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Steve Walton

MK1 -5 Club has folded !!

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I received a letter from the MK1-5 Club today. I tried to scan and insert it but it was a pdf file and wouldn't allow me to post it. So I have copied and pasted it.

A great shame but like other members I was not in position time wise to offer any help with running the club. Also I think it has a lottle to do with the age of the Cortina owners.

 

The Official Cortina Owners Club Mkl-5, P100 & Modified

www.mkl -5 cortinaownersclub.co.uk

 

July 2020

Important Club Announcement

A letter was sent to all members back in January explaining that without further support from members, the Club would be dissolved at the end of the financial year on the 31't March 2020.

 

It has regretfully come to that situation where the Club has been faced with no other alternative but to take this action. Therefore, sadly after 31 years the Mk1-5 Cortina Owners Club has now ceased to operate.

 

The Club's rules state that in this situation any assets of the Club should go to other organisations with similar objectives to ours. With this in mind, the Committee has agreed that a1l monies will be divided between the Mkl, Mkll and IVIk111 Cortina Owners Clubs.

 

Finally, the Club would like to thank all who have supported the Club in the past and wish everyone well for the future

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Sad news this... after 30years.

 

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Sad to see any club go but as was mentioned there are more older members of a lot of classic car clubs than younger members . There will come a time when a lot of clubs will struggle/fold .

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Yep I was the 12th person to join back in 89, been an area rep since the late 90's.

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What did you do to it? :ohmy::wink:

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The club struggled in recent years on several fronts and has suffered ultimately from a lack of interest. I think it was a self-fulfilling downward spiral:

 

  • more people using free social media sites to organize meets and discuss cars
  • a number of area reps with zero input
  • little content provided for club magazines/newsletters
  • a decision to move away from the founding principles of all Cortinas to concentrate on the 4/5
  • replacing a long-standing member/chairman with a new chairman who ultimately didn't have time to run the club

 

Once you are providing less to the members, less members are interested, and less interested members mean the club continued to provide less, so on and so on.

 

I wasn't a member for as long as Craig but it was part of my car social scene in the NW for just shy of 20 years.  I personally handed my notice in as membership secretary on September 1st 2019 as I couldn't justify my involvement in processing membership fees from members when they were not getting what they subscribed to. It was a moral standpoint that also hammered another nail in the coffin lid as no-one else would volunteer for the role.

 

It was written into the club rules when founded that should the club fold all monies held in the bank had to be donated to like-minded registered clubs, hence the decision to donate to the 1, 2, and 3 registered clubs.  I should also point out that this decision was actioned purely by the chairman and treasurer, with no other members of the committee (of which there are several who use BSC) involved whatsoever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I sent an article last year that I'd planed to be a series of 3 possibly 4 that I was told was great just what was needed but for some reason was never used so, I didn't write the next as there was no point until it had been featured.

The first 2 parts will now be used else where unfortunately they will probably have no use for the final part/s.

Now I'm no Conan Doyle but I'm passionate about cortinas & I think the project would've been interesting as It covered a little known/uncovered area re the MK3/4/5 versions.

Perhaps it can be posted here once the first half has been published in another clubs magazine.

Which I left along time ago as I didn't feel it was right to be an area rep ( plus a registrar & tech adviser) in the club & be a member in a similar one make club.

I've always thought that it would be beneficial if there was a sort of umbrella ford club (similar to the MG owners club) that could push classic fords in the media/parts  world as many fords built in the same decade share parts, thus remanufacturing these items would be easier/cheaper due to the combined numbers,  ie the Ind stalk & combined light/wiper stalk was used from 74 to 84ish in facelift MK3/4/5 Cortina,mk2 escort,MK3 Capri,mk2 Granada, plus MK1 fiesta with shorter levers & mk2 transit with longer levers.

As far as I know no one remakes these .

Similarly number plate lights MK4/5 Cortina,mk2 escort etc.

Exterior door handle MK3 Cortina,MK1 Granada,mk2 escort,mk2/3 Capri.

Exterior door handle MK4/5,MK1 fiesta,mk2 Granada etc.

To name a few.

 

Surely there's a market with the popularity of fords, there are 4 magazines for them on the book shelves fast ford, performance ford, classic ford,retro ford!

Will Holman editor of PPC mag told me some years ago that at practical classics mag that any editon that had a ford on the cover always showed a marked increase in sales.

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I was only joking. :mellow:

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13 hours ago, sheffieldcortinacentre said:

I sent an article last year that I'd planed to be a series of 3 possibly 4 that I was told was great just what was needed but for some reason was never used so, I didn't write the next as there was no point until it had been featured.

The first 2 parts will now be used else where unfortunately they will probably have no use for the final part/s.

Now I'm no Conan Doyle but I'm passionate about cortinas & I think the project would've been interesting as It covered a little known/uncovered area re the MK3/4/5 versions.

Perhaps it can be posted here once the first half has been published in another clubs magazine.

Which I left along time ago as I didn't feel it was right to be an area rep ( plus a registrar & tech adviser) in the club & be a member in a similar one make club.

I've always thought that it would be beneficial if there was a sort of umbrella ford club (similar to the MG owners club) that could push classic fords in the media/parts  world as many fords built in the same decade share parts, thus remanufacturing these items would be easier/cheaper due to the combined numbers,  ie the Ind stalk & combined light/wiper stalk was used from 74 to 84ish in facelift MK3/4/5 Cortina,mk2 escort,MK3 Capri,mk2 Granada, plus MK1 fiesta with shorter levers & mk2 transit with longer levers.

