Chairman's Chunnerings.

Welcome to Torque of the North Spring edition.

2012 - March already - time is flying by - Having become a little disheartened after the cancellation of the Lakes weekend from a total lack of interest it was great to see some new blood come on board with Northern Centres committee - it has added some much needed enthusiasm.

The year started with a great new year lunch organised by our intrepid traveller and writer - Ivor and the calendar for this year is looking good with lots of events and shows - the next being Eventcity at the Trafford Centre Manchester on March the 24/25^th with over 60 clubs exhibiting + Auto Jumble etc etc - we have a stand with 9 cars on + a  REGALIA SALE - This is the 2nd show organised by Stuart Holmes the man behind the very successful Tatton Park shows.

Cholmondley Pageant of Power has been brought forward to June 15^th to 17^th to try and avoid the rains that have blight all previous event - I hope their thinking pays off! The show is certainly growing in popularity.

I am planning to go to the Shetlands Classic weekend in May and making a 2 week tour with 3 other members from south of the boarder plus 1 of our Scottish members.

It is interesting to note that the Austin Healey Club has over 1700 members with over 300 registered in the Northern Centre - I only wish that more of you would show more interest in the events that your centres provide for you - its soul destroying to have only 2 or 3 cars turn out to some of these events - Quite often there are more Healeys at these events owned by people who are not in the club and when you approach them they look at you as though you have arrived from outer space!!

It is interesting to comment on a recent photo in Revcounter - It was outside the venue in Scotland for next years International gathering - 4 Austin Healey cars and their owners - In fact only 1 of these people was actually a paid up member of the club!! What is it with you Scottish Healey owners? You are active with the Scottish Sub Centre but are not members of the club - are you really that hard up? If everyone took this line there would be no club! Come on - Mr Alistair R you spent a fortune restoring your beautiful car south of the border - become a fully paid up member!!

That's enough for now - See you at the gatherings

Cheers

  Ken Broster

PS

Thanks and congratulations to Tony Curran for taking on the organisers hat for the International Event and getting a full house within days - a great start Tony - Good Luck with the rest

Webmaster's Witterings.

At the last AHC Northern Centre AGM, I had once again politely declined the offer to join the committee on the basis that my work commitments meant that I could not guarantee being available for specific events but someone soon spotted the chink in my armour that the webmaster task was not time critical and this time my argument soon fell apart and before I knew it I was roped in.  Once I had found the keys to the website it was just a case of  taking off the old protective cover, removing a few old spurious links, adding the up to date contacts and coming events and hey presto we were off on the open road again. (Unlike my car!) I am no IT expert, quite the reverse, but I am starting to find my way about website codes and over the next few weeks I will be tinkering away with little bits here and there and I don't suppose you will see too many major changes. Longer term, as we gather speed (and retain control!!) I think we can make some modifications and performance enhancements.  

What I do need right away is new and current content. You will notice that we have significantly increased the content of the coming events page and I will keep that up to date as events are created and finalised.  If you have any suggestions for an event that you would like added to our calendar then please contact Mike Stonier and he will look in to it.  Similarly, the past events page looks fabulous up 2007 with loads of interesting events however, it dries up after that and I would love to be able to fill in the gaps between May 2007 and Jan 2012!  If you have an article or just some good Photos Please send them to me and we can share them with the club members (and the rest of the world if they choose to look in!!).  Member's Motors is another area where we can certainly improve the quantity of the content. The current entries are great examples of the marque but we have more than 3 cars in the club so please don't be shy, tell us about your car's history or it's restoration story, believe me people want to know. Don't forget, if you have a motoring Joke that can be shared or an item that you want to sell, please send them to me and I will add them to the webpage.

Before I finish my first Webmaster's Witterings, I would just like to pass on my thanks to my predecessors Mike Smith and John Ridyard for the sterling work they did building and maintaining the website.

Finally, as I alluded to earlier, I'm not a web designer, but I know there are thing 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!