young blood

[craig 12]

im curious to see how our club is attracting the new blood or at least middle aged blood, would anyone like to answer this post as to member ages, its no secret im 46yrs old, saw gilberns as a kid in 1979 and loved em then,i first saw a mk3 and thought what was that? i get the feeling theres a new breed of gilbern owner in our club , maybe in the region of 30 -35 yrs old, the car would have only been 2-3 yrs old, any answers will be helpfull.

[kyalamijoe]

Craig, I guess if you look at the average age from members passports, you would be a real youngster but if if members were polled, like me, we'ed all be teenagers. Who, other than folk who just cant grow up would lie under their Gilbern like we do and actually enjoy repairing or improving them. Me, I just want to get the b* **dy thing going so I can drive it to the National and not cadge a lift.

Four days to get the door lock system to work! Bet her in doors gave up years ago.

[Reddi-Eng]

I seem to remember this was the topic of a thread towards the end of last year but after the recent clean-up it's no longer visible.

Perhaps its not a question of how old you are now but at what age you bought your first Gilbern. I was 54 when I bought mine.

kyalamijoe must have been a mere slip of a lad when he bought his, he's been restoring it so long (Just joking mate)

[Greybags]

topic of a thread towards the end of last year but after the recent clean-up it's no longer visible

Is all the older material going to be in a searchable archive

It would be handy as it would help to look up info, even possibly useless info, and would prevent too much duplication.

Bought my Gilbern 2 yrs ago, hopefully will return to the road later this year, or early next year.

Still a relativley sprightly 50 years..

Grahame

[craig 12]

i did speak to a couple of members recently and they were not attendind their local meeting due to ill health and generally i got the feeling that they,d had the good times throu the 70s.80s 90s membership, this is where the member numbers can fall drastically, a sad fact is this , if you take our cars yrs from now, the young kids born 1980 onwards i doubt will have any interest in gilberns its a natural process, the kids are getting younger these days, i pods, gadgets, big brother, etc etc i think we have to make the most of our classics while we still can. as i say i think the catchment age for interst in gilberns may be 30-60/ which leads to another point

how long will classic car parts/shops survive,
i had a job trying to obtain a coil the other day,
most cars these days are that modern
even most mechanics/garages dont understand any repair which dosent need a laptop.
i do worry sometimes for classics.......

[Greybags]

Surprised you had a problem getting a coil...

Just about every classic or rally specialist stocks them...

No good going to the high street people as they tend to deal with the newer stuff that you see in a car park, but any of the marque dealers will keep them ... Mini Sports, MG B Hive, Burtons, Demon Tweaks.

The classic car scene will continue as there are some really big clubs with real power... MG, Triumph and others, that employ large numbers of people to keep things going, and have the financial and buying power to keep parts available.

The problems will be for the smaller clubs, that will have trouble with membership numbers, as cost rise many will price themselves out of the market with rising fees but offering less for members. I can see some of them merging with "parent" big clubs to come under there protective wing... for example a lot of the Hearld/Spitfire based cars are now under the wing of the big Triumph clubs.

Like all clubs, the future and the strength to survive comes from numbers, not so much the number of cars, but the number of members, and therefore clubs need to attract members. They can only do that by offering what people want, and thats often the problem, finding what people want. Another small local car club I belong to started arranging a large run each year, open to all classic cars, that attracts people young and old and new members and also makes them enough money to provide a couple of subsidised club runs and barbeques every year, and a Christmas Meal.

The local Triumph section do large scale Scalextrix race meeting nights, all computerised and timed laps, buffet and bring a bottle, open to members and friends. Everyone who races pays a couple of quid, there are prizes, and again they make some money, and attract people, especially new/young people.

There are more running classics now than there was 5 years ago, and it is growing regularly, especially with the tax breaks for the company car driver.


Grahame

[Reddi-Eng]

Any club is only as good as its members want it to be and the effort a few put in for the majority. This is true of the GOC and as we have debated in the past the important thing for the long term survival of the GOC is to identify what the majority want, particularly as times and circumstances change. We know we have a limited number of cars so we have to attract members not just owners.

Being a Gilbern Owner I think it is important to support the club both for my own interests and the interests of the other members. That does not stop or prevent me joining other organisations for the bits the GOC does not supply. For instance I'm also a member of the Sporting Bears motor club (http://www.sportingbears.org.uk/) for no other reason than to support their fund raising activities which the GOC does not do. (Vic - Topic for next meeting)

For local meets we are lucky in Worcestershire/Warwickshire area to have a good informal network of "pub meets" so for example we support Tony Stanton of the Rochadale Owners club and others with all sorts of vehicles at informal pub gatherings. This provides the opportunity to meet lke minded people with diverse vehicles several times a month for a few hours after only a 15 minute drive.

As Tony mentioned elsewhere (http://www.gilbern.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=660) it was great for us GOC members to support his stand at the Stoneleigh Kit Car show and we hope this will be the first of many similar events.

So Craig support your local shows and encourage others to come along as well. Everyone use this forum to publicise local events so we can see whats going on and most importantly all members get out support the events promoted.

There's more to classic car ownership than screen watching you know

[craig 12]

and today i did just that , booked in for the festival of transport show june 29th , my car wont win anything, i just get a kick out of telling the giles/bernard story, etc .. car numbers left etc etc when i was married i was tied to all sorts of rubbish, now divorced i can have my childhood toys,

[craig 12]

correction , june 28th

[DUFFY]

Hi Derek,

I fully agree with you on “young blood” we have the same problem in the
Rochdale Owners Club and I think the future of small clubs is mixing and supporting each other i.e. clubs catering for 1960s Component Cars.
I was very pleased that Gilberns supported my (or our) stand for our type of car at Stoneleigh and I was very happy to help support your club on Drive-it-Day where a great day was had by all.
So get out and support your club and other clubs at local and national events while we can before Government and Health & Safety put us off the road.
I get more feedback for lost Rochdales from small local shows, Air Shows and Steam Rallies than I do from car shows.
Kind regards
Tony and “DUFFY”