Nothing much to do on a very wet afternoon when I came across this snippet from 'another club'
[i]The 25th anniversary AGM provided some major ructions. Most comittee posts were unopposed formalities, and saw the election of a Northern oik with designs on world domination to the Northern Rally Organiser position. Step forward one Gary Brook. Once all the other positions were sorted except for BMF Liaison (vacant), there was a "leadership contest" for the Chairman's job which would do justice to any political party. Chris Bushell opposed Jilly Penegar for the post, and both gave speeches in support of their position, and their views of the future of the DOC. They then left the room as votes were cast (the only time I can ever remember such an occurance) whereupon Jilly won the vote, and was duly re-elected. Chris Bushell accepted the post of Events Officer, where it was thought that some of his ideas could be put into practice effectively, and giving him the cance to "prove himself". At this though, a couple other comittee members chucked their teddies out of the pram and resigned from the posts they had only just been elected into, and left to the sound of stamping of tiny feet! The upshot of all this was that we had to elect a new Secretary and Membership Sec (again). When the smoke cleared we had Keith Ringle in the Secretary's job, and Tanya Chambers took on Membership Secretary. One of Keith's first actions was to set up an email address for himself as
secretary@docgb.org, the first use of the DOC's eventual URL. Keith also set up the DOC List, replacing V-Mail, and which is still doing sterling service today.
After all this, the job of getting Giancarlo Falappa, Micaela & Julia (from the newly launched, factory sponsored, DDOC) Steve Wynne and Mick Walker to be guests at our 25th Anniversary Dinner (November 1999) was a positive piece of cake. 1999 also saw the launch of Ducati UK, and at the end of the year, Mike Dean's considered and thoughtful response to Chris Bushell's earlier open letter was published in Desmo no.133. By the publication of Desmo no.136 early in 2000, Chris had resigned as Events bloke, apparently due to "work comitments". As the new millenium dawned, we had 27 branches, 1700 members, and a turnover of some £40,000. And according to some people, this is a crappy club!
Unfortunately, the schism at the end of 1999 turned out to be the launch pad for another entry into the galaxy of Ducati clubs, as those with a sporting bent set up a new club apparently only interested in the newer bikes, which, of course, we are too.[i]
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