Stoneleigh 2017

[Steve Kerswell]

Seems people have been unable to contact anyone about their bookings. It has been removed from the list of events in the Stoneleigh guide.

[Dave Adams]

[James Doulton]

There were a few more cars than that picture shows. To the left of Danny was Jayne Chisnall's Melos, Liam's 4.6v8 Malaga and Pete Loynes V6 Melos, then we had a red V6 Phaeton that came both days and the Pegrum Phaeton. So there were another 7 or 8 Duttons at the peak on the Sunday and a couple fewer on the Monday. So probably 20 different Duttons there at one time or another. There were quite a few owners who came to see us on foot, like Rob Saul and Pete Brown.

[Big Vern]

James, 15 - 20 cars per day is a poor turnout when, not too many years ago, it was 50 per day. You have to face the uncomfortable truth that the 'club' is all but dead and has been for a while. The does not mean the Dutton community is dead just the club.

[James Doulton]

Facebook, or this site, are fine for chatting and to have a community, which is especially useful when we are all so spread out across the country.The trouble there are some things that a Facebook page can't do - it can't act as an authority for provenance or to verify identities and it can't represent its members to the authorities during consultations on law changes. Those are the things that only a recognised club with a membership (that legitimises it) can do.

[Steve Kerswell]

my 2p worth. It needs a Dutton Club Website. These satellite sites are good or not so good at reporting the facts of the club. Still no financial accounts produced? say's it all really, full circle.

[Dave Adams]

That is pretty much what was agreed at the AGM......

[Dave Adams]

club needs a working website and working forum (along the lines of MrG's was a suggestion) all links to satellite forum sites to be removed or made harder to find.....

club accounts to be published ( Roger has had a fair amount personal stuff in his life just now) but says they will be completed within a month, he did have a fair idea of all the monies the club holds.

Club subs to be set as agreed last year but not implemented (for which there was no reason given......) £18. this is because the running costs of the club such as they are sightly exceeds its income. membership (paid up members) is in the region of 100 members

[James Doulton]

I agree with a lot of what you say there Daryl.

What I find difficult as Editor is that it takes quite a lot of work to produce a magazine, and it has to fit in with family and work and health and with actually doing car things. So it tends to be done in fits and starts. But other people are also juggling their lives and often they are not able to respond promptly when I want information or corrections. So then the magazine gets delayed. Then some of the stuff becomes out of date, events change from future to the past, so it all needs redoing.

An online system could allow articles to be posted as soon as they were ready and upcoming events to be publicised as soon as they were decided. But many people think that we still need a paper magazine and that it is what 'makes the club'. Maybe if we did the online thing we should just bind together all of the articles from the last year into a chronicle and send it out in the spring, so that people who can't/won't use technology are catered for.

[Dave Adams]

not a bad idea James....

[rob saul]

Things change.
By chance tonight I was looking through all the old Dutton brochure's for Brian of the facebook group as he wanted to know what colours were offered with the kits
By chance it was next to one of my folders of Dutton torque and the front one had the Norfolk legerra I bought the other month on the front cover,looked at the date and it's July 1992 edition no 52 almost exactly 25 years ago so thought I would sit down and have a read through
Committee,none of the present group but some great folk who were all very active in the Dutton world but none are on the forums or anything now
Jack Felton RIP
Keith Bryant
Ian Bidmead
Tim Cooley
Piers plumridge
Editors notes about "Automobile Gestusen" who import cars to Germany
Secretaries page lists 4 shows an a track day
Membership sec lists 412 members
Full accounts published
Reports on newly built cars
The history of BRG
French rd trips
Concourse results for Stoneleigh for legerra,Melos,phaeton,sierra an "other" (graham boulters b+ won that) there were even second place trophies
B type restoration report from Hong Kong
Lladlow 92 pictures
Pete loynes sierra pick up conversion report
Lladlow 92 report
Self help breakdown report
Newark show report and concourse winners again ( must of cost the club a fortune in trophies !!!)
15 local area meet details that Dutton owners attended
More sierra modification write ups
Two pages of "for sale"-that was an interesting read to say the least !!!
Canterra
Sierra pick up
Rico
S1v8
Long an short hardtops
Two pages of new and returning members and all their details
VERY Interesting read and you start to realise how much of it and how the club operated was of its time

[James Doulton]

Rob, is there any mention of the membership fees back then, or the income from subscriptions?

[Big Vern]

Your dead right Rob, both the club and the mag were 'of their time'. Back then the mag pretty much was the club and people met up usually at the pub to talk bollox about cars, now we have blog posts, facebook pages, ebay and email which more effectively fulfil the role of the mag, now and we sit here in this 'pub' to 'talk' bollox about cars, this is the 21st century 'here and now' that the club, like so many, has failed to engage with and thus has become all but extinct. Evolve or die its natures way. As for the dutton club website, it should be an information repository, it doesn't need to host the online community because that will go wherever it wants and trying to control that is an exercise in futility. It is clear however from some of the posts here that there are still many who have stuck with the 20th century idiology that has long since died. Sadly they still represent the club and its 'current' problems sitting Canute like on the beach as the sea of time washes over them.