The search for SV Minors

[Ian Grace]

The following was sent out to 55 owners of SV Minors (in 2004 or earlier) on Gren Strickland's list tonight, in the hope of reaching some owners 'out there'.

The message was sent in e-Newsletter format through iBuilder which allows me to monitor the fate of the 55 messages. 14 bounced, which was less than I was expecting. So far, only two have been opened - one insomniac in the UK and one owner in New Zealand. I'll report any successes here.

Here's the initial report after an hour or so:

List Name Response Type Response Date Email Address
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST adrian@adrian64.freeserve.co.uk
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:35 PM PST chris.hollis@internet.co.nz
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST consult@boydandgardner.co.uk
Grenadiers OPEN January 21, 2008 5:37 PM PST djhannaford@blueyonder.co.uk
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST eoin@dalrymple.co.uk
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:33 PM PST gie@force.dk
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST graham.d.taylor@ic24.net
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST gunnel.geijer@user.bip.net
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST hanneke.nico@hetnet.nl
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST lucytuffy@macunlimited.net
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST mark_museum@hotmail.com
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST mikebrookes@tinyworld.co.uk
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST mikehamelin808@hotmail.com
Grenadiers OPEN January 21, 2008 5:35 PM PST mikeman@man.quik.co.nz
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST mustoejw@8thegreen.freeserve.co.uk
Grenadiers BOUNCE January 21, 2008 5:32 PM PST robin.clifford@tlggroup.com

Is this a cool tool or what?!


Hello everyone,

This e-mail is going out to some 55 past members of Gren Strickland’s Sidevalve Morris Minor Group. As you probably know, Gren ceased his SV operations in 2004 and handed on his material to the Vintage Minor Register for safekeeping. We now hold all his carefully gathered material in our ‘Gren Strickland Archive’ and continue to make it available online on the VMR website.

Part of Gren’s bequest included his register of SV Minors, and this e-mail is going out to all those whose e-mail addresses appear on that list, but who are not currently members of the VMR, and this includes some 55 of you! Since his list is now four years out of date, I am expecting at least half of these e-mail addresses to bounce, but before they are all out of date, I though that those of you who receive this e-mail might like to know of some fascinating recent developments in the SV Minor world. In addition, I suspect that several of you will have passed your Minor on to new owners, in which case, perhaps you would be kind enough to pass this e-mail on to them. Also, I see from some of the familiar names on the list, that some of you are my old friends with who I lost contact many years ago, when living in England. My family and I now live and work in the USA so I would love to renew old acquaintances. Finally, I know that I have made e-mail contact with some of you over recent year already, and you have already told me that you have sold your cars! Apologies to you for clogging up your e-mail accounts with useless information once again!

The VMR was inaugurated back in 2000, and initially catered for the OHC Minors, alongside Gren’s SV Minor website. However, with the demise of Gren’s website in 2004, the scope of the VMR was widened to include all SV Minors as well as M Type MG’s since they are all very closely related vehicles. We have become a very popular and active club of some 200 members worldwide, owning some 206 OHC Minors, 44 SV Minors and 35 M Type MGs between us. We know that SV Minor survivors outnumber OHC Minors comfortably, so we are particularly keen to welcome new SV Minor-owning members into our Register.

In addition to the VMR, another very exciting initiative is in its early stages. At Christmas last year, the Early Morris Society was launched as a sister organization to the VMR, catering for ALL pre-war and vintage Morris motorcars from the earliest Bullnose to the outbreak of war. The ambitious objective of the EMS is to trace and record for posterity every known surviving pre-war Morris motor car worldwide and then to work to return as many as possible to the open road where they belong. We strongly believe that very many of these cars are in danger of falling into further decay in the coming decades and that now is the time to record their existence and do everything we can to save them before it is too late for many of the last few survivors - we might even call them The Few! Before the war, some 40% of cars on British roads were Morrises, so the relatively few surviving examples represent a huge part of our motoring, engineering and social heritage. We are therefore inviting membership of the EMS to help us with this vital and tremendously worthwhile cause. The good news is that all VMR members are automatically enrolled in the EMS.

