South West Tank Club

January 09

 Hi All

First off Happy New Year to you and your families, I hope 2009 will be a great one for you. This is the first South West Tank Club update news letter for the start of the new year. All memberships are in and although we have lost 5 members who have decided not to renew, we now have a total of 22 members, 4 of which are newcomers, so welcome to the new members; you have come on board at an exciting start to the new look club with lots of good things in the pipeline for 2009. I would also like to say a big hi to Pierluigi from Italy who has elected to support the new club by renewing his membership keeping us an international club.
 
I would also like to say a very big thank you to Gill and Mark and all at Armortek for their countinued support of the new club which includes sponsorship for our T-shirts and a continuing stream of updates on their new products and projects; I know I speak for all the club in wishing them all a happy and sucessful new year. I would encourage all members to take some time to visit Armorteks' web site at www.armortek.co.uk, I'm sure you'll find it very informative and tempting! 
 
We are now linked more closely with the UK Tank Club with many of our members wishing to take advantage of our "dual club" offer this year, becoming members of the UK Tank Club and our own club. Marc Ford sorted out a fantastic deal with Robert Bruce, Chairman of the UK Tank Club, which included public liability insurance which will cover us at all our public events as well as all of the usual benefits of being a member of the club including newsletters, web access and events invitations, so well done Marc.
 
Those members who wished to join with the UK Tank Club should be receiving their membership details shortly directly from them and I hope that we will be seeing a lot more of their members at shows and events, and we might even recruit a new member of two into our club from theirs from this new alliance.
 
In addition everyone should shortly receive their South West Tank Club membership packs which Holger informs me include laminated ID cards and car passes as well as access information for the club site at Chudleigh. Holger has also done a brilliant job in sourcing and ordering logoed club t-shirts which look fantastic, I cant wait to see the finished product. Members packs and t-shirts, where ordered, should hopefully be received by the end of January, so that's something to look forward to. Also, for the winter, (and summer season!), Holger hopes to arrange club branded fleeces and hats for the near future. So great work Holger and dont forget Jim wanted tank club boxer shorts ha ha 
 
If you want to order a t-shirt then please get in contact. An email will be coming round shortly with pictures of the finished article.
 
Marc Ford is the new events secretary and I know he is already working hard to ensure that we can continue to show at our favourite events from last year, as well as a number of exciting new events for 2009. Marc has details of all members and hopes to forward out to you all a list of upcoming events available to attend in the coming months, also watch out for these details in further news letters and magazines.
 
The club site in Chudleigh is coming on really well. Jim and Chris have been hard at work making the shed more secure and everyone has pitched in where they can with other work for the benifit of all the club members. For those new members who may not be aware, this site is available for all club members to use to run their tanks over the bridges and obstacles. There is a caravan on site with tea and coffee making facilities and a shed for undercover tinkering. Im sure the site is going to get lots of use this year so cheers Jim and Chris and everyone else involved. Members have been regularly meeting there for informal get togethers and I hope this will continue throughout the year. It would be great if anyone has any get togethers planned to perhaps let other members know, maybe on our website forum so that we can all get to know eachother better. Access codes etc for the site will be arriving in the post with your membership packs.
 
I have made a new club website http://www.freewebs.com/southwesttankclubuk/  please all do visit the site and log on and register with the forums etc so that we can all keep in touch. It would be great to use it as another source of information on what's happening within the club, particularly so that members who perhaps live a bit further away who can't get to the shows or sites quite as regularly, are kept up to speed with what's going on. I hope that it can also be developed to include sales and wants to give club members 1st refusal on surplus equipment, also it would be great to include pictures of your tanks and builds, pictures from shows, reviews, events information, advice and assistance etc etc to make it a really informative, well rounded site and a good recruitment tool for potential new members.
 
We hope to shortly upgrade the website to give it's own searchable domain name. If anyone has any knowledge of developing websites or if anyone is interested in taking on the development of the site I would be pleased to hear from you. Also if any members have any photos or other content they'd like to add, for now please email it to me and I will upload it. Thanks.
 
