BX Club Forum

Tim Leech wrote:After today's CCC board meeting this will be covered by the citroen car clubs public liability insurance, they have also asked if we would like to set up a BX group and arrange rallies in the future?.

What's in it for us? We have a BX group. This sounds like work with no "payback" (e.g. Events organiser seat on board?)

At least we're receiving due recognition from the CCC. Plus the potential to raise the profile of both the BXC and the BX.

mds141 wrote:At least we're receiving due recognition from the CCC. Plus the potential to raise the profile of both the BXC and the BX.

Yeh that.

mds141 wrote:At least we're receiving due recognition from the CCC. Plus the potential to raise the profile of both the BXC and the BX.

Informally. Which is worth SFA, frankly. If CCC want to give BXC the honour* of organising events then IMO someone from BXC who is involved with the extra work needs some clout with the CCC to be able to promote improvements/ ideas, not just be under orders to be CCC Board gofers. I know Tim is on the Board, that's in his CCC member capacity though: I'm suggesting that BXC has a seat 'formally' in recognition of the importance of events organisation to the CCC.

And then the politics start and the enjoyment ends!

Wind your necks in! There's no politics. I said I'll discuss it, only if it stays informal, no chairman , treasurer, meetings or all the associated stuff. The bxc does have a seat on the board, I'm it and I fight our corner so no backbiting please. There's no spare seats right now and to be honest it's a thankless task which costs money and time (I drove 230 miles today, spent 5 hours driving and had to pay for my own sandwiches!), all I get is National free rally access but thats all (I pay my £30 membership too).

If it costs us nowt and gives us recognition then why not think about, there's no hidden agenda. Just a few people have asked why there's a separate BX club to the CCC. So if we want a BX register/section of the CCC we can aswell as this forum if we wanted.

As long as the BXC - as CCC events organiser - *keeps* a seat on the Board if Tim steps down or is voted off. Otherwise, I can see it now: an event loses money or gets a bad rap 'cos of freak weather conditions or impossible traffic on the main route - and CCC will say "BXC organised that, nuthin to do with us". Formalising our position as CCC BX register and organising events in that capacity - as a sub-set of CCC and not an independent entity (as we are at the moment) - that would work.

Sorry Sandre, I think your being too cynical on this one, there will be no "them and us."If we want to have a separate register or section at our the CCC rallies we can but I don't know if it will make a difference, the CX section organises the CXM and the DS obviously the DSM and the regionals do their thing.

Maybe we could make the X Rally our own so to speak.... The B"X"Rally?

Sounds like a very positive outcome to the board meeting to me. It'd be completely unreasonable to expect that the BXC should somehow have automatic representation on the board - no other section or model register gets that - why should it?. If we organise events we do it as CCC members who also happen to be BXC members - if you don't want to do it under those terms, no one's forcing you. It also diffuses any putative 'rivalry', which as far as I'm concerned never even existed in the first place. There is not, and should not, be anything 'in it for us' save the satisfaction of making a successful contribution to a club that we all enjoy belonging to. Standing around having a moan about who gets to be the monkey, and who gets to be the organ grinder just sounds like completely counter-productive whinging.

OK, so we started with this:

Tim Leech wrote:After today's CCC board meeting this will be covered by the citroen car clubs public liability insurance, they have also asked if we would like to set up a BX group and arrange rallies in the future?.

which read to me as if CCC were after a group of us organising a number of CCC events/being generally responsible for CCC events organisation (it was not clear at this point that they were offering to set up a BX Register). Being event organisers for the CCC overall is an entirely different matter from:

Tim, later wrote:Maybe we could make the X Rally our own so to speak.... The B"X"Rally?

which I absolutely agree should be on the terms of

Paul296 wrote:If we organise events we do it as CCC members who also happen to be BXC members

I'm really not clear as to what was agreed: is the CCC offering us a section with the same privileges/responsibilities as the others (again, I agree that this would be absolutely fair)
or
are they after us - as the youthful upstarts with theoretically more energy - to take on responsibility for a big chunk of CCC events?

If the second, then this should be under CCC auspices and not BX Club or

Tim wrote:a BX group

and I would expect the person with overall responsibility for organising/overseeing/delegating organisation of a club's events - which are a MAJOR part of the club's activity - whoever they are, whichever section they belong to, to be on the club's board.

