@Ian1evs - just to tick this off the list,
@Elementian and
@Lisa-Marie are the Wales Club Reps. They organise meets and events in Wales and surrounding area. From what I know of our Welsh brotheren. they are all extremely friendly and welcoming, and have always been a big part of any event I've been to where we've been together.
@Rob Whitton - not wanting to travel is a perfectly acceptable reason for not attending shows. It's nice that we have the North East Car Show now so that we have at least one show a year that isn't half a day's travel away! I appreciate that some people just don't want to drive that far for something they are not really interested in.
@Tim C - As with Ian1evs, speak to Elementian and Lisa-Marie. They do small mini meets in your area, and will be a great way for you to meet an exceptional group of people who go above and beyond to make people feel welcome. Do not feel any pressure to have to attend the big events, we don't want that. But what we do want is for local members to build up relationships. It's not just good for the club, it's great for the members. Elementian is really really handy with spanners, for example, and meeting him might help you with any worries/gripes you might have with your Elgrand.
@Memphisto - do not worry about the standard of your car. My last E50 was a dog. Rusty, dented, scratched, paintwork was shit... you could see it had a hard life. But I made the most of it, and showed it off regardless. I don't want anyone to think they're car is not up to scratch. They say the camera never lies, but with a car, you can make pretty much anything look like a show car in the right setting with a good photo. So don't compare what you have to others based on what you see in pictures. Participation is more important than what you have. There is no competition.
And as a final note to everyone. I know that probably 90% of the people in this club have no interest in car shows. They are here for help with their car. A lot of those people love the banter and will get stuck in socially via the forum/Facebook but don't want to take time out of their lives to attend shows and events.
I am not trying to pressure anyone to get out to shows and events. What I want is to help those people who WANT to go, but aren't going for one reason or another. If anyone suffers with social anxiety, but wants to attend a meet, drop me a message and we can talk about it. If you just don't know what to expect, ask and we'll give you as much information as possible.
I want to make things as easy and stress free as possible. Getting together at meets/events is not about the show. It's not about the cars to a degree. For me, it's about the people. Getting to put faces to names. Making friendships. Getting to know more about your car from someone you speak to who has had theirs longer, or has found something that you didn't know about.
Face to face communication is so much more than a forum/social media can ever be. I don't write about everything I do in my Elgrand... yet someone at a meet might look at something on mine and say "how did you do that"... and I'll tell them. It's probably something really small that I didn't even think of... but it just caught someone else's attention.
As I said... if we can get more people attending regular local small meets and events... then more people are likely to develop a WANT to go to shows. Some of you sat here reading this may be thinking "I'd never want to do that"... but after meeting some local members, and finding out how much fun you can have, and how much knowledge you can gain, you might start to see that in fact, you do want to go to a show. You might go home and think "that was a nice day, I'd do it again, but I don't want to do a show"... and that's fine.
If you don't want to do anything at all, that's fine too. But meeting other members face to face has a long list of benefits.