I hope to begin work on the next club magazine shortly, but please bear with me, this is very new to me and not something i've attempted before, but my proof reader/wife is being very patient in helping me out, so we can blame her if it's wrong!. Finally, if any members have anything they would like included in the magazine ie new model releases, tips on builds and how their builds are coming along, model reviews etc, Please feel free to email details or proofs and I will include them; after all it's your magazine and all help is appreciated.
 
Hope to see you all soon at the site and our events.
 
Happy New Year!

Many Thanks

Stuart Holden
Membership Secretary 

Dear Members
 
February is here and the season has gotten off to a great start at Yeovilton Fleet Air Museum. The show was a dedicated model show and featured a large number of stands from both model clubs and traders alike. There were also scheduled flying displays throughout the day. Our numbers were in double figures with club attendees from both the South West Tank Club and the Plymouth Armour Crew and we boasted a great range of models for people to look at. Also featured were our promotional Armortek goodies and for the first time ever, a sea of very smart South West Tank Club T-Shirts, pictures attached. Please also see the website www.southwesttankclub.com for pictures of the show, if you have more photos please send them to me and I will upload them.
 
It was also a great event for getting to know the UK Tank club and a number of other 1/6th and 1/16th collectors clubs, who we hope we will be able to meet up with again and work more closely with in the future.
 
As I have mentioned T-shirts I'll expand further. The club has paid for a number of branded T-Shirts as a promotional tool. They're really eye-catching and colourful and were very well designed - well done Holger. If you haven't already got yours they're available for £7.50 and are available either with a front logo only, or with a front and back design, as in the picture. There are a range of sizes, S, M, L, XL and XXL but some sizes are running low so get in quick. We also hope to sell these t-shirts to non members and at shows, at a slighlty higher price, to generate some revenue for the club.
 
In addition Holger has also designed some cloth patches to sew onto your fleeces/jackets/hats, these will be available from Holger in the near future at a cost of £2.50, picture attached.
 
It would be great to see everyone co-ordinated in some way wearing a representation of the club as I think it looks very smart and professional and there's certainly a pride in showing that you're representing such a great club in this way. Please contact Holger directly to place your order, or see him at the next show.
 
Following on from this the next club events are a Plymouth Armour Crew event at Liskeard Community College, the 28th Feb to the 1st March, then next up the South West Tank Club stand at the South West Model Engineering Show at the Bath and West Show Ground, 18th & 19th April. All members welcome to both events, it will be great to see as many members and tanks as possible.
 
For information on our up-coming events you'll find that our website www.southwesttankclub.com has now been fully updated with a list of proposed events for the year. If you visit the "Events and Activities" page you'll see that Mark has kindly developed a spread sheet with full details on the events including, date, time, place, indoors/outdoors, camping, dogs allowed etc. Thanks very much Mark; please can members make sure they regularly check the website for updates. If you don't have internet access, don't panic, events information will be contained in the newsletters on a month by month basis.
 
That brings me on nicely to the website. As you will know we are now a fully functioning dot com and the plan is the make the website a great resource for both members and non members alike, and to use it as a recruitment tool into the club. I'm going to be working on the website over the next couple weeks to upload more of our pictures from the shows as well as developing some member profiles and making a few other tweaks, so prepare to have your photo taken at an upcoming event!
 
Please, Please, Please do use the website and log into the forums and make the site work. Only a few people have registered so far but it would be much better if everyone who is able to registers to encourage other members to join and show the full strength of our club. To log in to the forum, visit the website, go to the forum, open up one of the heading links e.g. "General Discussion", then open up one of the posts already there by one of the members. You'll then see a link at the bottom which says "You must login to post", if you click on the word "login" you'll find the option to either sign in or SIGN UP. Choose sign up and you can create your own profile and start posting! Please do use the website, it costs the club money host it and if it's not well used then we will have to take it down next year.
 