Tim Leech wrote:Wind your necks in!

It wasn't out!

It's a car club - that's all. We do it for fun. It's a few old French cars that turn up in a muddy field to have a cup of tea and a laugh. How can you turn that into some bureaucratic, legislative bloody nightmare about who gets to wear the hat, and whether we're the People's Popular Front of Judea or the Judean Popular Peoples Front! Either you roll your sleeves up and make stuff happen, or you don't - that's it. Honestly - life's too short.

How I see it is this, the BX club are a growing bunch of enthusiasts who make noise, do stuff and get noticed, which have been noted by some of the CCC. The board is very much aware that the membership is slowly declining, a major factor of this is age of its members, we have lost 2 stalwarts of the club in the past 6 weeks, both were elderly and had been members for 30+ years, so would very much like to encompass this within the CCC, bearing in mind most of us met and became the friends we now are at a CCC Rally for the first time did we not?.

I admit the board asides myself is mostly older guys, but they do their bit (as they have more time), Bill Cameron the treasurer does the job of an unpaid accountant and is very good at what he does, Chris Burjmaster edited the magazine for 10 years and has been helping Adrian Chapman to get it back on track whilst Ray was unable. Derek Shorter is a very poorly man but still spent all day cooking food at the CXM and Alan Kemp is very active in the eastern section and is a key player in the bigger events.

As for Nigel, the amount of time he gives up to the marque and the club is quite something, recently driving 500 miles (unpaid) in one day alone to get the old club computer to Adrian from his home in Leeds to Weybridge so the magazine wasnt delayed anymore, it was his suggestion to bring the BX section (he was round our NEC stand alot in 2012 and 2013 and has owned many BX's and knows more about them than me!) etc on board as most of us are CCC members....this would NOT mean thay those of you who arent would have to join up (although I still think its £30 well spent, and will save you twice that if you take advantage of some of the offers).

If we did set one up, we would have maybe an extra sticker in the window and thats about it, but it would mean that under the umbrella of the CCC we will be covered by their PLI (which would be the only priviledge).

So I reiterate, there is no hidden agenda, no trying to get us to organise rallies unless we want to, although we seem to have done very well with the NEC (our stand looked better - fact) and looks like we will be doing the X Rally as well so I dont see a problem.

Well said Tim

An observation from a aging newbie.

A recognition of ability is a compliment. The BX would once have been 'not a Citroen'. All the usual. Time has moved on, owners age. My view of the BXC is that it is a couple of generations younger than me, in the main, and the members have energy, drive and cars as yet to really be recognized as established Classics. That the CCC has the sense to recognize this early is good. Its good for BX too, longer term. If there is a cause of concern in how to link then I think it is for the BXC to respond with what the view of our world is, to see if it fits what the CCC view of what they see things becoming is.

I have yet to have confirmation of the rules of BXC event organization and PL insurance to go ahead on Castle Combe. There is talk of pub nights. Traditional events to be done, more infrastructural investment for car shows by donation and raids abroad. This with no real structure or club funding scheme. There is something here, a will to innovate events and participate. There is currently little to protect in the club but BXers freedom of action. That could dramatically change in 5 years, and believe me, when money gets involved getting consensus is very much more difficult. Sure the CCC probably need an injection of talent to replace lost stalwarts, but as long as the governing body are not a closed group of stiffs, there are clubs with the living dead in charge, which fail to achieve badly, I would think this is to the advantage of the majority. Seats at the board will come to those who are active, if the top is a healthy meritocracy. But rather than a set of assumptions, some proper dialogue sounds as if it is required.

Event organization is ever the product of a minority. Perhaps BXC is rather blessed with the willing at the moment. None the less you have to remember some of these older guys have organized their Rallies years ago. They may have done their bit and become more sedentary. I had this stick wielded at me recently till it was pointed out to the newcomers I was a principle organizer of many events in the 80's and early 90's, but preferred the background work rather than dishing out prizes or shouting down a megaphone. I do not know these people in the CCC but it would be wrong to not look at what their achievements have been, as well as what they are saying now.