Welcome to Issue 16, February 2013!
I am now in my fourth calendar year of production of TTT 2 and the time seems to have flown by. It’s a bit of a ‘love/hate’ relationship; the downside being that it’s quite hard work and very time consuming – the upside being my pride in the finished copy and knowing that it is read by an appreciative worldwide audience. I can’t begin to describe the warm glow of satisfaction I get when I collect the printed copies from the printer and eagerly open the box to reveal the carefully chosen front cover. It makes the previous few weeks’ hard slog all worthwhile!
My decision to produce 24 pages rather than the usual 20 for the last issue ‘blew’ the ‘hard copy’ budget. As a result, I’m afraid that the 2012 subscriptions failed to cover costs by £80.31. However, it would have been higher but for the fact that I pre-bought non-value indicator (NVI) postage stamps, which effectively pegged mailing costs at 2011 levels.
Tight cost control and extremely generous donations have ensured a record carry forward balance of £2218.96 for 2013 (last year it was £870.49). The total figure for donations was £2235.81, made up of £724.12 individual donations and £1511.69 worth of donations from spares supplied. Cost items were in respect of the £80.31 referred to above for the subscription shortfall, £307.03 for complimentary ‘hard’ copies supplied to contributors of articles and £500 donation to the Manchester University XPAG project.
The XPAG project is gathering pace and there are two reports, December and January, later in this issue. The January report was received just in time to ‘shoe-horn’ it in under the ‘Bits and Pieces’ heading. As there was insufficient space to include any of the photos I’ve included one below.
The other piece of good news from the project which I was unable to include is that Barclays Bank has donated £150 as a goodwill gesture in recognition of the problems in opening an account.
Now for some news of future activities planned.
The 2013 Totally T-Type 2 Tour of Rutland
Planning for the above tour which takes place over the weekend of 6th-9th September 2013 is now well advanced. The route for the Saturday run, held mainly in Rutland, has been finalised and a road-book made; the mileage will be around 65 miles, with plenty of time to visit the various places of interest. The Sunday run is also well advanced, and will move into parts of rural Northamptonshire, again with a mileage of no more than 75 miles. We have arranged some fascinating places for you to visit.
Our allocation of rooms in the hotel has now been taken up, but if you have not booked we could possibly fit you in. Please contact the editor at jj(at)octagon.fsbusiness.co.uk {substitute @ for (at). Alternatively, you can phone him on 0117 986 4224.
It seems, judging by the tremendous support we have had for the Tour of Rutland, that T-Typers very much welcome a choice of Autumn Tours so we have arranged another for 2014! Some preliminary details are as follows:
The 2014 Totally T-Type 2 Tour of The Isle of Wight.
The ‘2014 Totally T-Type 2 Tour’ will be held over the weekend of the 5th to the 8th September 2014 and will be on the Isle of Wight. The event will be based at the ‘Shanklin Hotel’ in Shanklin, with a package deal of 3 nights dinner, bed and breakfast plus a car ferry crossing from either Lymington or Portsmouth for around £180 per person. Once again, the plan is to have scenic tours on Saturday and Sunday, allowing plenty of time to enjoy the sights. We have secured a great hotel for your stay, with plenty of amenities and car parking space. More details will be made available later in the year but initial expressions of interest would be welcome and should be conveyed to the Editor (same details as above).
Note: The hotel has not yet fixed its 2014 tariff so the rate quoted above is provisional at this stage.
This issue contains 24 pages and regrettably some articles sent in for publication have had to be held over. However, they should be included in the next issue, which will be back to the normal 20 pages otherwise I will be in trouble with the budget!
Just enough space for two more items; firstly, it’s ‘goodbye’ to Geoff Trevena at the Octagon Car Club (Geoff has retired) and ‘hello’ to Pete Moore, who is taking his place. I look forward to working with Pete. Secondly, Peter Cole has asked me to publish a reminder that the ‘T’ Register’s ‘Rebuild’ event takes place at the Heritage Motor Museum, Gaydon on 23rd March. An e-mail to Peter at pcoleuk(at)gmail.com {substitute @ for (at)} or phone 01243 267234 will provide the details.
JOHN JAMES
DISCLAIMER BY THE EDITOR
Totally T-Type 2 is produced totally on a voluntary basis and is available on the website www.ttypes.org on a totally FREE basis. Its primary purpose is to help T-Type owners through articles of a technical nature and point them in the direction of recommended service and spares suppliers.
Articles are published in good faith but I cannot accept responsibility or legal liability and in respect of contents, liability is expressly disclaimed.