[Jon Hodges]

Dear Grey Fox

I see that we are back to anonymous messages on this forum which I thought had been discontinued. I presume that you are afraid of an open and transparent form of debate to secure the running of this club for the majority of its members. I am happy to abide by any decisions made at the AGM but will continue to endeavour to make the running of this club more open and democratic.
Until such times as it is decided that this message board cannot be used as the one and only place left for open discussion and debate by club members I shall continue to make use of it for this purpose.

Jon Hodges

[Jon Hodges]

Dear Roger Hulett
This is how slowly democracy works I am afraid, unfortunately there are downsides besides any benefits that it may have. For example, passed at this year’s AGM is an item that possibly affects yourself as an overseas member. If you wish to change anything within this Club from now on a proposer will have to attend an AGM in person along with the seconder to present any proposal they wish to make. On the agenda as an adjunct to this proposal was the phrase ” N.B. Overseas members may be subject to special consideration when the need arises.” Hopefully this will be included when the Constitution is amended, even so it will presumably be at the discretion of whoever is in the Chair at the AGM. So if you wish to put forward the proposal for Proxy Votes you may be better off finding two people in the UK willing to support you. As well as submitting the proposal they would have to attend next year’s AGM, whenever that is. For me I guess the knockabout entertainment made the 400 mile round trip to the AGM worthwhile this year but as each year passes I am beginning to wonder if it is worth the time and expense. It was a shame that I had other commitments that precluded riding a bike there as it was such a good day.
Jon Hodges

[Jon Hodges]

Dear Roger

So, the membership attending this year’s AGM have voted for the ‘status quo’. I am sorry Roger that you were not given the chance to bring some fresh air to bear on the future of this Club that would hopefully have benefited all members. At last the penny dropped for me when it was announced that no Management meetings had been held since last year’s AGM. Since there is so little activity at Management level there is nothing to report! I now realise we have a purely reactive management style at present rather than a proactive one. I find it strange that despite two new officials being elected to the management team at last year’s AGM and certain matters that had arisen prior to the meeting remaining unresolved, it was deemed unnecessary to call a Management meeting at all last year.

However, at least now should any management meetings be called it has been agreed that there will be a report published in Yowl and, in addition, an agenda is to be published prior to the AGM with minutes published after the AGM in future. This may shed a little light on what is happening within the Club for those members outside the restricted limits of the Club grapevine. Some slight progress then in involving the membership as a whole.

I was dismayed Roger at the attack from a Club Official on your personal integrity prior to the vote for the election of the Club Chairman’s position. It reinforced my view that it was wise for me not to have announced my intention to support you and offer my services as Club Secretary should you have been elected. I would no doubt have been tarred with the same brush, as my livelihood is also tied to the Scott marque. I think that the meeting may well have become very acrimonious. It is very sad that the integrity of two hard working club officials were called into question at this AGM, the other being Gill Swan. It must give little encouragement for the few younger members or anyone else for that matter attending the shambles that was this year’s AGM to ever get involved with Club matters.

I agree with your question posed in reply to Ted Parkin’s message re AGM Agenda. Where can free ranging discussion of Club matters take place? It was a question that I was going to raise once the AGM had taken place but you seem to have stolen my thunder. Will this posting be considered too controversial for the Message Board?

Keep flying the Scott flag.

Jon Hodges

[Jon Hodges]

Dear Ted
You will be having trouble trying to be in two places at once. The AGM is on Saturday 16th April. Guess we won’t be seeing you.

[Jon Hodges]

Dear Keith

Glad you got the Scott going at last and enjoyed the first ride out. As far as the threads on the cylinder head tubes goes I have made some previously and found that they were an awkward size being 1″ by 24tpi.
If I can be of any help please email direct.

Jon Hodges

[Jon Hodges]

I was amazed to read Roger Moss’s account of the conversation that he had with our Club Chairman and find it hard to believe that he should express such an ageist opinion about the Club membership. The Club is already benefiting from the use of current technology! The economic production and distribution of the Club Magazine just would not happen without the use of these new fangled computers. The Club membership numbers have risen recently which to a large extent is thanks to the Club Website, evident by the number of web application forms that came in when I was in the post of Membership Secretary. A good proportion of these were from overseas. As one who has endeavoured to drag the Club into the present times to accommodate our newer membership I am appalled if this is the view held by other senior Club officials. If our Chairman wishes to count himself amongst those Club members who wish to have no part in use of computer technology that is his choice but this should in no way influence the future of this Club. If this were the case the Club will surely die. This technology can be put to such good use for the benefit of those to come.

Other members are already giving of their time to open up the availability of Scott information to others. We have just lost one of these in Steve Bowles who has now unfortunutely turned his back on Scotts but has left a legacy of the first 10yrs of Yowl on disc. I would have liked to have carried on this project but have neither time nor expertise to do so. However I have not given up hope that the project, as Steve and I envisaged, it will be completed one way or another. I have just found someone prepared to scan the rest of the Yowls ( approaching 4000 pages) for around £350 including some software to enable us to index it how and when we like. Its early days yet but hopefully it will happen. In addition we already have permission from George Stevens to put works such as his four part “Made to Limit Gauge” and Phil Smith’s “The Greatest of all Trials” on CD rom which are no longer readily available. Many thanks to Keith Parker for his efforts in scanning the “Book of the Scott” and passing it on to Paul Wilson. Hope there are no problems getting it put on the site. I know Gill was hoping to get the Illustrated Parts Lists on to the new Spares site eventually and hopefully incorporate the numbering system where possible. Time is the main enemy in all of this so if anyone would like to get involved please step forward. Things are happening whether the the powers that be like it or not!

