We were lucky for our ThamesMOG New Year’s Dinner, it was cold but the road conditions were okay, however, in the following weeks we got our fair share of snow. This of course would have suited Dennis Woods, our guest speaker for the Dinner evening, admirably. I would like to thank David and Sheila Williams and their team very much indeed for a wonderful evening.
We held our second annual dinner at the Castle Royle Country Club, Knowl Hill this January. This is a superb venue, and as last year, the food was quite delicious. A cosy setting that allows for the diners to be close while giving plenty of space for Dennis Woods, our guest speaker, and his equipment. This year our speaker gave an extraordinary talk on his experiences walking to the South Pole. Dennis said he enjoyed talking about his adventures as it brings back happy memories for him, even though it must have been a hard slog pulling his heavy sledge across the snow. He brought a laugh when he illustrated how he practiced on Cobham Common by pulling an old lorry tyre. You could tell the importance he put on retracing the steps of previous Antarctic explorers. With today’s back-up, any medical problems can be readily addressed and people pulled out if necessary. This is very different to the environment that the pioneering explorers had to contend with. Amazingly brave people: now and then. It was good to see the research centre based at the South Pole. It is here some great work for exploring the rest of the Solar System is in place. I guess if they can survive at the South Pole, Mars can’t be that impossible.
Dennis kindly gave out our Centre awards to our winners – as listed below - that were present, rounding off a super evening. Once again thanks to David and Sheila for the evening, and of course many thanks to everyone that came along. We will look forward to next year.
Annual Centre Awards for 2018
As a Centre we are proud of our trophy awards as they characterise the spirit and ethos of our group. We encourage our members to engage as in essence, through these awards, we aim to facility the use and enjoyment of our beloved steeds. Likeminded people make for some great camaraderie.
For 2018, we were pleased to reveal the following winners as was announced at our recent annual dinner:
SGT Trophy
Dave Mansfield for services to the Centre and for organising an original guest speaker at an annual dinner that has set a great trend, and hopefully a new tradition.
Richard Thorne Charity Trophy
This was awarded to Frank Lomax for his tireless devotion to fundraising at Morgan events; helping to raise over £15,500 in 2018.
Competition Trophy
Helen Thorne for her racing exploits in 2018: probably the most thrill seeking member of the Centre.
Number one 35th Anniversary Thames Valley car badge
Peter Page for the most appearances in a Morgan at noggins
FH Douglas Trophy
Farthest distance travelled in a Morgan in 2018.
John Hayes - 8,273 miles
Congratulations to all our winners. Now please set your trips to zero and get ready for the 2019 season, and please watch out during the year. If you see a member that’s done that little bit extra make a note, and be ready for the nominations again at the end of the year. We will look forward to making the 2019 awards again at the Castle Royle. Forget the Oscars, these are the big ones.
Please don’t forget our ‘1st Thursday of the Month Noggins’ continues to be held at the same location, but the name of the pub has changed. As you know we started meeting at the Novello a couple of years ago when our home for more than 40 years started to turn away clubs and society meetings. Last year The Novello changed its name to the Javatri Restaurant. Now the pub and website are called The Bell and Bottle (the pub’s original name before it was changed to the Novello). The Javatri Restaurant is still there, and as their website says ‘The Bell and Bottle has a wide choice of reasonably priced traditional English fayre as well as authentic Indian cuisine in the Javatri Restaurant’. And with them serving local microbrewery beers we have the best of both worlds – hope you can make it along.
For the second of our new features of visits to National Garden Scheme open gardens we are visiting the Wind in the Willows house. Around the house there are informal areas of shrubs including tree peonies, trees and heather beds, and a fine 'forest pansy' tree and a growing collection of day-lilies. Across the lawn are bearded iris and more shrubs and ornamental trees, under planted with a large ever increasing collection of hellebores for winter interest. There really is colour throughout the year; our visit is on 24th March and see some 20, often very fragrant, different early flowering shrubs as well as plants in flower including the hellebores, and early bulbs. Interesting barks and variegated evergreens add to the early season colour.