Following my letter at the end of last year regarding membership. We have been through the records held by the previous membership secretary and have found it a bit of a challenge to work out the most up to date information. If you think that you owed a rebate from last years membership fees paid to the Devon Remote Control Military Vehicle Club please send your 2008/09 membership card to myself or Holger and we can process the necessary refund from that knowing that the information is more likely to be correct than our spreadsheets. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
In other news the club site is coming on in leaps and bounds and I'm pleased to say is being used regularly by our members to get together, run tanks, make plans and all work together to improve what we have. Just to re-iterate what I've said previously, the club site is available for all members to use; so please do so. 

General trends have seen members frequenting the site at weekends, could I ask that if you're planning on going down perhaps you could just put a note on the forum, then a few others will hopefully join in and drop by. It is hoped that as the summer months arrive and the weather gets a bit more pleasant that perhaps we might be able to have a few social events at the site e.g. a bbq for members and their families and friends.
 
In the caravan on site you'll find tea and coffee, a stove and a selection of biscuits. If you use the facilities please make a small contribution to the tea fund each time you visit the site e.g. £1, to cover the costs of petrol for the generator, gas and tea/coffee/milk. Thanks
 
Now I move on to one or two requests for assistance:
 
1. Chris Williams is looking for helpers to build flat packed buildings to create outdoor scenes at our displays. If you have a few spare minutes and some old bits of wood lying around then please don't throw them out, stick some emulsion over them, draw on a window or two, attach a stand to the back and that's all we need. You don't need to produce a work of art, Chris just needs a few extra pairs of hands to produce buildings (bomded out or otherwise), which can be flat packed and then stood up for use in our displays. If you can help please contact Chris to let him know, see his message on the forum for further information.
 
2. I am looking for members to send in any pictures of their tanks, whether it's in the build stages, paint stages or fully completed to put onto the website. I want to make it as interesting a possible and give everyone a chance to show off their models to the world at large and of course to show potential new tank owners and club members what they are missing. If you have any photos of your models that you're happy to have put on the website please email them to me at stuthewoo@hotmail.co.uk
 
3. Secondly I am looking for a helping hand to work on the magazine. The magazine has always been a great asset to this club and it is something that we hoped to continue as a new group, however having volunteered to take it on I'm finding that actually I don't have as much time to commit to it as I thought I would have and so feel that it is best to share the load a little bit and see if someone else would like to take it on. I've sent an email out to members to see if anyone has got any ideas and have had some positive feedback. It has been suggested that perhaps it would work better if the magazine was shared between an editorial team of at least two, and that to lessen the work load perhaps we could approach our sister clubs, for example the UK Tank Club, to provide us with some articles on some of the shows they have attended. This way we get a wider range of reports on a greater number of shows and a chunk of the magazine gets done with very little work required on the part of the editor. I am still looking for volunteers to write and produce the magazine so please get in touch with me if you can help. The magazine is a quarterly supplement, so if you have a few spare hours every three months to just put an article together, either about one of the shows you have attended, or a general interest story related to the club, or maybe a historical feature on a tank, or some pictures or jokes or letters, anything that might be of interest to the other members, please let me know and we can sort out including it into the magazine. It's only a couple hours work on a members behalf, so if you can spare this time, please do so that we can continue to produce and circulate the magazine.
 
If you aren't too hot on computers don't let that put you off, you can post hand written articles to me and Rachael will type them up in no time at all, so please don't be afraid to pen a piece and forward it on. Please also remember where possible to take your cameras to our shows and snap some pictures so that they can be shared.
 
I think that's about it for this months news letter, hope to see you all very soon at one of our upcoming events. Please keep in touch.
 
Regards
 
Stu

March 2009 Newsletter

Hi all and welcome to the next installment of the South West Tank Club newsletter.

This month has been a reasonably quiet month with respect to show attendance but never the less there is still quite a bit of news to update you all with.

Our only show this month was at the very beginning, a Plymouth Armour Crew event which South West Tank Club members also attended at Liskeard.

