BMW Club Oxford Section Report for Febuary 2017

No sooner had the New Year launched in a flurry of fireworks the first event of the year at the Lock, Stock & Barrel at Newbury proved as popular as ever. How the chef managed to break his wrist is not known but the pub managed to find a replacement at very short notice to feed us all very well. The staff did an excellent job of looking after everyone until the stand in chef could get the ovens up to temperature and provide good food for the assembled masses. A whip round by Rob Allin elicited the princely sum of £35.14 that is to be donated towards the Section’s charity for this year of the SERV OBN Blood Bikers.

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In spite of the dismal weather and filthy roads a goodly number of members arrived by bike, well done chaps. With Dave & Rosemary in the kitchen and Dave Shanks acting as the food transfer, the feeding of the masses went off very smoothly. Tim Read did an excellent job of taking money, pouring tea and coffee and selling cakes. there were even a few mince pies available alongside other goodies.

With so many members turning up the cafe area proved a very convivial place to meet and eat. Time to open the doors to the Bring & Buy room where there were some good items for sale and plenty of deals were done. The usual question of how people manage to get a wheel and panniers home on their bikes that already have a set of panniers always amazes. Of course some of the items may prove not quite as the buyer really wanted but that is not a problem as they can always bring it back to next year’s sale. There was even a nice R100 RS for sale with many looking at it with interest. Well done to the setting up and kitchen team and thanks to all who attended. We’ll see you all next year for the transfer of stuff from one garage to another and back again.

50^th Anniversary:

The records are not very precise about our “birthday”! What we do know is that an inaugural meeting was held at Easter in 1965 attended by Trevor Jones, Jack Gibbs, Pat Moxon, Tim Stevens, Peter Dear and Percy Curtis. Meetings were held from 1965 to January 1986 in the club room of the George Inn, Littlemore by kind permission of the landlord, Jim Adams. Trevor Jones was elected National President in 1976. Jack Gibbs served as Secretary of the Oxford Section from 1965 to July 1978. By the summer of 1966 membership had grown to 18 allowing the formation of the Oxford Section. At this point a cloak of uncertainty descended on our records. We have a photo album presented to the Oxford Section in memory of Pat Moxon by his parents on which is embossed “Founded in 1968”. The national club records are not able to confirm the date that the formation was approved. The earliest reference to the Oxford Section in the Club Newsletter (the predecessor to The Journal) is in February 1970. The Section was obviously well established by 1967 so the committee decided to celebrate our 50^th Anniversary in 2017 organising a number of social events. Most of these planned events taking place in various restaurant or eating establishments throughout the year.

The first of these is a Sunday Lunch on the 19^th February at the Crendon Indian Cuisine, Long Crendon, contact Rosemary Hicks for booking details

The 26^th February, not the second Sunday note, will be another winter indoor meeting at Uffington Memorial Hall when Kamran Irani will tell us more about our chosen charity of the ‘SERV OBN Blood bikers’.

March the 12^th will be the last of the Uffington indoor meetings with a talk by Neville Dalton on his adventures in Norway.

Look out for the visit to the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy on the 15^th March as this is an opportunity to see the potential future for the electrical generation.

More food on both the 19^th March and the 2^nd of April, just in case you are getting too thin after the resolution you made on the 1^st Jan. Then there are of course all the pub socials where even more food can be downed!

With the 100^th anniversary of the 1^st World War this year it is very appropriate that the section has a visit to Ypres over the weekend of the 26^th to the 29^th May although this very full with a reserve listing.

Don’t forget to make a note of the dates from the trifold calendar that you wish to attend into your diaries and make sure you add in the special 50^th events. We will also be updating the website regulary and posting on Facebook.

Here’s to safe riding and some good weather.

Dave Tomlinson

dave.tomlinson@bmwoxford.com