ivor Davies.  If writing articles or reports is not your forté then just send in your favourite AH photo to me, webmaster, and perhaps you will see it in full technicolor on the web!

I am currently working on a new page for the website; beta testing is in progress (see, I told you I've learnt something) and I hope to go live in the near future.  You can't have helped notice that we still have sales and want items from some 5 years back ( I hope they have been sold by now!) and I haven't received any new items in the last 9 months. So, I am planning to change that page to a new "Notice Board" format, similar to that of the corner shop window or Parish Notice Board. I will post member's notices, adverts and links, recommendations, reviews and of course sales and wants there free of charge - unlike the corner shop. With a broader range of items on the board, hopefully the turnover will be more regular, current and relevant.  The items on the board will be member's submissions for the benefit of other members, so if you want to; highlight the services of a particularly good local garage, share the delights of a great drive and interesting museum, ask members if any one out there has, "...the thing that oils the ring that turns the wheel that makes the thingamygig go round...." , publicise a worthy AH cause, or even just to sell that spare and lonely widget, the "Notice Board" should be your first port of call in the Northern Centre region. Keep an eye on the home page for the "Notice Board".

Finally, I know there are things we can do to improve what is already a great website: if you have any ideas, hints or suggestions on how I can set up the website the way you want to see it, I would love to hear them, just contact me via the contacts page - webmaster 

Cheers

  Doug McClymont

Motoring, Aviation and Computing all have one thing in common:  Speed is Life!