Dougie
I think your enthusiasm is a credit to you, I note you say you are young in your last post, this too is a very positive thing.
Apart from my own son David and Rory Ballard there are precious few young serious restorers coming on that I come across to fill the ranks. Or indeed take over the restored trucks as the old owners drop off the twig.
A subject that Hanno and I covered at some depth at Beltring 2003 while downing a respectable volume of beer and watching the rain from the confines of the Oxford CMP crew's QM tent.
I don't know if you are an MVT member but the obituary column in Windscreen magazine now has two or three in each addition. A fair proportion of these guys were people who I looked up to as examples thirty years ago when I was young and setting out on an obsession that will last for me a life time...... as I genuinely hope it will for you.
I should say at this point that I'm older than you by some way I suspect….. But nowhere near as old as some of the old Goat's on this forum (joke guys)
The serious point of this post is this: Thirty years ago when I turned up to a show (and they were nearly all steam shows) in an MV the organisers tended to think of you as either a closet fascist or a toy soldier, my age did not help in either perception.
The MVT as it is now, the MVCG as it was then, campaigned tirelessly to get MV collecting recognised and legitimised in this country. This was done through the efforts of local area secretaries such as myself approaching show organisers and asking/ cajoling them to get a slot in the programme and a turn round the arena.
Once accepted the Show organisers then PAID YOU to attend. I well remember chairing a heated discussion at a Berks and Oxon MVCG club night in 1978, the proposal tabled was that we should not attend a show unless the organiser paid petrol mileage, the exception to this was genuine charity events, and most did pay at least one way, even the charity events.
Times change and now very few shows pay petrol money and that's just down to economics,....... why am I telling you all this?, well……… I hope you don't think that I trying to belittle your argument or lecture you, I'm not… There is a two fold reason.
Firstly I agree with a lot of your sentiments expressed in this thread.
However I am trying to show you the way it was and therefore why for some of us 'oldies' the thought of paying large sums of money to professional organisers is contentious.
It would perhaps be a different discussion if the show were put on for owners only, i.e. no public through the gate.
Secondly before Beltring became the undoubted phenomenon that is has become MV owners still went to shows through the season, we still went on tour to Europe and we had a good time.
There is no malice or intent in the statement when I say that there are plenty of good shows to go to.
A number of these shows have the potential to become the showcase that Beltring is……..The answer lies with……… US WE ARE THE SHOW.
I wish you well Dougie and hope we meet some day at a show, but for me it will not be Beltring
Regards
Pete
