UPDATE 24th MARCH 2007
It’s a bit short notice but there is going to be a meet in Norwich on Sunday 1st April. We will be meeting at Hall
Road retail park from around 12. The postcode is NR4 6DH. This is an all marque meet,
and it looks like it is going to be very MK2 dominated so please come if you
can, in order to show them we are still out there in force.
At the meet, we will be discussing the world record attempt. For those new members
who didn’t get my last letter, this is an attempt to break the record of the most
cars on the road in convoy of one make – that being the MR2. Again all marques
are involved. The date is set as 29th April at Rockingham circuit,
and there are camping facilities and BandBs nearby. It would be great if we
could have a turnout from the East Anglia region.
Also, I would like to remind you that the MR2 Challenge is coming to Snetterton, and I
am arranging a special club parking area again. The Challenge is on Friday 6th
April (Good Friday). Tickets are £10 in advance from www.motorsportvision.co.uk
or call 0870 950 9000. They will be £12 on the day. For those of you who
haven’t been before, it is a good day out, especially if the weather is fine,
and a great chance to see some Mk1s on the track (usually kicking the bums of
any Mk2s!!!)
Ok, that’s it for now, I hope I can see some of you at Hall
Road or Snetterton shortly.
UPDATE 15th JANUARY 2007
Our 'first' meet was on Sunday the 14th of January at Bar Hill in Cambridge.
Despite the icy wind, we had a great turnout of nine Mk1s, which was absolutely
fantastic! There was another MR2 club meet in the same location and we actually
outnumbered their Mk2s!
Five of us met at Norwich and convoyed down to Cambridge together. It was a
nice day when you were in the car, lovely and sunny, and the roads were dry.
However we all got a little chilly stood around in the car park, so after we had
a good nosey at everyone elses rusty bits (and all the nice shiny bits too!!) we
wandered over to the pub for some warming food.
Thanks to everyone who made it, I was really pleased that so many people made
the effort. I hope some more members can meet up for the next one (date and
location TBC).
Unfortunately, although my hobby is photography, I was too busy socialising
to take any decent pics. So here's a nice one from Derek!
UPDATE 23rd NOVEMBER 2006
DINGLES TOYOTA DISCOUNTS!
I have been given twenty application forms for the Dingles Toyota discount
card. This is usually £29.99 but we have kindly been offered them free of
charge!
Holders of these cards are entitled to a 40% discount on labour and 15% on
parts, free Summer and Winter health checks, free puncture repairs and 10% off
genuine Toyota accessories.
Dingles Toyota branches are at Attleborough, Norwich and Lowestoft.
I will be handing these out at the meet in January, but if you think you
might need the discount sooner, let me know and I will post one to you.
Apparently it takes 28 days to register.
We will also receive a discount if we show our Mk1 Club card to any of these
branches, but this is at the salespersons discretion. (It's actually pretty
random but you do get *some* discount!)
Hope this helps some of us!
UPDATE 19th NOVEMBER 2006
Firstly I must apologise for not getting sorted with a meet yet. The pub
which I thought would be ideal is fully booked up to Christmas and were not
happy about us using their car park at such a busy time of year.
With this in mind, and the fact that other members may also be rather busy in
the run up to Christmas, I have decided to try and arrange our first meet for
January 2007.
Hopefully we should all have recovered from the party season by Sunday 14th
January and I would like to arrange to meet at the large Tesco Superstore at Bar
Hill near Cambridge. We can meet there from around 1pm if that is ok with
everyone! There is a large car park where I have attended meets before, and no
one seems to mind. There is also a pub nearby which serves affordable but nice
food. It does get busy though, so I will see if I can book a table.
Norwich people, I can arrange a convoy to Cambridge as that will be more fun!
How about we meet in the Waitrose car park in Wymondham (just off the A11) at
11?
If anyone would like to contact me about the meet, do feel free. Don’t feel
you have to contact me either way, especially as it is still quite a long way
off, although I will have to guess a rough number if I am going to book a
table.Those of you with your cars off the road are welcome to come in your
Winter cars!
Thanks to everyone who has contacted me so far with regards to the area. It
is nice to know that most of you are willing to come to meets that I am going to
arrange!
