Since our last Committee News, we have enjoyed the Skittles & Buffet evening, which was great fun as always, and Sandra’s buffet was delicious.

Sadly Noggin Nosh & Natter in July was a complete washout with rain starting mid-afternoon and getting heavier and heavier as the evening progressed.  Thank you to those of you who did brave the elements to bring a vehicle and generously buy a churn raffle ticket, which made £64 for the club and an equal amount for the winner.

The Historic Bus Ride in August was a great success, made even better by the beautiful weather.  Chris has written an article about the day which you will find in the following pages so we will not say more here, just that we are planning a similar trip again next year.

In September David Jones a member from the Black Country made the journey down to give us a talk entitled “On Solid Tyres”.  It was interesting to see so many different types of vehicles with solid tyres.

Our membership of the National Association of Road Transport Museums (NARTM) was renewed in August.  Obviously we do not have a museum as such but do consider ourselves a moving museum of sorts.

As we write this we are looking forward in October to “Seaside Railways” followed by “West Country Railways” by Mike Webber.  Then November’s meeting will be a talk entitled “Fields, Fergies & Fairs” by member Derek Olden.

To round off the year we are looking forward to our club Christmas Lunch with a change of date to Sunday and at a new venue, The Royal Chase Hotel, Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8DB (on the A30).  Lunch will be a “served carvery” with pre-ordered meat served to you with a choice of vegetables on the tables to help yourself to.

There will be no meeting in January 2024 so we start the New Year with the Gillingham Gathering on Sunday 25^th February 2024, closely followed by the Annual General Meeting on 28^th February 2024.

It is with great sadness that we start this committee news by reporting that our Treasurer for the last 19 years, John Loud, died suddenly and unexpectedly in May.  John spent most of his working life in banking and after taking early retirement spent 15 years as a Land Train driver at Center Parcs, Longleat.  He became CTP Treasurer in July 2004 and has been a valued member of the committee since then.  He prepared regular Interim Financial updates of expenditure and income for the committee and John enjoyed being part of our group and in turn we enjoyed his company as well as his expertise.  John was also a lifelong Bristol Rovers supporter.  Four CTP committee members attended his funeral service at the Minster Church in Warminster, which was well attended with a substantial representation of his footballing friends. He will be greatly missed. R.I.P. John.

We are in the fortunate position of having an existing committee member who also spent many years in banking, 38 years in fact.  This is Malcolm Hitchings who has agreed to take on the role of Treasurer as well as his existing position of Vice Chair.

Since our last Committee News, we have enjoyed the March and April indoor meetings at which there was a small increase in numbers attending.

At the beginning of April, we held the Spring Road Run.  There were 24 entries with 19 taking to the road on the day, following a route through the Mendips.

This year instead of the May Quiz Night and following last Autumn’s successful Coach Trip we planned a Spring Coach Trip to Dingles Fairground Museum but sadly this had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers.  The committee work hard to organise events for members to enjoy and so it is disappointing to have to cancel them so we would appreciate your feed-back with suggestions of anything you might prefer.  We are currently planning the Autumn Coach Trip for October to go to Brooklands where there have been many changes & additions since the last club trip there in 2012.

Our membership of the FBHVC (Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs) was renewed in June with the subscription held at the same level as the last four years. The FBHVC exists to maintain our freedom to use “Yesterday’s Vehicles on Tomorrow’s Roads” and represents over 500 clubs with about 250,000 enthusiasts participating.

As we write this we are looking forward to a fun Skittles & Buffet evening at the Harlequins Football Social Club on Wednesday 28^th June and Noggin, Nosh & Natter at The George Inn, Longbridge Deverill on Wednesday 26^th July, and of course our new event on Tuesday 22^nd August the Historic Bus Ride.

In September 2022 we had an evening of members’ photos of the Bournemouth to Bath Road Run providing an enjoyable nostalgic evening when we viewed 250 of the 500 photographs, so there are plenty left for a future occasion! Thank you to everyone who contributed.

The Autumn Coach trip to the SS Great Britain was well supported and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day, which despite the torrential rain in the early morning turned into a bright sunny day in Bristol.

The October meeting “Accidents that changed our Railways” and the November meeting “Halley VI” about the British Antarctic Survey science station both contained many interesting facts.

Thirty of us enjoyed the Christmas Lunch at The George Inn at Longbridge Deverill which this year was at lunchtime rather than in the evening, which proved to be a popular change and a nice start to Christmas.

There was not a meeting in January and the February meeting, the AGM, will take place on Wednesday 1^st March due to another pre-booked event at the Rugby Club on our normal last Wednesday of the month.

The Gillingham Gathering will be the first main event of the year on the last Sunday of February. Please note and spread the word to any non-members you know who usually attend, that Entry Forms (available to download from the website) are required this year due to the likely shortage of parking spaces.

In future years we will not have a January meeting, but we will be putting in an extra meeting in August, which this year will be a ride on an historic bus with a stop for lunch. Details still to be confirmed.

Another change from next year is that there will not be a January mailing, but instead the diary card etc. will be sent out with the February Bulletin to save money on the ever-increasing postage costs.

Your committee would welcome your feedback on the planned changes and indeed on any other items.

We are pleased to report that the two forthcoming events mentioned in August both went well.

The Skittles evening was great fun with a splendid buffet produced for us by Committee Member Sandra.

Noggin, Nosh & Natter was wonderful as always although we did miss Sheila’s barbeque, but of course we understand her decision to retire and would like to take this opportunity to thank her for all her hard work over the years. We would also like to mention and thank the marshalling team as this event requires a considerable number of marshals and although several regulars were unavailable for various reasons several new marshals stepped up and did a great job. We also wish to remember Dave Ede who had been a marshal at this event for many years who sadly passed away in August.

