2015 British Car Show

Success is measured many different ways. Just looking at the numbers, the 2015 British Car Day was certainly a success. 30{d7bb5f80100d9cc8ed36d8b44483fdbf859ff4aee0deeb25afed5de8e54bd8dc}+ more cars than last year, more revenue than expenses (rough estimate at this writing!), timely in-processing of registrants, good food reports, etc.

Many of those measuring sticks are relative to “results”. Focusing only on results is much like focusing on the destination and ignoring the journey. And that is just not how I can view and reflect on our British Car Day event. 2 journeys, in fact, that I want to highlight here…

The journey of the day was quite nice. Our weather was windy — but good, more compliments than complaints, I think. We had the gang I will refer to later as the “Dream Team” heed the call and help with the set up. We had a nice variety of cars. We saw both new and old faces. We had a very nice meal and dessert items. Awards to well deserving winners rounded out the day’s journey, and an excellent journey it was.

The journey with your 2015 British Car Day team is another important and memorable journey we should recognize. Beginning about 6 months ago, your team started meeting, setting goals and planning for the day. Bob Smith had the idea for the large “circus flyer” car show announcement poster. Don Green took the lead recruiting the Jaguar dealer in B’ham to bring that nice new F-Type coupe for us to ogle. Verna Green and Cathy Whigham tweaked the successful registration and vote tally model, making it better than ever. Larry Sharpton lead the charge to solicit a nice stash of door prizes for us to award to show registrants. David Price lent us his wisdom of past show procedures and he, Russell Whigham and Terry Young were our “idea washers” helping guide our plans. Pam Bransford stepped up to handle the show food, with her trusted partner Doris Townley. Blitz Welch came up with the neat idea to do personalized magnetized dash plaques, and printed registrant car images on plaques while at the show — and the car photos for the picture frame awards. And Tommy Potts and Ron Pardo loaned and shuffled tables to the show — you would have to work hard to have too many tables. And these same folks and Amanda Welch hung around to clean up. My point being — this is a car show Dream Team! If you enjoyed yourself at the 2015 British Car Day, please take a moment and thank these good people the next time you see them — they put a great deal of time and energy into the show — contributing to its overall success. And a note of appreciation to new member Tom Miro. He arrived early and helped hang banners and get ready for the day – much appreciated.

I have to come back to the wind — it was, uuh…. WINDY! And it betrayed the hard work that John Register with the Dept. of Agriculture put into cleaning up the show space in the days leading up to our event. I was by several times the week leading up to our show — and I can attest to his and his team’s hard work. And he made it clear that he wanted us to have our pick of dates for 2016 — if we want to have our show there again. I think we will — but that will be up to the club.

Speaking of next year, Cathy Whigham had the great idea to have a “retrospective” to review what worked and what we might change for next year — and that is planned to follow immediately after our next regular meeting (November). All are invited to weigh in, so please stay and share your thoughts.

And whatever we do next year, let’s all try to spread the word about our great club and its unique collection of cars — so we can make it even bigger and better!

Andy Martin

Awards

Best of Show