If you would like to join the VMR, a Membership Form is downloadable here, while if you would like to join the EMS, a membership form is available here. VMR membership includes quarterly magazines, an annual yearbook, monthly e-newsletters, a very active and informative website with a huge Morris Minor archive, a very busy and interesting discussion forum, spring and autumn pub meets, an annual summer rally, spares support, free advertising and more. EMS membership comes in two flavours. Web membership offers access to the website, monthly EMS e-newsletters, pub meets and a summer rally, while full membership includes delivery of the quarterly VMR magazine which always has content of interest to all pre-war Morris enthusiasts. (For SV Minor owners, full EMS membership is therefore equivalent to VMR membership.)

In conclusion, I would like to appeal to any of you who still own a Minor or other pr-war Morris to consider joining one of these registers and becoming part of an exciting and unprecedented effort to help save a little piece of Old England!

The Vintage Minor Register’s website may be found here, and the Early Morris Society’s website may be found here.

If you would like to contact these registers, you may simply press ‘Reply’ to this e-mail. We look forward very much to hearing your news.

With all best wishes to you and your families for 2009,

Ian Grace
Captain
Vintage Minor Register
Early Morris Society

[chris lambert]

From looking at the Register's membership list, owners of cammy Minors out number S/V owning members by about five to one. I think we know from looking at Gren's old S/V register that the survival rate is probably five to one in favour of the side valve version of our cars. So, a total miss-match between members in the club and numbers of cars likely to have survived. My own quick research from looking at the numbers of cars that are sold on eBay and elsewhere confirms that there are definitely a lot more side vave cars out there than the OHV variety.
Has anybody got any thoughts as to why S/V owners are not joining the Register? I would guess that a lot of the 'guests' on the forum and perhaps quite a few of the registered forum members are Minor owners and so they recieve some of the Registers benefit's without any of the financial committment of being 'paid up' members. Is there an argument to close the forum to non club members? This is the case with the VSCC.
Of course, they may be members of other clubs and happy to remain so, which begs the question "What would persuade them to change allegiance and join us"? I would imagine that any s/v owner that has access to the internet would have found our site? Theories anyone?
Chris

[Ian Grace]

Chris,

This is an important topic, and bears deeper research. I think that much of the current imbalance simply indicates how much work has been done since 2000 to track down and sign up OHC-owning members - in contrast, the equivalent SV effort has only been going for about a year. The proportion of members to total numbers of identified OHC Minor owners is extremely high and much higher than the wider one make club norm. And I believe that the proportion of identified cars on our Register to the number of actual surivors out there is also very high indeed because so much effort, by so many people, has been put into tracking them down since 2000. So, in this respect, if we continue to do what we have been doing over the last 8 years, but now also pitch the Register to the SV owners, and work to track down survivors, then we should see a steady influx of SV Minors.

There is also the cultural thing I have alluded to before - every make and many models seem to historically have attreacted a different demographic group - in terms of where they position themselves on the ownership spectrum - with diehard trials drivers at one end and bonnet polishers at the other. One thing struck me when looking through the images of members' cars on Gren Strickland's old SV website - 90% of the cars were wrecks which were not being seriously worked on. It is anybody's guess whether there are more SV Minors ON THE ROAD than OHC Minors, but although there are too many OHC Minors off the road, I get the distinct feeling (and I could be completely wrong here), that there is an even higher proportion of SV Minors in bits or simply not driven.

Edited to add that, of the SV Owners that I contactc, few if any have actually heard of the VMR, but this is also the case when I contact new-found OHC Minor owners. 90% of new members have historically come to the Register after I have made a direct contact, pointed them to the website, sent the a sample Magazine and/or e-mailed them a Membership Form. It is a rare and joyous day at VMR HQ when a membership form arrives in the mail unsolicted!

Anyone else got any thoughts?

[halbe]

Hi Ian,

I sent an email to hanneke.nico @ hetnet.nl yesterday ,no reply yet but it didn't bounce either
I'll let you know if I get an answer.