Our membership of the National Association of Road Transport Museums (NARTM) was renewed in August. NARTM is the representative body for organisations or individuals with collections of historic buses, coaches and goods vehicles who wish to make their collections accessible to the public. It represents the majority of UK road transport collections and has just under 100 members with more than 3000 historic vehicles in their collections.

Although as a club CTP does not have a collection of vehicles we feel it is still appropriate as our member’s vehicles go to make up a moving collection and we are obviously interested in seeing museums and collections of commercial vehicles continue to thrive.

Early September saw the Autumn Road Run and we were lucky with the weather as although some vehicles came through quite heavy rain to get to the start it was dry at the Livestock Market and all the way around the route. The number of vehicle entrants booked in was 25 but only 18 made it on the day. There was a diverse and interesting selection, which included a Southern Vectis double decker and an AEC Merlin Bus.

As we write this we are looking forward in September to an evening of member’s photos of the Bournemouth to Bath Road Run and the Autumn Coach Trip to the SS Great Britain on 23^rd October.

The October & November meetings, which at the beginning of the year were still “details to be announced” have been confirmed as:

October: Accidents that changed our Railways and November: Halley VI which is about the British Antarctic Survey science station.

This year following feedback we have decided to change the time for the Christmas meal, moving it to midday. We hope this may help more of you to attend as we look forward to being able to celebrate Christmas a little early with you.

In May we were looking forward to the Spring Road Run and we are pleased to say that 35 vehicles entered, although for various reasons only 30 of them made it on the day. This was the largest entry for many years and an unofficial target that Mary has been hoping to reach so she was delighted. The weather was lovely for the first run on a new route through the Mendips, which had been originally planned for 2020.

We have also been able to resume face to face committee meetings in Salisbury, which make it easier to discuss items, thanks to Tesco Extra who allow us the use of their Community Room, free of charge.

The April social meeting went well despite our having to find a late replacement for the scheduled speaker who was unable to make it for health reasons. The replacement speaker’s talk “A Celebration of Trams” was very interesting and well received by members present.

Unfortunately, the May Quiz Night and Buffet was cancelled due to lack of numbers so we will be having a rethink for next year.

Our membership of the FBHVC (Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs) was renewed in June. The FBHVC exists to maintain our freedom to use Yesterday’s Vehicles on Tomorrow’s Roads and represents over 500 clubs with about 250,000 enthusiasts participating.

As we write this we are looking forward to a fun Skittles & Buffet evening at the Harlequins Football Social Club on 29^th June and the Noggin, Nosh & Natter at The George Inn, Longbridge Deverill on Wednesday 27^th July. This event will be making a welcome return after a two-year break and we are hoping for decent weather, a good turnout of vehicles and to see lots of you there.

In February we spoke of our hope that the planned AGM in January would be able to go ahead as Covid cases were on the rise again.  We are glad to report that it did go ahead, although understandably with only a few members present and precautions in place.  Minutes of the AGM are printed in the May Bulletin but we would highlight that the committee has not changed much with Mary taking over as Chair and Malcolm filling the position of Vice-Chair.  Other officers remain unchanged.

The February social meeting went ahead although still with only small numbers in attendance.  However the new speaker for the March meeting attracted a larger number of members, who were not disappointed by the evening.  Richard Skinner of Tudor Wheels in Cadnam gave a fascinating and fun talk about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, from its origin as a racing car at Brooklands to stardom in the well-known film of the same name.  As Richard has some other talks we will be seeing him again.

Unfortunately the Gillingham Gathering could not go ahead after all but we are hopeful for its return in 2023.

As we write this report it is only a few days before the Spring Road Run will take place and we have an entry field of 26 vehicles.  This is especially heartening when one considers the cost of fuel now-a-days. Watch out for a report on the Road Run and hopefully some photos in the August Bulletin.

There is now a new CTP Facebook page, which is clearly marked as NEW.   There is not a great deal on it yet but do visit and take care to go to the new page not the old one, which was hacked.

IMPORTANT WARNING about CTP Facebook Page

We are sorry to have to advise you that John Pomeroy’s Facebook profile has been hacked and he has lost control of it.  This means the hacker has control of; CTP Facebook Page and CTP Messenger App.  Also the Facebook Page ‘Friends Bournemouth Bath Run’.

Do Not reply to any Facebook posts appearing to come from John Pomeroy.

Do Not answer any Messenger messages from CTP.

Do Not post or reply to anything on the CTP Facebook Page.

I’m glad to say that John’s normal BT email is unaffected and the CTP website is unaffected also.

We are sorry to have to start the New Year with some disappointing news about two of our regular events.

The Gillingham Gathering planned for 27th February 2022 will not now go ahead.

The Weekend Trip to Cumbria planned for April 27th to May 2nd will also not go ahead.

We hope to be able to bring back both of these events in 2023.

We do expect to be able to hold the Spring Road Run on 03 April 2022 on a new route, which was originally planned for 2020.

At the AGM on 26th January Geoff is stepping down from being Chairman, a position he has held since 2014, and we would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all the Members to thank him for his hard work over the years. Geoff will remain on the Committee and will continue to do pieces for the Bulletin and set the monthly quiz questions. Again many thanks Geoff.

New venue for 2021 indoor meetings: Salisbury Rugby Club, Stewards Bungalow, Castle Road, Salisbury SP1 3SA
7.30 for 8.00pm
For Information see Diary Dates or contact Geoff 01725 2388135 or Chris 01722 325429

At its AGM on Sunday 2nd March 2014 retiring Chairman John Pomeroy was honoured by the membership making him Honorary Lifetime President of Commercial Transport in Preservation

He was presented with a framed collaged of photos and an Albion badge mounted on a wooden plaque; a gift from the Committee and Membership in appreciation of his dedication to the club over many years.