Hi All
Some of you may already be aware that Sandra Johnson and I have taken on, jointly, the Area Coordinator Role for Wessex. We chose to do this to keep ‘Wessex’ going, so that we can all enjoy the lovely area we live in with our cars.
Just a quick introduction from us both:
Sue Chorley:
Married to Bill for 53 years, living on the eastern side of the New Forest and both proud owners of a True Red MX5 NC, purchased in 2012. Since 1976 we have both also been members of the TR Register Car Club, having taken active roles on the National Committee for many years and Bill as Wessex Area Group Leader for several years (no longer). So we share the interest of cars together.
Sandra Johnson:
Married to John and recently moved to Wimborne. Sandra drives an Ice Blue MX5 Niseko Roadster Coupe. Sandra’s dream of buying an Ice Blue sports car finally came true in 2011.
We are both looking forward to working together and getting the Wessex Mx5s out and about on the lovely roads in our widespread area.
As new ACs, we are grateful for the support and encouragement given to us from other current and past ACs, including Roger Mead.
We have sourced a venue for monthly evening Group Meetings at the **St Leonard’s Hotel, St Leonards, Ringwood BH24 2NR. The evening meetings will be at 7pm every fourth Wednesday of the month.
The first meeting will be 26th October at 7pm, when we are both looking forward to seeing members old and new.
At this meeting we hope to generate interest/get feedback for planning a programme for Wessex for 2023. In the future we would also like to link in with ‘touching’ groups’ such as Solent, to join in their events and for them to potentially join in ours.
We have a dedicated meeting room to ourselves. (The Landlord is happy for people to eat before the meeting if they choose to).
We are fortunate to have found an evening venue closer to the majority of the membership. It is on a main road, so a better drive in the winter evenings than smaller back roads for most of us, hopefully.
We also hold midweek meetings, at 10am every second Wednesday of the month, at Dobbies Garden Centre, Cadnam SO40 2NB. This is in the format of a Coffee/Chat/Meetup followed by a drive out in the local area, (volunteers and weather permitting). Drive outs leave at 11am.
We hope to encourage more weekend events, whilst Bill and I may not be able to do most of these, Sandra and her Husband, John are happy to pick these up. We hope to attract new members to Wessex, by offering additional events.
We plan to have a Group/Committee to take things forward and share the load, bring new ideas to the Group and hopefully attract new members. We have already had two volunteers!
We already have a well-established newsletter editor in Al Jones, who thankfully is happy to continue to produce our monthly newsletter and welcomes any input for this from members.
Please feel free to update us with any upcoming car events in our area that we may not be aware of, to add to our calendar.
We also have a midweek Christmas Lunch booked at the St Leonards Hotel on Wednesday 14th December at 13.30. Three course or two course options available £28.50 or £25.50 per head. Contact Sue if you would like to join us.
Currently, Wessex has approx. 103 paid up members, it will be interesting to see how this develops and hopefully we may get to see more of the current membership. We hope to welcome both past, present and new members to our meetings.
We trust you will all support us both in this joint venture and we hope to see you all on October 26th.
Best wishes, Sue and Sandra
