On Saturday Geoff Clough and I attended the BMW Club NCM at Appleby Parva in Derbyshire. It was a chilly start, -12C at Newbury and it got warmer the further north we went!

The NCM had some lively discussion and it was two steps forward one step back in summary. There was some good progress on the BMW Club Forum, events and marketing of the BMW Club. Membership has risen slightly year on year which is very encouraging and although the finances took a but of a battering from the cost of the Sixtieth rally Jim Lepley is addressing these issues very professionally.

The club overall faces the same challenge as the section, and any other established motorcycle club: How to modernise and go with the times but not to lose the very good things we already have? I was quite encouraged that many NCM members seem to have grasped this point, although as expected there are a few dinosaurs at large!

By the way the photo was taken just after the main meeting finished as the treasurers sat down with Jim Lepley to discuss the ‘cloud’ based finance system with Google docs, very modern. It seems a shame that the new ‘evil empire’ can’t also be trusted with the BMW Club event information!

Steve