Jon Hodges

[Jon Hodges]

As the original proposer of getting agreement for the production of Yowls on to CD rom I must correct Roger’s statement that this was passed in 2004. In fact it was at the AGM in 2002 that it was agreed the Club would fund and support Steve Bowles in this project. At the AGM I spoke about Steve’s efforts and the reasons for the need to copy all the Yowls rather than just reproduce the Technicalities electronically. (See AGM Report in August 2002 Yowl, page 401)

Perhaps not everyone is aware that the ‘Technicalities’ are purely a reprint of any technical articles that have appeared in Yowl over the years. We owe a great debt to Bill Jamieson, an Australian Section member, for the amount of time that he must have devoted to compiling the Technicalities, not forgetting Glyn Chambers who continued with the updates. However, there are a lot of snippets of information contained within other articles or letters which are missing in the Technicalities. This, together with the fact that the Yowls represent the history of the Club, is the reason that both Steve and I felt that the opportunity should be taken to make the past issues of Yowl available to all Club members if they so required.

Steve has already produced a CD rom, in PDF format which is fully searchable, covering the first 10 years from 1963 and as far as I am aware there is no reason why this could not be made available. It would benefit from some artwork for the cover and case notes, with instructions, to turn it into a quality product befitting the Club. I have not had the time to sit and browse through all of it but from the brief delvings that I have made it is a fascinating archive.

It is very unfortunate that Steve’s other commitments have bought a halt to his valuable efforts but I for one would like to thank him for what he has achieved so far. However, from this foundation we now need to complete the task one way or another. Too much time has already passed without the supply of the hard copy Technicalities being available. Both newcomers and old hands alike have benefitted from this important source of information but this could be built on with all the Yowls being made available in a searchable format.

Personally I feel that the task should be carried out professionally but this is obviously dependent upon the likely cost involved. Doing a quick sum on the number of Yowls from 1973 to 2003 there are 180 issues with 30+ pages each which would mean approximately 6,000 pages to scan. The cost therefore comes down to the time involved in scanning this number of pages. Does anyone know anyone who is in this line of business that could put a price on the job?

If the Club could be persuaded to fund the operation the money could be recouped over a period by selling both the CD roms and hard copy versions that could easily be produced from the CDs.

[Jon Hodges]

Surely Scott’s bad name is a case of the only news is bad news. A reasonably sorted Scott should give no more trouble than any other make. In my experience the weakest link on a Scott is the magneto although admittedly my main experience has been ownership of only one machine for thirty odd years. This machine is now 77 yrs old and it has just completed over 2000 miles in 8 days touring the Western Highlands of Scotland, finishing with an over 40 mph trip average for the last 400 odd miles on the homeward journey on as little motorway as possible. (Figures courtesy of a bicycle speedo recently fitted due to fear of being Gatsoed) The only items needing attention was one gearbox top-up and an adjustment of the front brake. That is what I call trouble free motorcycling!

The majority of the bikes on the Scottish trip had little trouble and the bikes ranged from a mid-20’s 2-speeder to 50’s machines. Roger’s magneto was slowly dying in the first part of the week but a transplant revived his machine( courtesy of Colin Pinder). As far as I know it was only Ian Young’s machine that gave a lot of trouble. This might have been averted if the cause had been discovered earlier even though his radiator had definately seen better days. It developed more and more leaks until it was found that the vent pipe was blocked pressurising the system. In a truly pioneer spirit the bike was kept on the road for the whole week by the valiant efforts of Don Payne who worked tirelessly to keep Ian riding. He certainly was the Man of the Week in my book.

The cost of ownership is very much a personal thing. If you require the machine to win concours events rather than just a machine ridden for pleasure there will be a vast difference in the bottom line figures. My machine is by no means cossetted and has cost very little to keep on the road once the initial rebuild was done. It has since repaid me a thousand fold in the sheer enjoyment that I have had back from it. In my ownership has done two End to End runs( one two up), numerous MCC long distance trials, grass hillclimbs and a trip to Switzerland. Admittedly on the trip to Switzerland it failed to get us back home but that was my own fault for not leaving well alone. As we were going two up I thought 600cc has got to be better than 500 on the mountain passes and swapped barrels for a recently aquired one which was our undoing. It is with the original barrel back in place that the recent Scottish trip was completed. Just goes to show that the old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” has some truth in it.

Perhaps we need a basic common ailments or a “what to look for and how to fix” item on the website or booklet for the newcomer. Needs someone to collate it that has wide experience of different types of Scott. I readily admit my experience is limited to a machine that was only produced for a few years and had changes in every year of production as far as I know. Any other ideas?

[Jon Hodges]

Dear Paul

Thanks for all the work that you are doing to improve the site. The new message board format will take a little time to get used to but looks as though it will be more useful. Let us hope the events section gets used.

All the best

Jon

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