As far as I know no one remakes these .

Similarly number plate lights MK4/5 Cortina,mk2 escort etc.

Exterior door handle MK3 Cortina,MK1 Granada,mk2 escort,mk2/3 Capri.

Exterior door handle MK4/5,MK1 fiesta,mk2 Granada etc.

To name a few.

 

Surely there's a market with the popularity of fords, there are 4 magazines for them on the book shelves fast ford, performance ford, classic ford,retro ford!

Will Holman editor of PPC mag told me some years ago that at practical classics mag that any editon that had a ford on the cover always showed a marked increase in sales.

We are lucky, we have your brains, no other club needed!!!!

Still a sad day for any club to fold, although I wasn't a member, same with anything, spare time is rare and valuable.

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One of the Zephyr or Zodiac clubs has recently folded too I read on Facebook somewhere. I think illness was stated one of the reasons, but possibly a lack of people coming forward to take over was probably the nail in the coffin.

Our own local car club is also struggling to find volunteers to take on the various head roles needed, and that is a large club too. Sadly its seems to me the younger members ( i dont necessarily mean teens either) are not interested in taking on these roles to ensure survival.

Car clubs are not alone either, as plenty of the preserved railways are struggling to find volunteers as well in all roles.

 

I agree with Sheffield about umbrella clubs, 20 years ago it was first mooted about this in one car club I was on the committee of. Came about from the the time one particular make of car had 3 or 4 different clubs all trying to do the same thing but didn't want to talk to each other. Our club did achieve a couple of joint remaking ventures with similar make clubs, but no joined up thinking beyond that. I can see more clubs folding as the current leaders drop off if something isn't done for the long term.

 

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I have mentioned a couple of times about the two mk2 Cortina clubs becoming one . I think I brought it up on here and was told by one chairman type that this was not the place for discussing this type of thing . This is exactly the type of place to discuss things like this . As it is becoming harder to get people to take on club committee positions if the two clubs joined there would be at least two people doing the same role . Things like the club spares could be jointly run by the current people as this might well be one of the busier roles . I don't suppose anyone will take a blind bit of notice of any suggestions on here though .

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There's always someone who has a better opinion than someone else, it's normally because they never thought of the suggestion, so basically they shout it down, bottom line, it's a good idea, there are not many young ones into our Cortinas so you've got to think out of the box.

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23 hours ago, sheffieldcortinacentre said:

I sent an article last year that I'd planed to be a series of 3 possibly 4 that I was told was great just what was needed but for some reason was never used so, I didn't write the next as there was no point until it had been featured.

The first 2 parts will now be used else where unfortunately they will probably have no use for the final part/s.

Now I'm no Conan Doyle but I'm passionate about cortinas & I think the project would've been interesting as It covered a little known/uncovered area re the MK3/4/5 versions.

Perhaps it can be posted here once the first half has been published in another clubs magazine.

Which I left along time ago as I didn't feel it was right to be an area rep ( plus a registrar & tech adviser) in the club & be a member in a similar one make club.

I've always thought that it would be beneficial if there was a sort of umbrella ford club (similar to the MG owners club) that could push classic fords in the media/parts  world as many fords built in the same decade share parts, thus remanufacturing these items would be easier/cheaper due to the combined numbers,  ie the Ind stalk & combined light/wiper stalk was used from 74 to 84ish in facelift MK3/4/5 Cortina,mk2 escort,MK3 Capri,mk2 Granada, plus MK1 fiesta with shorter levers & mk2 transit with longer levers.

As far as I know no one remakes these .

Similarly number plate lights MK4/5 Cortina,mk2 escort etc.

Exterior door handle MK3 Cortina,MK1 Granada,mk2 escort,mk2/3 Capri.

Exterior door handle MK4/5,MK1 fiesta,mk2 Granada etc.

To name a few.

 

Surely there's a market with the popularity of fords, there are 4 magazines for them on the book shelves fast ford, performance ford, classic ford,retro ford!

Will Holman editor of PPC mag told me some years ago that at practical classics mag that any editon that had a ford on the cover always showed a marked increase in sales.

 

I don't think anyone else has had the technical input to the club you provided over the years, all done voluntary, and I'm not surprised in the least that a good technical document didn't get included.  The chairman was also the magazine editor and he didn't have time to do either properly.

 

Sad, but the wrong pick at the wrong time.

 

 

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The article isn't a tech one it's to do with MK3/4/5"s in circuit racing something that people only associate with MK1 GT/lotus & mk2 lotus.

I love stuff that's not the norm.

I enjoy the sorting tech stuff ( unfortunately I've little mk1-2 specific knowledge) & hope I can help people save time & money by them getting the right info.

I don't have the patience for concurs type stuff or for admin/ political side of things re clubs or in deed life.

I just wanna get out & enjoy the cars I'd rather drive them than worry that a widget has the correct date stamped on it.

 

Agree it's best to get things in the open & discussed. I'm very self conscious though so find it hard to do the above face to face.

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I'm sorry to hear the mk1-5 club has folded, it's sad but it's also expected in some ways as Cortinas diminish, so does the interest.

Please be aware that it's possible to set up clubs on BSC so that you can run them for members etc

https://www.buysellcortina.co.uk/forums/index.php?/clubs/

These clubs can be made public for all or visible to your members only

 

If you set up a club, you have total control over it, we will not intervene as it's yours to control

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