Welcome to Issue 22, February 2014!
I am now in my fifth calendar year of production of TTT 2 and the time seems to have flown by.
It’s worth pausing for a moment to review what has been achieved since the decision was taken in early summer 2010 to launch the totally free bi- monthly magazine Totally T-Type 2.
At the beginning of January this year we reached the landmark of 3,000 ‘subscribers’ which surely makes us by far and away the largest circulation magazine in the world, solely devoted to T-Types.
Our website continues to earn plaudits and the free advertising facility is much appreciated. Also highly valued is the Publications section and the arrangements we have made from time to time to purchase leaf springs direct from an old- established spring maker.
Our T-Database now has over 5,300 cars with photos which have just passed the 3,000 mark.
We arranged our first TTT 2 Tour in September 2012 and judging by the interest in and the numbers who are coming on our 2013 Tour of the Isle of Wight, we are fast becoming the premier T- Type Tour.
All this has been made possible by a combination of hard work and dedication to the cause with wonderful support from you the readers.
Your support has resulted in record donations of £2407. Tight cost control has kept expenditure to a minimum but we needed to review our e-mailing arrangements mid-way through 2012 and we are now using a commercial package to send out the notifications that a new issue of TTT 2 is on the web.
Complimentary printed copies and postage for sending these out were the main items of expenditure but we still ended up with a net surplus for 2013 of £1770.
With this level of surplus we have decided to pre- purchase five years of e-mail credits for the commercial newsletter package at a cost of £550 and arrange for another five years of website hosting and domain names at a cost of £500.
All this assumes that I’ll still be around in five years’ time, but T-Types and my Triple-M cars will hopefully keep me out of mischief!
The 2014 Totally T-Type 2 Tour of The Isle of Wight – Friday 29th August to Monday 1st September – 3 nights.
As soon as this issue is ‘put to bed’ I’ll be sending out a ‘round robin’ to those who have secured places in the Tour hotel and to those who have booked in elsewhere (the Tour hotel having been fully ‘spoken for’ as soon as the Tour was advertised).
Three crews have booked accommodation in The Grange and another crew have booked in at The Keats Green.
The 2015 Totally T-Type 2 Tour
The 2015 Tour will probably be based in North Yorkshire – further details to follow in the April issue.
An opportunity to ‘star’ with your TC!
Participants on the Tour of Rutland will know that we have been very supportive to a Film Production Company who are making a TV programme, scheduled to appear later this year, about the iconic TC. Indeed it is highly likely that scenes from the Rutland Tour will be shown.
The programme will feature, inter alia, the restoration of a ‘barn find’ TC. This is now nearing completion and should be finished by the end of February.
The finale to the programme will be the ‘unveiling’ of the restored car, hopefully on Saturday 8th March, to be joined by two TCs which are in regular use. Then on Sunday 9th March a further twelve TCs (including the two Saturday TCs) are invited along. The purpose is to show the programme’s fully restored TC to a group of like- minded owners and to capture some group driving convoys and sequences, with interviews with some of those taking part.
The dates still need to be confirmed (it will surely have stopped raining by then!) and the likely venue will be the Hertfordshire area.
I hope that we can really get behind this event and I will try to be there on both days. If you would like to come along please contact me via the website contact form, or phone 0117 986 4224 or e-mail me direct at jj(at)octagon.fsbusiness.co.uk {please substitute @ for (at)}.
Hopefully there won’t be any low flying aircraft!
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.