Regional Event - Round two

[R5RO]

In its early years the former joint PCGB R5/BMW Tatton Park event was indeed a success, with Porsche cars in the majority. But, to Jeff Heywood's credit, it has looked more like a BMW event since I first went in 2002, with "˜beemers' outnumbering Porsches up to 5:1 - not to mention the vast array of BMW silverware on display and awarded at the end of the afternoon.
The decision to abandon Tatton was taken by R5 members at the Jan 2008 Club Night "" not the Committee "" and at the same time they gave the go-ahead for a new Regional Event to be held at a different venue. Possible venues have been identified, but we have yet to achieve a match with one of the few free weekends remaining on the Club calendar. We are, though, still trying and I would be pleased to receive any suggestions at r5@porscheclubgb.com.
PC Wilmslow is keen to support an R5 Regional Event, but it would not do so in circumstances where R5 is self-evidently the "˜poor relation'; as would be the case at a revived joint event with BMW.

Barry
PS I will not be responding on the Forum to any responses to this posting.

 

[Mr968]

Just in the interests of accuracy.

In 2002 the Porsches were definitely not outnumbered by BMWs, at that time it was fairly even numbers, so that is completely innacurate.
In the past few years then yes, due to us not advertising or being pro-active about the event.

During the meeting in which the regional event was discussed it was indeed put to the members as a vote whether we should use Tatton Park.

Unfortunately the committe had already decided that it would not agree to an event at Tatton Park prior to the vote.
In fact the head of the committee told the members very directly that he would not be involved in a Tatton Park event even if the members voted for it.
So really their was very little choice for the members other than to vote for something else, which proved to be not very well attended.

A representative of the BMW club had told me that Porsche owners had turned up to Tatton Park with their cars expecting the Club to have a presence and found us absent.
Hence my other posting simply asking if there is any interest.

 

[graham m]

Barry
OK - so you're not wanting to respond to this post - my memory of the event was very much like Stuarts, I even have photos of the 2003 & 04 show's with the place packed out with Porsches.
The last two shows 06 & 07 were a debacle due to lack of Planning etc. At the meeting I attended last year, it was presented as a 'foregone cconclusion' - It wasn't going happen!
BMW always did and will have more silverware on display and copious gifts donated by the numerous dealerships.
Porsche were always limited in their 'Prizes' due to the region only being able to get support from one OPC (Wilmslow) - Road Range the Liverpool OPC supporting the Lancs & Cumbria event.
Last year there were posting toward the end of August on this forum (and Pistonheads) asking if the event was going to happen - so as per Stuarts original posting - do people want it to happen again? I think so.
Trouble is - who'll organise it?
It's a 'dead duck' if the Region's Committee aren't in favour but the members are?
Graham

 

[Steve Brookes]

As a new member of the committee at the time I understood that the region had fallen out with the Tatton event. This was in no small part due to the bad weather and consequent poor attendance by our members in 2006 and 2007 (I wasn't a PCGB member before then so don't know how good an event it was before then). Therefore our committee looked at other ideas for the regional event and swapped Tatton for the joint event with R8. We did this in good faith that the members wanted a change.

The committee was put together as we had no RO to look after the region at the time and it is now there to help the RO. But ultimately it is there to organise events for the members and to listen to what the members want. I hope you'll agree that we organised some good stuff for the monthly club nights last year (e.g. the visit to 9M, talk by Sportsandclassic and Marcus Carniel). Unfortunately the weekend days suffered a lot from the weather again last year apart from the Gold Cup at Oulton which was also an excellent day.

If members have ideas for the region, I believe that we should listen to the ideas and to facilitate them where we can. If members think that Tatton should come back on the agenda and they are going to support it, I don't see any reasons why the region shouldn't give it another go.

I'm sure that those of you that have been previously involved with helping organise events for the region realise that the role of the RO is a difficult one and it's not possible to please everyone all the time. So please don't be too hard on Barry especially since a number of the committee members have not been able to give him much help recently - I myself as a small business owner have had to put business interests recently (and for the forseeable future) above Porsche club stuff.

I should also apologise at this point for not attending these static Porsche events very often because I much prefer the ones where they are moving around a track. []