Page 8 - Transporter Talk 145

Transporter Talk No 145
CHAIRMAN’S CHAT
Valentine’s Day has been and gone, the price of a bunch of roses has now halved and it’s still raining! At least the worst of the winter is behind us and we can look forward to more camping adventures.
Connie has been in pieces for weeks but it’s been too cold to work on her for long durations, so progress has been slower than I had hoped and the proposed bodywork repairs have been postponed as the air is too damp for painting. Still, I have at last tted many of those parts acquired on eBay over the years. The oil consumption has always been high 300/600 miles per litre, so I took 2 gallons with us on the Italian trip! A set of new pistons has been on the shelf for years, so I decided to t them at last, I was reluctant to dismantle an engine that has run well for many years but...
There is a lot to do to take o the cylinder head, but o it came and oh dear!.. All the pistons had the impression of a valve pressed into them, so the cam belt has broken at some point and a replacement head tted, but this damage previously ignored! There was burn damage too and examination of the head found cracks in the pre combustion chambers. Luckily, a nearly new Vega head was on the shelf, so this was tted along with new pistons and bearings. Then the long rebuild and eventually the engine was started. The lack of smoke was amazing! She is going for her MOT next week.
This edition of Transporter Talk has a ballot paper for the appointment of members of the committee, each person who is standing for the committee is listed and you can vote for them in 3 ways. Details on page 21.
If voting by email, this MUST contain your membership number and postcode and the email is to be sent to Val the membership secretary, so that voters can be veri ed. This
is not secret but identity will only be known by the membership secretary and chairman. Please make the layout such that your ID can be torn o , so the email can become a ballot paper to be placed in the box at the AGM.
If the identity cannot be veri ed the vote will not be counted.
I have introduced this to encourage more members to participate in the running of their club.
You may notice that the format is di erent from previous years, in that you can no longer vote against or abstain. There is no point in an election having these options, if you are dissatis ed with a particular member feel free to stand for election yourself!
The “for/abstain” voting system will remain for other matters a ecting the membership.
As you may notice, there is only “the usual suspects” plus Phil and Sophie standing, so if you want to join in running the club come to the AGM and if you wish to ll one of the vacant posts, co-opting on may be an option.
Well, back to the workshop now with a few more jobs on Connie and a massive clean up after 4 weeks of oily bits! I hope to meet some of you at the AGM and a lot of you at Busfest (phone or email for the discount code) to support your club. Both the membership and the shop now have new professional gazebos with a distinctive black roof. This shows o the yellow of the club insignia so we will be easy to spot at the shows.
Malcolm Marchbank
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