UPDATE 27th SEPTEMBER 2006
Hello,
I am writing to introduce myself. My name is Vix and I am the new Area
Organiser for the East Anglia region of the MR2 MK1 Club.
I live in Wymondham, which is near Norwich, with my partner Phil and our
three MK1 MR2s. I have owned my white MK1a for only a few months and I
absolutely love it! Phil has owned MK1s for a few years so he knows his way
around them, and even makes suspension components for them.
I am hoping to get a regular meet going so that MK1 owners can socialise
together. A successful MR2 meet is run in Norwich every month although mostly
consists of MK2s. In my new role as Area Organiser, I intend to try and increase
the attendance of MK1s to this meet, as well as arrange exclusive MK1 Club
events too.
You may be aware that, as well as the Club website, we have a club forum on
the IMOC website – http://www.imoc.co.uk/.
The IMOC website is a good place to keep your eye on for events in the area,
although I intend to keep in touch by post and phone with club members in the
area.
The next event I am arranging is at the MR2 Challenge, 30th September at
Snetterton. At the time of writing I do not yet have a timetable for this event
but if anyone is interested please do not hesitate to contact me. Tickets are
£12 on the gate and it is a great day out.
Please get in touch if you have any ideas for events – I appreciate that some
of your cars may be hibernating in the winter months but we don’t mind if you
just come along for the social events!
My contact details are as follows:
Email – vykki.hoult@gmail.com
Phone – 01953 601222
Mobile – 07904 058602
Address – 8 Red Admiral Close, Wymondham, Norfolk, NR18 0XW
As from Sunday 11th July we'll be meeting at the Orwell 'Truck' Stop, A14,
between the Nacton Road and A12 North junctions. On site, there's Olive's Bar
and Dickie's Diner (all new building) plus acres of parking, and a MacDonalds,
if folks are inclined to card-burgers, etc. See you all there.
STOP PRESS 25th MAY 2004
To confirm the event I mentioned yesterday:- MR2 MK1 Club meeting with IMOC
and MR2DC at their 'do' at the Halfway House, at the Junction of the A127
Southend arterial and A128 (Brentwood junction), 3pm-on, Sunday 6th June. May be
a monthly event - will know more about that soon.
All welcome!
EAST ANGLIA NEWS 28th APRIL 2004
Loaaadsacars!!!!
Well, my ghast was utterly flabbered! First meeting of the year for us, and
five MK1s and a Honda Civic Type R (Stuart Nolloth’s) turned up at our new venue
for an introductory chin-wag, with Ken Salmon venturing over from Letchworth to
join in.
Very nice to meet everyone and put faces to names, spin a few yarns, etc.
Three weeks later, the South East and East Anglia meet took place at the
Holiday Inn, Eight Ash Green…and no less than sixteen MR2s screeched into
the copious car park! Blimey! A great shame, though, that many of them were
piggy-backing from the MR2 Drivers’ Club, their number consisting of eleven MK2s
and two MK1s… Still, it looked good!! It was nice to meet all the folks and have
a chat across clubs. As a passing comment, Chrissie and I attended an MR2DC
event when we bought our Myrtle about six years back, but due to the event being
a bit brisk we found it somewhat unsociable, and therefore we didn’t take up
membership; that seems to have changed, thankfully (though we do hear snide
rumblings from our members about the DC still; silly, really, as we all
appreciate the same cars).
Steve Kingsnorth, his partner and the DC crowd beat us to the Holiday Inn by
a large margin, along with his parents. He offered Alan Cayzer’s absence
apologies, had a good chat and then fired up his Supercharger to zap off with
the DC folks to yet another piggy-back MR2 meet down on the Southend Arterial
Road…and there they were, gone…
Oh, well, the remainder of us had a good natter. Richard Baker and son made
it, having overcome seized brakes and other such nasties, and a recent club
recruit in Ipswich, Carol, joined us from the DC; she was also joint area
organiser on that club, and we hope to rope her into helping us a little as she
recovers from endo-flipping her MK2 (Ouch!!); look out for driving events, as
they are her preference. Dry-stone wall demolition is her ‘speciality’!
