JDCC  President's Report  September 2011

Fellow JDCC Members,

The September club meeting marks the end of the club year and the beginning of the next when we hold the Annual General Meeting on the same night. This year sees a number of club committee members leaving after long terms of contributing to the running of our club. These departing committee members are Alan Green (our editor); Jim Cullen (our Treasurer); and Paul Sutton (our Vice President – as well as an assortment of other roles). I should not omit Craig Harris (our Social Secretary) from this list of departing committee members as he took on the role of organising our social activities over the past year. In this he brought his organisational skills to the fore and I don’t think we have ever been so organised on our club outings before.

It will be disappointing to see these club members leave their committee roles as they not only contributed to the work of the committee and willingly took on additional tasks as part of the National Rally, but they also added to the harmony of the committee and Rally teams. It was a pleasure to share the workload with these members. However, we must look to the future and I hope to see their committee positions filled at the next meeting.

This time of the year prompts some reflection on the committee’s activities over the past year. The main event for the club was the holding of the National Rally in Canberra which from the accounts that I noted was well received by the participants. This was particularly rewarding given that our club is the smallest by a large margin of those in the national Jaguar club fraternity that host annual rallies. In addition the club committee maintained an active role in both the Australian Council of Jaguar Clubs (ACJC) and the Council of ACT Motor Clubs. More details of these activities will be presented at the next meeting.

Within our club, one recent change has been the move to a new domain name for the club website. It is now which will be a useful reference for the future. This change was prompted by the departure of Alan Green from the committee scene and the need for both a new webmaster and a separate domain name. For many years we have been the beneficiary of Alan Green’s generosity who established our club website as part of his private website. The changed domain name was effected by Jon Smillie in his new role as the club webmaster. Jon put his hand up for this non-committee position and we are very appreciative of his assistance.

During the past month I attended a meeting of the Australian Council of Jaguar clubs in Sydney that covered a number of topics including issues surrounding the National Rally Concours event. This focused on the difficulties of judging old and new cars together. As a club we had earlier lodged a submission in response to the proposed changes to the concours judging sheets questioning the merits of the proposal and urging caution before the issues had been fully explored. Most clubs responded on much the same lines as we did with little enthusiasm for the proposed model of multiple sheets for a variety of models. The outcome was that there will be an attempt to simplify the judging sheets for circulation to clubs for comment and for consideration at the February 2012 ACJC meeting. My view is that it would be a lot simpler to do away with the outright trophy as this would remove many of the current problems.

As a committee we reported to this ACJC meeting on the outcome of the 2011 National Rally and made some recommendations as a result. While there were no questions about our report, there will be changes made to the National Rally Manual to resolve some of the issues that we identified. For the Concours d’Etat event these include removing tool kits and manuals from judging and allowing window stickers and E tag holders but with deductions for number plate frames. Basically all cars in the d’Etat event are broadly expected to be presented as manufactured - for example the spare wheel needs to be present, where applicable. The wording of this latter aspect is yet to be finalised.

We heard from Kevin Goult (Brand Manager - Jaguar from Jaguar Land Rover Australia) who is looking forward to 2012 with the number of Jaguar models in prospect. (If the motoring journals are to be believed there is a sportscar on its way – a successor to the E Type?) He mentioned a new XF model already on sale in the northern hemisphere as well as a new four cylinder 2.2 litre diesel XF now on sale for $A83k drive away - apparently it drives well and the Freelander engine has been modified for Jaguar use to ensure that it performs suitably and is (relatively) quiet. There will be 40 new Land Rover and Jaguar models released over the next 5 years at a total investment of 5 billion pounds - a big show by Tata.

The National Rally in 2013 will be hosted by the NSW club and will be held in Wollongong. However, there is some concern about the future of the location of the 2014 Rally as the currently scheduled host club (SA) is currently not planning to hold either a concours event or a sporting event. This would not conform to the National Rally requirements and would raise questions about future Rally support. The issue, as they say, is under active consideration.

Our next club meeting is scheduled to be held on Tuesday 6 September and will include our Annual General Meeting. Apart from reporting on the year’s activities, the AGM is the opportunity for members to have a greater say in club matters and to become more actively involved in the club through volunteering to undertake one of the committee positions. Please think about this.

Cheers
LR