Subject: [JAGNUTS] Triumph TransAmerica Tour and Jagnuts

From: "E.A. Driver" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:18:49 -0600

Hi Bob and others:

Here is some information from John Macartney (*PART A)*sent to Scott 
McGibney here in Saskatoon.
Both Scott and I are most definitely coming to Regina to meet with John 
and to participate in part of
his tour.

We would like to encourage the Jagnuts to become involved in this event 
and therefore *PART B* are
some suggestions, primarily from Scott.  This event was raised at the 
last SBCC meeting and received
minimal response. I hope and I am sure Scott would support the 
following, you lads have a
great opportunity to show John some great western Canadian hospitality 
and help out in the
charities which John is very keen  to support.

This e-mail is largely what I hoped to discuss with we at Melrose Place 
North on Sunday morning
as Bob as stated in the "New Jagnut" e-mail of this evening. 

There has been a Link to this event on SBCC calendar since early January .

Kind regards
Ed

*PART A*

Greetings, Gentlemen

... from a cold and far from warm England!

One of the key issues in organising (or trying to organise) an event of 
this magnitude, is that one
very quickly accumulates a raft of email addresses. Unless those 
specific addresses are put in a
separate address book, it means that any message I want to send to all 
of you runs a serious risk of
having some recipients omitted because of the number of them.

I also wanted to take this opportunity of letting you know one or two 
things on communication and
organisation fronts and these are as follows:

1. Many of you will know of or be aware of Glenn Merrell, Chairman of 
the Triumph Stag Club, USA.
Glenn has been a tireless supporter and advocate of the Charity Drive 
since he and I first started
talking about it back in 2007. He is my principal US contact and a very 
good friend. He also has
knowledge of who and where you are - as well as your email addresses. I 
don't normally issue
people's personal details as a point of principle but I know Glenn will 
need to contact you in the
fairly near future with things he needs to say himself, so I hope we 
both have your forebearance and
understanding on that?

2. You are probably aware that since the event website has been 
operational, we have given visitors
to it, the opportunity of keeping themselves informed about event 
developments. They do this by
joining a specially created email list and I periodically send them 
emails telling them what's
happening on the site and related issues to do with the event itself. 
However, this facility is not
a 'catch all' and it's possible that even some of you have not had my 
latest email which was sent to
those subscribers. It went out at the end of last week and advised 
readers that the website now has
full details of where I plan to be in terms of location and date for the 
whole period I am in the
USA and Canada. If you have not seen that latest update, I urge you to 
pay a visit to make sure I've
allotted to correct dates to the correct places!!! If there are any 
mistakes, NOW is the time for me
to attempt to make changes - rather than while I'm driving up the East 
Coast!

3. All of you in one way or another have most kindly offered to host 
either a weekend event or a
weekday evening during this noble TRIUMPH progress across North America, 
and for that generosity,
you have my very grateful and sincere thanks. I'm sure they will all be 
great fun and enjoyable for
all who take part. That said, I am still very mindful of the fact that 
this Drive (which I'm
reliably informed has never been previously attempted for a fundraising 
objective) is to raise money
for non-profits who specialise in the treatment of post-traumatic stress 
disorder. Fundraising by
its very nature can often be time-consuming, requiring a great deal of 
work by those involved - with
sometimes highly disappointing outcomes - and I'm anxious to avoid that 
if we can. I'm sure all of
you know of an organisation called Rotary International? Indeed, there 
may be one or two Rotarians
among you, or you know someone in Rotary? I'm a Rotarian myself and I 
know that Rotary's philosohy
of "Service above Self" is always at the forefront of every Rotarians mind.
It is very clear from the research that Glenn and I have done so far, 
that very strict State and
Province laws apply in both Canada and the US in collecting funds for 
charitable institutions. In
ultra simplistic terms, if you're not a registered non-profit yourself, 
fundraising can be fraught
with difficult legal issues. Rotary, as you will surely be aware, 
fundraises every year for good and
worthy causes throughout the world and for my part, I'd very much like 
to seek the help of Rotary
Clubs in your specific areas if I can. Of course, I can't do this 
without your prior sanction and
I'm most anxious to know if the committee of your club would have any 
problems in working with your
local Rotary Club? Certainly, you would be able to draw on a number of 
very willing helpers but most
important of all, there's a very good possibility that by involving 
Rotary, a number of the legal
issues which normally have to be considered and accommodated, may well 
be able to be legally and
legitimately leap-frogged.
I do need to know your early reaction to this suggestion as I would not 
contact any Rotary Club in
your district unless I had your prior written agreement. Please give 
this question some urgent
thought and if possible, perhaps it could be an agenda item at your next 
committee meeting?

Finally, I want you to know that The Triumph Trans-AmeriCa Charity Drive 
is most certainly not
restricted to just Triumphs taking part. I've worked for most British 
car manufacturers at some time
in my career and obviously the majority under the former British Leyland 
banner. With that in mind,
I'll be delighted to see Austin, Austin Healey, Bentley, MG, Morris, 
Riley, Rolls Royce, Rover
Wolseley, Humber, Hillman, Sunbeam - and all the rest. Of course, it 
would be unkind to exclude
British motorcycles so if you have a neighbouring club with members 
owning Ariel, AJS, Matchless,
Sunbeam, Triumph, Norton, Velocette and all the rest, by all means 
include them! I hope you share my
view that this Charity Drive is a fantastic vehicle (no pun intended) 
for the involvement of local
media (radio, newspapers, TV) and to that extent a Press Release will 
soon be available for download
from the website.

My very best wishes to you all and my very heartfelt thanks for offering 
to involve yourselves as
you have.

Yours sincerely
John Macartney

*PART B*

/This is from Scott to me  discussing the possible role of Jagnuts in 
the Triumphtransamerica tour
/

It's pretty much open to anything they want to do, seeing as it will be
in their back yard. Hopefully something enjoyable for them, us, JohnMac
and anyone in his entourage, and if it can raise some money for the
charity, that would be good too. I dunno, a show and shine, a beer and
babble somewhere (John will doubtless have innumerable past and present
tales)

There's a whole batch of new info on the Triumph TransAmerica website :
http://triumphtransamerica.org.uk/?page_id=3
including some of their fundraising plans - rallyboards, tax discs etc.
Looks like he is planning on being in Regina for at least two evenings
(Wed Sept 2 and Thursday Sept 3) so we might consider a couple of
events, one for the general public and one for just for club people. I
guess it comes down to whatever they are comfortable with doing and
we'll give them whatever support we can.

Scott