Europe News
OVERSEAS DIRECTOR
Hello MG enthusiasts,
At our recent October 2024 Council and Annual General Meeting, decision-making forums which determine our policies, rules, and voting for Directors I was again voted in as your Overseas Director. This will be my final year and I will step down next October having enjoyed being involved with you, attending your events and reading your magazines and newsletters. My role for the coming year will be as it has been previously – representing Kimber House to all parts of the globe from the Antipodes to Europe, and from Japan to North America and nations in between.
If you visit the U.K. and Kimber House you will get a welcome and if you wish and provided there is notice I can take you on my Morris/MG tour of Oxford – where the MG story started. Many of you have been in contact with me in the past using what should be known as my personal or private email address – but is actually so well known that’s it’s pretty public! In future it would help if my Kimber House address is used:
Finally, we have recently started a special offer for overseas MG enthusiasts who are members of a club affiliated to the U.K. club. It is a digital offering at half the U.K. digital price of £50. For £25 you get access digitally to Safety Fast! and to our Registers of your choice. Our website has details of the offer.The Registers are an invaluable source of technical and other advice and in some cases sources of otherwise difficult to obtain parts.
Thanks, and all the best,
Peter
MGCC UK Membership for European Affiliates
Join The Mother Club!
The UK MG Car Club has long had strong connections with affiliated MG clubs throughout the world. Members of these affiliated clubs have always been free to join the UK club if they wished, and many have done so. Many others have not, probably because they did not want to pay two subscriptions just for a English magazine they did not read.
The UK club has always offered membership to non-UK owners at UK rates, even though mailing costs are considerably higher than for UK members, and this has reached the point where we have had no choice but to substantially increase subscription rates for non-UK members.
We are aware that this may discourage owners from joining the UK club and have given a lot of thought to this. We recognize that the facilities available to UK members are not so easy to provide for those outside the UK. Mostly, these facilities are provided by your local MG club. At the same time, many of you wish to maintain contact with us, especially with the Registers, but can only do so by joining the UK club.
To address this, we last year introduced a new form of membership for those wishing to join the UK club who were also members of local affiliated clubs. The offer is that affiliated members can join the UK Club at 50% of the normal UK subscription (currently £60, so 50% is £30), but will not receive the magazine as hard copy, but can read it online, i.e. “digitally”. For those who wish to pay in Euros the paper magazine will cost p.a. €98 and Digital membership €35 (€40 joint) if a member of an affiliated club.
This offer is ONLY available to members both of clubs affiliated to the UK MG Car Club and who are happy to have “digital” membership. Those who want to join the UK club, but not their local club, can only join the UK at the new rates just announced, i.e. £50p.a. for digital membership, or £85p.a. if they wish to receive the UK magazine mailed to them.
This offer represents a substantial saving, therefore, and recognizes that the facilities available to you from the UK club are limited, but at the same time grants you full membership, so that you can enjoy receiving our support, for example, from the Registers for the MG models you own.
If you wish to take up this offer, please apply for membership by providing details of your membership of your local club, which we will be confirming with them.
If you are not a member of a local MG club that is affiliated with the UK club, or you are a member but wish to continue to receive the UK magazine Safety Fast! each month, do not apply by this means, but join or renew membership through the UK website https://www.mgcc.co.uk/membership/. Due to fast rising shipping costs we are unable to offer the paper version of Safety Fast! at a discount.
Please contact us if you are unclear:
Come and join us!
EEOTY
European Event of the Year: this is being hosted by the Luxembourg Club.
MG Days at Epernay
This is our French affiliate club’s main event and is timed to start on the 1st June, 2023 – the same day as the ‘Oxford event’ officially starts the MGCC’s year of centenary celebrations. Epernay = champagne. Bookings have now opened. The event runs 1 – 4th June inclusive.
https://mgclubdefrance.com/-days
Peter Cook
Overseas Director
EEOTY, 2023
EUROPEAN EVENT of the YEAR, 2023
The 2023 EEOTY is being held in Denmark. The link to the Danish site and booking is:
Forside
Bookings opened on the 1st October at 12.00 (EST) and by Sunday evening 200 places had been taken.
Peter Cook, Overseas Director
MGCC EUROPEAN EVENTS for 2022.
GUY MAATHUIS
It is with great sadness that we learned earlier today of Guy’s tragic passing. A stalwart and President of the Luxembourg club for many years Guy was known and respected throughout the European MG community. He owned a number of MGs and could always find the right one for the occasion. I recall vividly Guy and his family’s attendance at the Porto event in 2017, so unusual to see a whole young family enjoying themselves at a car gathering. Guy’s father was also prominent in the European MG world. I am sure that all those who rubbed shoulders with Guy will join me in expressing our greatest sympathies to his family, and to his colleagues at MGCC Luxembourg.
Peter Cook, MGCC Overseas Director
MG Car Club Antwerp
The affiliated Antwerp club’s newsletter
Newsletter:
MGCC Danish Centre
90th Anniversary
The MG Car Club 90th Anniversary.
October
12th 2020 will mark the 90th anniversary of the founding
of the MGCC. The club’s origins lie in an advert placed in the Light Car
magazine suggesting the formation of a club for MG owners. The venue was the
Roebuck Hotel, Broadwater, Stevenage, Hertfordshire
in England
which still exists. Over thirty cars and their drivers and passengers attended to the inaugural event and a
club was quickly formed. The following year the first club dinner was held with
Cecil Kimber as the guest speaker. In 1932 the first dinner-dance was held at
the Café Royal in London
where Sir William Morris, George Eyston, and Earl Howe were among the guests.
To celebrate the 90th year of the MG Car Club, we would like clubs to mark the occasion by organising a contribution to a world-wide event on the following lines:
- The celebratory event to be organised is a run or rally by every club, register and centre in both the UK and across the world.
- The date for the event will be Sunday 11th October, 2020.
- The run or rally should be as far as possible different from the usual runs put on by the club, register, or centre. One suggestion is that an approximate ‘octagonal’ route is devised. Another could be passing over a river on a bridge or a ferry. Essentially something which is different, acts as the focal-point for the run, and enables some memorable photos to be taken.
- Mid-day local time should be used as the start of the run, or the point at which an unusual feature is crossed, passed, seen etc. – the focal point. In this way the event becomes a ‘whole day’ global event from New Zealand, Australia and Japan in the east, to Brazil, California and Hawaii in the west.
- As far as possible local and national media should be alerted and used as a means of raising both the MGCC’s and the marque’s profiles. Local media especially is often open to a prepared ‘feel good’ human interest story.
- Consideration could also be given to video and photos being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc. which have a wide reach and enable comment and participation.
- As we get closer to October 2020 I hope to provide more information on the founding meeting and those involved in getting the MGCC off the ground in 1930.
Peter Cook
MGCC, Overseas Director.
14/12/2019