Talking of planning events – I’m hunting out addresses and contacts for a
couple of static car shows in Essex and a rumour of another two in Norfolk, all
in summer. It would be nice to grab a gazebo space for a club stand and a few
willing bods to man it. Anyone interested in a run to a zoo, or something like
that? Meet somewhere and rumble in convoy? Has anyone got any other run-out
ideas? That’s why we want to keep up the monthly (2nd Sunday)
meeting at the White Horse (A140), Stoke Ash, so we can nurture outing
ideas for other dates person-to-person, without having to resort to dozens of
phone calls and text messages. Mind you, I managed to blat-out a pile of texties
just before the last meet and received an excellent response in return; maybe,
if all the willing East Anglia members can forward their mobile numbers to me, I
can carry on blanket information texts as reminders of impending events, etc?
Your name and number to 07751265034, please.
Altogether, a very encouraging start to this year’s driving, and a far cry
from last year’s bitter disappointments! See you all at the next meeting, we
hope!
BARRY LOVE
***** STOP PRESS *****
27th January, 2004
Rising In The East….Maybe!
... And I don’t just mean the price of imported MR2 spares, either – although
that, too, is wince-worthy at times.
No, folks – I refer to our East Anglia section of the MK1 club, still-born
last year due to an almost total lack of response from the fifty-plus members in
this region. Like the phoenix from the ashes, however, we are hoping for a
resurrection – even if only on a modest scale – by reorganising the area covered
and the choice of an initial meeting point… and by the time you get to read this
the first meeting date will be almost upon us.
Moving from our original venue of the Holiday Inn at Stanway, Essex, we’ve
decided to head on up to The White Horse Inn at Stoke Ash, just south of Diss
(on the A140). Roughly half-way between Ipswich and Norwich, it’s a very
hospitable pub, offering the usual bar fare of drink and excellent meals at
favourable prices, has two car parks - and a separate function room is available
in the event of overflow…. (“Oink-oink, flappety-flap” – there goes another!
Ho-ho-ho, if only…)
Why up there, all those ‘millions’ of miles from Essex? Well, after
discussions with Steve Kingsnorth (joint Organiser with the South East region),
we’ve decided to split the area we cover so that he can try to hook the Essex
membership into the S.E. region and organise a more Central Essex venue (we all
know how lazy Essex-ites are!), so we can concentrate more on getting Silly
Suffolk and Nutty Norfolk established…and driving, hopefully. Needless to say,
we wished each other “Good Luck” with respective membership ‘motor’-vation!
So, there you have it: a new year, a new venue…and all we need is you
and your cars! As we said last year, we don’t care what you turn up in,
whether it’s lusty, trusty, dusty, or just plain rusty (or even a non-MR2 if
your pride and joy’s laid up for whatever reason) – just charge up your
batteries, get your motors running and turn up for our first bash on Sunday,
March 14th at 1.30ish and meet a few friendly faces. Just to get
other events rolling, the folks from the S.E. Region have organised a drive-up
from Kent to the old Stanway venue to meet us on Sunday April 4th (see their
web-site board), so I think it might be nice to have a few more than our usual
two or three die-hards to meet them and make their trip worth the effort and
expense, don’t you? There must be some members up here who joined the
club for more than just cheap insurance and discounted parts, surely?
After that meet, we’re planning to stay up at The White Horse for our
meetings – outlined for the second Sunday each month, as before – assuming, of
course, that we get the membership support to carry on. To back up this report,
we’re putting out a revised flyer by post to all Suffolk and Norfolk members,
with a tiddly map to make sure everyone can find it – so no excuses! We’re
really looking forward to meeting you folks; maybe we might even beat Ryan
Kevan’s North-West group ‘50% members turn-out’…(Pah!). One day, maybe, p’rhaps,
on a blue moon…
G’wan, be there - your MR2’s crying out for the drive!
Barry Love
Welcome to the new East Anglian Region of the Club.
The first meet will be held on Sunday 13th July 2003 at 2pm at The Colchester
Holiday Inn, Abbots Lane, Eight Ash Green, Stanway, Colchester, Essex. The hotel
is on the A1124 off the A12. Provisionally meets will be at 2pm on the 2nd
Sunday of each month. Come along and help to get our new region established.
South east area organiser Steve Kingsnorth has already promised to turn up and
lend support. Area organisers are Stuart Nolloth and Barry Love.
