September 2004 Meeting Report

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Our September meeting was held at our regular venue, the Horseshoe Inn.

As the evenings are getting darker even earlier, we didn't have a chance to chat outside and look at the cars. We had a respectable turnout of 14, only one being a non-member.

After chatting for half an hour our so amongst ourselves, we sat down to deal with topics such as future meetings and the AGM.

As we hadn't decided on a venue for our AGM, this was a priority. A few suggestions were raised, but as the meeting is to be held on a Sunday, when we normally have our family meetings, the venue had to be family friendly.

Members wanted to thank Richard and Bryony for organising and hosting the last meeting which was in the form of a BBQ at Richard's house. The meeting was a great success and hopefully the first on many to come (details on page 2).

Toby, Branch Secretary, brought up the issue regarding newsletters. Because of other commitments, and also because of lack of input from other members, it was decided that the Branch Newsletter would be published bi-monthly from now on. The newsletter would stay in its tradition 4-page magazine style layout, and would be produced the week following every 2nd meeting.

The conversation moved on to many different subjects, the most notable of which was insurance. Many of us made comparisons and observations about the insurance companies we used, but there seemed to be no correlation between what people were paying. A good suggestion was made regarding the creation of an insurance guide. People could submit details of offers or services that insurance companies make, that are beneficial to all members, i.e. companies that don't charge extra for performance modifications.

It was also noted that our branch is now famous across the world. A Saab owner in Australia contacted the branch via email regarding a discussion we had at one of our meetings earlier in the year. He wanted to know if we had found out any more regarding the fabrication of strut braces on the 9000. He didn't want to import one into Australia because of the high costs, and was in a position to fabricate his own. Any advances on this, will be published at a later date.

It was nice to see our branch had been featured in the latest issue of Driver, the SOC magazine. They published the article about our visit to the Lydden Festival in Kent. It was a full-page article with colour photos. This was seen to be a great boost to the profile of the branch. Future meetings reports will also be sent if they prove to be of interest to the club as a whole.

Next Meeting: Sunday 10th October. < DETAILS >