Chairman’s Report

by Steve Rowland

We must all be pleased with the change of weather and lighter evenings.  Our rally diaries are all being planned for the forthcoming season.

Back on Sunday March 26th SEAMS held its “Bring & Buy” at Hassocks Garden Centre  This is a quiet setting that allows hard standing for engine displays and stall holders to lay out their goods.  It is a great garden centre not only for the gardening related products but  I certainly do look forward to the 10am ritual of a cooked breakfast.

We had a very good turnout so a big thank you to all that brought an engine to display and to all the sellers.  Proceeds from the pitch fee is as always split to help club funds and a nominated charity by the garden centre.  All in all a good day and thanks to John Peters for liaising with the owners to make it all possible.

The SEAMS coach trip on the 8th April saw a return visit to Oakham  Treasuries near Bristol.  For Cyril and I it was the first day of our holiday.  Our previous visit was very enjoyable but with new buildings full of collectibles to see and go back over the massive amount of memorabilia, when you always see something that was missed, made of a great day.

So as Oakham was only an hour back down the M5 we decided to meet the coach on arrival.  We had a very easy trip but as the coach was delayed slightly by traffic we arrived 30 minutes ahead.  Rather than waste time it would have been rude not to test the tea and cake.

For our holiday we were staying at the Malvern in the Cotswolds.  This meant that the 3 counties show ground was 10 minutes away which had a great classic car show on the Sunday.

As Great Malvern is the home of Morgan cars and has been for over 100 years we decided to pay them a visit later in the week for a full factory tour and museum.  The tour allowed full access to classic fabrication, this led onto the hand built Aluminium body panels.  It was nice to see a good selection of hand operated fly presses and I did observe one guy with tin

snips cutting to size the bottom of a full bonnet.

We then went onto the paint shop which has 10 colours to choose from but has the ability to mix up to 40,000 different ones.  After going to the trimming shop we saw the final inspection, testing and PD (pre-delivery) release area.  A great tour and if you are in that area I can recommend it.

So as the rally season gets going I wish everybody a good and safe season.