Halbe

[cammy]

You asked for thoughts Chris. Now this may seem stupid but when I first discovered the VMR a while back it seemed dominated by Americans and Colonial Chappies and no local help so I renewed our membership with the Morris Register having decided to try and rescue NG. When I looked at the VMR again in January I could see that there was much more life and pertinent information available. So what I am saying is that maybe a lot of Minor owners may have looked and passed by in the past but now need to be made aware of what they have been missing. Spread the Word Brothers and Sisters!!

[chris lambert]

Clive, Ian,
Its a shame we can't advertise in the Morris Register Magazine as I suspect that we pass under most s/v owning drivers radar. Certainly the Morris Register 'Minor SIG' or SV? (whatever it is called now) is very cool towards the VMR and I don't understand why. The VMR is all about its members using their cars and encouraging others to get their non runners back on the road. That surely is also the aim of the M.R.? (or am I being naive?)
Maybe Ian, we can try and get some 'airtime' in 'The Automobile' and other similar publications (Roger Lucke reads 'Old Timer' for example) in an attempt to raise our profile. I also think that there are cultural differences as well as the fact that the VMR was originally strictly for overhead valve cars, side valve cars only being embraced following Gren Strickland's decision to bow out from running the S/V Minor Register a couple of years ago.
Its very frustrating seeing all these cars turning up for sale, because if the current owners of these cars were aware how active a club we were then perhaps they would not be selling in the first place.
Chris
PS The 'Old Timer' mag is a UK publication about old vehicles including traction engines etc - I am not suggesting that Roger Lucke buys and reads this mag because he is one!

Edited to add: Roger has advised me that the magazine name is 'Old Glory' and not 'Old Timer'. Apologies.

[Tony Gamble]

Hi
Hopefully the Beaulieu Stand might help with publicity , and any cars on display could advertise the VMR .

Incidentally , has the Morris Register been asked to display vehicles too ?

There's an opportunity to get us known.

How many of us are there likely to be at the May Beaulieu ? I certainly hope to be there.

Let's see if we can muster a fair number to assist in lots of ways. Is there a Colonel in Chief organising the stand ?

Tony G

[chris lambert]

Hi
Let's see if we can muster a fair number to assist in lots of ways. Is there a Colonel in Chief organising the stand ?

Tony G

Tony,
Trevor and I will be manning the stand and will be down there for a couple of nights. We are hoping that Toby will show us the ropes although he has got his own stand to run. I have got a couple more things to sort for the summer rally and will then turn my attentions to Beaulieu. It would be a great shame if we don't maximise the opportunity to spread the word.
Chris

[Ken Martin]

Regarding the proportion of sv to cammy Minors running - in my experience of [cammy] Minor driving for the past 43 years including a fair bit of reporting for Harry and the MR Journal until quite recently - there is no doubt that there have been many more sv cars active in this time, until that is, the past few years when Ian's amazing efforts have encouraged the early Minors out.
Cammy Minors were very rare sights in the 60s, 70s and 80s. There were just a few people who regularly and consistently drove early Minors such as me, Rosemary Burke, the Cooksies and Hoggs, and more recently Clive H-G. Some interesting cammy cars appeared from time to time only to disappear again after one sighting.
You won't find many pictures of Morris Minors in VSCC Bulletins of the 60s to 90s.
SV Minors have alawys outnumbered cammy cars at all MR events by a significant proportion. However, as a matter of interest there were apparently no minors at all at last years MR National Rally! This must be the first time this has happened.

[Toby]

Heres my two pennorth! I came to the vmr as i had stumbled upon and joined Grens site and I needed to have contacts for support and spares etc. The vmr has been very friendly and has a very personal feel to it. I have got much more from the vmr than from the M.R. (which seems to be very stale compared to the vmr) My local noggin doesn't seem to organise any local events other than going on other clubs runs and in the last 8 months I havn't seen more than 4 prewar cars at the meet, including mine. I belong to another classic car club which in comparison organises and attends many events, albeit in the Dorset/Hants area! If I hadn't come to the forum then I don't think that the vmr would offer more than the M.R!-I think it's all about what you put in to a club. As the forum is only open for posts from vmr members it acts as a draw for those who want to post technical questions, sell parts etc who aren't yet members if they can see what goes on, on the forum? We can't force people to use their cars or participate in the club but we can tell them it's enjoyable to do so! As for Beaulieu, Tony, the M.R. probably won't have been invited, it's supposed to be a display to celebrate the 60th birthday of the postwar minor. We got invited when I enquired for the club stand and educated the staff that the minor was around for longer!!!This has lead to a golden opportunity for the club, especially members local to the event.