Taking advantage of a quiet weekend Marc Ford and I and our ever patient wives went on a day trip/recce of a model show at Weston-Super-Mare held at Locking Castle on the 7th March. The event was held in a community centre setting and was attended by a large number of model clubs from around Wales and the West as well as a small collection of the usual traders. The show was well attended by the public and certainly was crammed full of table top displays of all sorts of models from tanks to trains, boats and submarines, planes and helicoptors to name a small selection. The show featured mainly 1/16th and smaller scale models although there were a few 1/6th tanks and trains to be found. On the whole it was a lovely show however we concluded that it would not be suitable as a potential for our next years event calender due to the tightly packed conditions and lack of space for us to drive around in. Mark and I both agreed that the custodians of the beautifully kept gymnasium floor would probably not appreciate it being ruined by tank tracks...

In more local news, this weekend saw a huge effort by a group of willing helpers at the club site to help move it along to becoming a club site and proving ground we can all be proud of. Thanks to Holger, Marc, Barry D, Ian, Gary, Dave O and especially to Jim, who having worked all night went without sleep until caught napping in the caravan at four o clock when we finally convinced him to down tools and go home; everyone worked tirelessly yesterday (Sat 21) to make improvements at the site. The lads worked really hard landscaping the ground, adding in tunnels and features to make driving around that bit more fun, laying gravel on the drive way in and working in the shed to build a toilet facility and create storage for tools and building materials. A great days work with lovely weather to boot. I was on hand to capture the progress on camera and you can see the results on the website.

A special thanks also to Dave Offiler who has very kindly agreed to buy the club a new wheelbarrow to help shift soil and sand around the ground as work continues.

This month the club welcomes two new members - Graham Ord and Dave Pengelly, who some may have already met at the Liskeard show. This brings our total membership up to a very respectable 24 members. I will update our contacts form now that I have Graham and Dave's membership forms and will forward it out to you all in due course. Please ensure that the old contacts form is destroyed securely.

Sticking with membership for a moment, those members who have not yet visited the site will not have received your car pass and membership cards, these will be forwarded to you in the post in the next couple of weeks.

T-Shirts are also still available to members but are selling out fast. As you will know there are two different designs, the front logo only t-shirt and the front and rear design t-shirt (see last months newsletter and/or website for photos). All sizes are still available in the front only design at a cost of £7.50 to members, however in the dual design we no longer have any large size remaining, please refrain from making comments ;-), however all other sizes S - XXL are still available and priced at £8.50 to members. Please note new stock will be ordered but on an order only basis and if the t-shirts are posted to you postage and packing will be extra according to Royal Mail prices. Patches are now made up and available from Holger for £2.50 each and they look very smart indeed.

Following last months appeal Allan Webster has done some great work in beginning to piece together the first issue of our magazine. He's established contacts with other model groups who have agreed to submit reports on a regular basis and has come up with some great inspiration for regular features, a huge thank you for Allan for the work which he has already done, however please please please if you are able to offer your support, even if it's only on an ab-lib basis please get in touch and let us know, many hands make light work etc etc

The website is constantly being updated; latest to feature are some more photographs from the club site so that you can all see the progress as it continues, I've also begun the members profiles and you'll see some familiar faces now appearing in the "Our Members" section. I hope to eventually get everyone's picture up as I see you at shows and at the ground so you have been warned... Just a quick note to say that photos are best viewed using the slide show feature otherwise the width of the photograph dosen't seem to be fully shown and you won't get the best effect.

Finally the next upcoming event which we're all very much looking forward to is the South West Model Engineering Show at the Bath and West Show ground, Shepton Mallet. Please if you are attending and haven't already done so, contact Marc Ford to let him know to expect you and to provide details of your vehicles registration. There is overnight camping and certainly it seems that a number of members are intending to stay up there and I'm sure there will be a few drinks of a Saturday night for anyone who wants to come out. I hope it will be well attended and it will be great to see everyone again.

That's it for this month, if you have any comments, suggestions or queries please feel free to get in touch. From now on I'll post new stuff on the website without emailing everyone to let them know as I know this clogs up inbox's unnecessarily. It's been pleasing to see several members sign up to use the forums etc on our website but please if you haven't done so already, do create an account so that you don't miss out on anything important. Members without email addresses I will continue to post to as per usual.

Thanks everyone

Stu