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Welcome
May has been quite the eventful month!
While the nation was gripped with election fever, the Club has been busy gearing up for the Summer months. We finalised the details of our trip to Ireland, and now have over a dozen P6s coming with us to the Terenure Rally in Dublin on 5 July. Steve Benyon has plans well underway for the Tatton Park show on 22-23 August, and we are looking forward to the Southern National Rally at Quainton, Bucks the following weekend on 30 August.
Our other big news is that we have begun a blog to share our experiences and stories of growing and running the club over the last few years. This has already attracted attention in the press and is generating healthy debate on social media.
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Since the launch of our digital strategy just over 18 months ago, The Rover P6 Club has grown at a colossal pace. By the end of 2015 we are predicting a 60% growth from mid-2013.
The Club blog was born out of discussions and interviews held with journalists at the major events such as the Classic Motor Show at the NEC. They were interested in our strategy, what we stood for, stability of our membership numbers, the effect of Social Media etc. During these discussions, we described some elements of our strategy, how it all linked together, how we approached Social Media and the positive effect it was having on the Club. This got us thinking that we should write this down for other clubs to read and hopefully achieve some of the same successes that we have done. As this is the digital era, there was only one way to to it - blog it!
So far, we have written four articles:
Part 1 - Managing a Classic Car Club in the Digital Era (Introduction)
Part 2 - Is Facebook Really Killing the Classic Car Club
Part 3a - What's Causing Static or Dwindling Membership Numbers?
Part 3b - What is "The Ideal Membership Cycle"?
... and will be followed by another 11 articles every 2 weeks over the Summer.
Within 6 days of publishing our first blog, Classic Car Weekly published a half page article on Social Media, led directly by the information and statistics published in our blog. You can read the article on our blog news page.
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Enfield Pageant
RP6C Highly Commended
The Rover P6 Club won a Highly Commended award for our Club stand at the Enfield Pageant of Motoring on 23 May 2015.
The Enfield Pageant of Motoring has been running since 1978 and regularly attended by the Club. This year, the P6ers from the Case is Altered set up stand with Guy Valentino as Stand Master. Guy is an part of the P6ers (Tony Bunting's Area) while also running the East Anglia Area since he moved to Norfolk.
Futher photographs and details will be in a future issue of Driving Force.
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In a further shake-up of services to the DVLA in their quest to go paperless, the counterpart paper driving licence will become defunct as of next Monday, 8 June 2015.
This comes hot off the heels of the abolition of the paper tax disc which we covered last October. However, unlike the end of the tax disc, there are hazardous implications of the end the paper driving licence counterpart that every motorist needs to be aware of, especially if you are planning to drive abroad.
There has been disappointingly little information issued from the DVLA about this, and whilst their website does carry some information about the forthcoming change, very little publicity has made its way into the press.
What do I need to do?
Most motorist do not need to do anything. The paper counterpart of your driving licence will become defunct next Monday and you will not need to do anything until you need to renew, replace (if lost or damaged), or update your driving licence. If you have a photocard type Driving Licence, you are advised to destroy the paper counterpart. If you do not have a photocard type licence, it will continue to remain valid indefinitely until you choose to replace it, or are forced to by a future change in regulation.
As of next Monday, all of the information that used to be stored against your paper counterpart - which is mainly any motoring convictions and penalty points - will be stored electronically and accessible online through the GOV.UK portal.
Hiring and driving abroad
However, if you are driving abroad on the Continent, you need to make sure you have a valid photocard type Driving Licence. This is the only form of licence acceptable for driving in Europe. It is not clear what is acceptable elsewhere in the world for UK Driving Licence holders. Applying for a photocard licence appears to be only possible online, although your local DVLA office may be able to assist. You need a 'Government Gateway' account to apply online. Those who are registered for Self Assessment Income Tax will already have one of these logins. Registering one is an arduous process that involves your login and password being sent out in separate letters by post, so you should register now if you know you are planning to drive abroad after 8 June. Definitive and authoritative information about these changes in not easy to come by and we are working to find out more information as it becomes available. However, we expect this change will affect all those attending the Club's Ireland Trip on 3-6 July.
If you are planning to hire a car abroad, you need to generate a code from your online driving records to allow the hire company to access your driving records. This is the new process which replaces taking your counterpart to the car hire premises. It is not yet clear whether this is required for hiring in Britain as sources of information differ on the matter.
More information is available on our website, and we will be continually working to update as news breaks.
GOV.UK have a guide which goes some way to answer most questions.
Read More >>>
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Pride of Longbridge
Birmingham Mail
Club member Danny Archer and his German Spec 3500S graced the Birmingham Mail in April 2015
So taken with the success of the Pride of Longbridge event, the Birmingham Mail ran the article "Longbridge 10 years on: The men who still love their Rover and Austin cars"
Danny was one of three Rover/Austin owners to be selected by the newspaper for interviews and photographs on their life and loves of the former British car industry.
The full article and photo gallery can be seen on the Birmingham Mail website
With thanks to the Birmingham Mail for their photograph
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Southern National Rally - Quainton
This years Southern National at the Buckingham Railway Centre is a great day out at a very very special rate of £3 per person payable on arrival. This is an enormous discount on the normal price of £11 per person.
Your £3 gives you access to the grounds, the excellent indoor railway museum, museum shop, restaurant and rides on the steam trains, it is superb value for money. There will be no pre-booking for this event, just turn up on the day! Payment will be made at Club stand in the parking area where you will receive your self-judging forms, your rally number and your ticket for the museum. The best four-cylinder and V8 cars will receive prizes for the top three in each category.
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Did you know?
- You can pay for your membership in advance. Now there's a thought! It would also save Brian time following up renewals.
- Some of the most popular P6s at major shows (like the NEC) are daily drivers that are a bit rough at the edges. We don't want a row of "show" cards on our stand, we like a good mixture of cars. If you would like to register your interest to put your P6 on the stand at a major show, please get in touch with the Club Secretary.
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Rover Sports Register - National Rally
This year, our good friends in the Rover Sports Register are holding their National Rally at the National Brewery Centre in Burton upon Trent.
- Road-run through Staffordshire and Derbyshire
- Visit to the National Trust property Sudbury Hall
- Dinner at the Brewery Centre on the Saturday
- Static show at the Brewery Centre on Saturday
- Guided tours of the National Brewery Centre
If anyone would like to support the RSR on their National Rally, further details and entry forms can be found on the RSR Website. |
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Scrapyard P6
Matt Richardson, our Area Organiser for the South East (Kent) area has sent in details from one of his local members (Chris) of this scrapyard which allegedly has two P6s available for parts. Their address is:
Scrapping a Car
Arch 439
Gordon Grove
Camberwell
London
SE5 9DW
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