[Ian Grace]

If I hadn't come to the forum then I don't think that the vmr would offer more than the M.R!

Ooo! I think I'd have to challenge that statement Toby! Apart from this Forum, the VMR Magazine contains 40 pages of Morris Minor content - more than one would find in the MR Journal in several years. The Magazine is now downloadable from the website in full colour, but has also been available on CD since M 111. Unlike the MR, we also produce an 80-page Yearbook annually (and also delivered on CD with each hard copy). We provide online news which is updated every few days, including For Sale and Wanted adverts, plus e-mailed monthly Newsletters, containing ... news. The Members' Area of the website contains an enormous amount of data, including an online chassis register and member's list which is updated virtually daily - the MR has neither. I don't think the VMR and MR websites bear any remote comparison - we are streets ahead. Then there are the three-day Summer Rallies - in different locations and formats every year (including two Prescotts), complete with full blown nav rallies, tours with full colour handbooks, etc., etc. The great majority of all of this is organized from 4,000 miles away, and for fewer members than the MR has committee members!

We struggle to offer even a rudimentary spares service and only hold six pub meets every year, but that is not surprising given our membership numbers of less than 200 worldwide. Unlike other clubs I could mention, I don't chase membership numbers as an end in itself, but clearly we could do and offer more if we had a larger membership, which is why I'm trying to encourage SV and M owners to come aboard, to the benefit of all of us.

[Toby]

point taken Ian , but if you remove the web stuff (which is much better than the MR) from the equation and don't drive your car, then you have a member who just reads about minors and tinkers with it, in which case it doesn't make much difference who I belong to! Thats the point I think I was trying to make and thats where I was until I was lured into using my cars!If it hadn't been for your words of encouragement and technical help then my car would still be no further forward (but i would be much richer!!! ) Admittedly the minor magazine is impressive and a good read but is a club just about reading? I wouldn't be up for doing vmr stuff if it wasn't for the welcome from members in Dorset last year but maybe thats because we're a small club with a more defined common interest?

[Ian Grace]

Toby, ah, I take your point.

You are right. Getting people fired up about getting their cars back on the road and driving them takes a lot more than a Magazine every three months. The Magazine, the forum, the newsletters, the website - all that stuff should not be an end in itself - they are just the tools we use to encourage restoration and driving activity which is the core purpose of the Register. That's why I got somewhat depressed after Dorset last year when, looking at all the effort that had gone into the weekend and the Register over the preceding 7 years, we were STILL only getting 12 Minors at our main summer rallies - precisely the same number which turned up at our first every rally - when we had less than a third of the number of members...!

But Rome wasn't built in a day (an nor is a Minor restoration!) and I think (and I'll whisper this very quietly) that we may break that magic number this year.

Incidentally, Toby, looks like the container will now not ship before the end of April, so we can sort out the parts after I get back on the 6th April. Chris is bringing the Mac down to Colnbrook on the 17th and I think John Nagle is delivering the Bed-Pan the day before. All VERY exciting stuff. We leave Grand Rapids early Sunday morning for New York, so will be shutting down VMR HQ Saturday night. For the next two weeks it will be located in QM2 Stateroom 10-007 somewhere in the Atlantic or Caribbean, and can be contacted at IGRACECQ5P7J01@QM2GUEST.cunard.com

[john49]

Ian,
I see you sent an e mail to Chris Hollis re joing the VMR.It appears to have "bounced".
Chris had a lovely 32 season roadster, but sold it some time ago.
I don't know where it went, but the search continues........
John McDonald

[Ian Grace]

Thanks for the info John - they are all out there somewhere!