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Pay and play

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Julian,
I have a friend that is in the process of starting an off road
course in Wales. He has 140 acres at his disposal, 40 acres his and
another 100 with permision to use. If you think it is not too far I
will ask him about a weekend there, assuming the site will be ready,
or nearly ready.
Regards, Clive.
 
Hi Clive,
Sounds interesting. Do you have any more info?
For a weekend event for the group I would want to try to publicise it
as much as possible to draw a big crowd on the basis that the more
people we get along the more chance we have of sponsorship to keep the
costs down. I would like to try to model it on the sort of thing the
Jeep club do - they usually get about 200 vehicles attending an annual
weekend event up at Tong.
The sort of thing that I have been thinking of is as follows:
A weekend event running from a friday night through to sunday pm.
Initially around 50+ vehicles and about 150+ people (the numbers would
swell with families). Some will come for the whole weekend and others
will come just for specific days.
The venue will need to provide a full range of off road experiences
suitable for beginners through to the very experienced.
Throughout the weekend we would have seminars running covering
everything from basic workshop maintenance, servicing axles, through to
off road driving instruction covering the basics through to winching,
self recovery, etc. These would be run either by group members or
'professionals'. I know that people like Chris Scott would be
interested in coming down and doing more specific talks and I don't
think it would be hard to attract others.
On the Saturday night we would have some form of entertainment like a
band and hog roast.
Most of the above will be expensive to put on, but if we have the
numbers we should be able to get sponsors to keep the costs down. If
there are enough people it may be possible to attract some of the 4x4
suppliers like Milners or Frogs Island, etc to come along with kit to
sell. These would add to the facilities and help bring the costs down.
Eddie @ Frogs Island has indicated that he would be willing to do
something and so has Milners. I also think I can get more support from
Toyota themselves.
What ever venue we choose for the event, it will need to be able to
cope with the numbers and provide facilities for the seminars, etc.
They would need to be able to handle the number of campers and be able
to provide/attract local organisations to provide some catering
facilities - something like a catering tent providing meals throughout
the event (anything better than your average local burger van!).
There would also probably need to be some sort of entertianment for
children like bouncey castles, a small funfair, etc.
As for costs, you either pay for the whole weekend or just one of the
days. Unless specifically sponsored the seminars would need to be paid
for when you attend.
The trouble is once you get groups of over a couple of dozen or more
vehicles for a weekend you need to consider things like liabilities,
safety and first aid, catering, stewards/marshals, etc which is when
the costs spiral so the option is to either keep it very small and not
worry about the issues or go for gold and play the numbers game to
bring the costs down and at the same time provide the opportunity to
enhance the event.
OK, it _is_ ambitious, but I think very achievable. With the prices of
80 and 90 series coming down more and more people are looking at them
for overlanding and off roading and as you know we are extremely badly
catered for by 4x4 suppliers and the like. If we can raise the profile
of Landcruiser ownership with an annual event like this I think it
would be beneficial. OK, I do understand Peter's point of view that by
extolling the virtues of Landcruisers for off roading will affect the
second hand prices, but I think we would have to do a lot to achieve
it.
Obviously there is nothing to stop smaller groups from the list getting
together to organise weekends away, but from a personal perspective, I
might go up to an event like Billing with others from the list just for
the day, it is unlikely that I would go as a family to join a handful
of other LC owners to drive around part of Wales purely because of the
effort involved in co-ordinating the family, dogs etc, however if there
was a dedicated Landcruiser weekend event it would be worth the extra
effort and I know my wife Gilly is keen to meet more of you and would
like to find out more obout overlanding. With a young family we cannot
just up sticks for a weekend, it's like army manouvers!
A weekend event like the above will enable beginners learn more about
their vehicle and using it off road, whilst old hands will be able to
swap war stories about various Pistes in N.Africa and then the rest of
us can embarrass ourselves when we get stuck in the mud pits!
Anyway, that's my view and what I am planning, if you object or have
other views please post them here. If it's not what people want I
won't bother.
--
Regards,
Julian Voelcker
Mobile: 07971 540362
Cirencester, United Kingdom
1994 HDJ80, 2.5" OME Lift
 
hi every one my name is mark im from frome in somerset i have a land cruiser
80 series i go out once a month to salibury plain .would any one now how
much it would cost to go from auto to manual and where to go.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Julian Voelcker" <[Email address removed]>
To: <[Email address removed]>
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: [ELCO] Pay and play
___________________________________________________________
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry
 
Hi Mark+Donna,
Welcome to the list.
I spent some time down your way 1989-1990 - lived in Corsely opposite the Royal
Oak, had a great time down there.
As the others have stated it would be cheaper/easier to sell yours and then buy
a manual - even if the swap was pretty easy you would then have the issue of
trying to locate a replacement, which would be tricky.
--
Regards,
Julian Voelcker
Mobile: 07971 540362
Cirencester, United Kingdom
1994 HDJ80, 2.5" OME Lift
 
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