Chairman's report for 2005 AGM

In 2004 MGs on Track (MGoT) arranged five track days and two activity days involving just over 100 people. In 2005 we’ll probably run eight or nine track days and maybe involve twice as many people.

How much more can we grow?

It’s difficult to judge just how much more we can grow – after all the MG community is finite. Nevertheless, the level of interest shown recently for the beginner’s evening is encouraging. Also, every time we run an event we get a few more first-timers, who inevitably end up wanting to do more.

We think we can take our membership from its current level at around 600 to perhaps 1000 and take our active members to around 250 within the next twelve months.

What this means for the future

MGoT is a little over two years old. As a branch of the MGCC it is just one year old. This has been, and continues to be, rapid growth. However, we’re rapidly reaching the threshold of what the current committee can manage without some help. To take the next step forward we need a few changes.

More technology

The first of these is a major revamp to our website. At the heart of this revamp will be an on-line booking system, which will reduce the committee’s workload substantially. Thanks to Steve Childs and UK Websystems, this is already underway and we look forward to a prototype shortly.

More structure

The second major change will be to the way we organise the committee and manage events. Following this AGM, our first committee meeting will create new roles. These roles will share out the burden of event creation, promotion and execution and also highlight the importance of membership and communication to a successful MGoT.

More help?

We are still a small committee and inevitably we need more help. Hopefully, in growing the committee we can widen the representation for MG models. From a participant perspective, the two largest groups are MGF/TF (at 20% of our membership) and MGB/BGT (at 27%) yet the committee is dominated by MGF owners – me included!

Either at this AGM or in the course of the next 12 months we need more people – volunteers, one step forward – now!

And Finally

Just a few words of thanks - first to Paul Golding of Lotus on Track (LoT), who has inspired us to move forward as we have. To LoT and other clubs, like the MX5 club, who have shared days and hopefully will continue to do so. And of course to the enthusiasm and hard work of the committee who have made MGoT the success that it is.