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M“emories from... Sten Chesser
When I was MD at Everest & Jennings my BSTA Mobility Vehicles
le was labelled...ANTI-MOTABILITY. The le started before there was any Mobility Vehicle Section but was the cause of the creation of the Section.
When Lord Goodman retired from chairing Motability, his position
was taken over by Sir Jeffrey Stirling (now Lord Stirling). He wrote to
all manufacturers of mobility vehicles stating that Motability would henceforward raise the discount that we all gave from 5% to 15%, which, he stated, was what they got from car manufacturers.
E&J (Everest & Jennings) could not give such a discount and others con rmed they could not, so a meeting of all manufacturers was arranged. We were a new group of managers at different competing companies and we had no reason to trust and many reasons not to trust each other. But, after much cautious sparring we eventually agreed to independently advise Motability why our company could and would
not raise its discount. I remember that being ‘signed in blood’ was mentioned.
The moral of this story con rms the adage ‘a trade organisation is ” created either to ght dragons, or to pursue dreams’.
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