Committee Announcement

Dear Members

Happy New Year to you All!

2020 was a year most of us would like to forget for obvious reasons but the start of 2021 looks like it’s going to be as challenging. The whole country went into Lockdown 3 (5^th Jan) and CAMC Headquarters subsequently informed Centre Committees (6^th Jan) of the Club’s position as below.

Rally Suspensions

All Club Sites would be closed and all Rallies and events would not be permitted and therefore be suspended with immediate effect for the “foreseeable future” (with NO cut-off date mentioned).

The Committee held their first Virtual meeting of the year on Monday evening (11^th Jan), and with the information received from HQ, we decided we would like to give our members some clarification on our Centres position.

• All rallies and events in January and February are cancelled.
• All rallies in March and April (and possibly beyond) will be reviewed at our February meeting – and we will keep Rally Officers affected by this informed of any decisions that are made, before advising the wider membership.

The situation is changing daily and nobody knows what’s going to happen next,but hopefully this gives you some clarity. Ultimately though our future decisions will be dependent on Lockdown Restrictions and when CAMC feel it’s safe to lift rallying suspension because sadly “foreseeable future” could be the whole year.

Rally Officer and Open Forum

We are rescheduling the Rally Officer part of ROOF to Sunday 14th March at 2.00 PM.

It will be in the form of a Virtual Zoom meeting with invited attendees only – being the 2021 Rally Officers – and unlike the recent AGM Webinar, participation will be possible on the day.  We hope to be in the position to send email invitations out end Feb/early March.

No date has been set at the moment for the rescheduling of the Open Forum (for all members) as the Committee would like to run an actual face-to-face meeting when restrictions are lifted.

If this turns out to be unachievable, we will hold another Virtual Zoom meeting – again with participation by those attending.

Rally Bookings

Without knowing how long the restrictions will remain, it has been decided that at this moment in time the online booking system will remain static – with no more rallies being released – and this will be reviewed in line with the Rally Suspensions.

Only when rallies are permitted by CAMC and further rallies are released, ONLINE BOOKINGwill be your ONLYway of booking on any rally between June and December. 

NO paper slips will be accepted by the Rally Officers – in line with our initial web/Facebook/MailChimp message in December – and this message will be reiterated again at ROOF.

We believe this gives everyone the same equal and fairest opportunity to book onto the remaining Rallies in this time of unprecedented circumstances.

Any attempt since mid-December to “jump the queue” on this process by way of postal or direct email booking or enquiry about joining a waiting list will therefore not be accepted and will be destroyed.

Vacant Committee positions

There are still spaces on the Committee, with the Rally Secretary role being one of them.   Despite the current situation, we need to be planning the 2022 season rallies as these are the main Centre activities.  If you think you could fill this or one of the two other positions please contact any member of the Committee for any advice or a chat.  It would be great to have other people on board. 

Sadly, the Covid19 Restrictions are not getting any easier and we are still having to send this type of posting, but with the roll out of a vaccine there is hope at the end of the tunnel – although we just don’t know how long that tunnel is.

Best wishes,

Graham & Committee

Passing of Eddie Bowers

Edwin known as Eddie to many of our long standing Centre Members joined the Centre in 1970 with his first wife Mary who sadly passed away in 1999.  They became Life Members of the Caravan Club which they were very proud of. He attended many Centre rallies over the years as Members and Rally Officers and as a Committee Member for several years.  He was always very active and a popular Member on the rally field and was well known for being the Centre’s Auctioneer on all our Charity Rallies and helped raise considerable funds for the charities concerned.  He was the proud owner and the envy of members with his superb 3.5 Litre Rover Coupe and his Castleton caravan.  He organised Centre rallies and holiday rallies in the UK, Germany and Holland for members and visitors. He was always a feature on the top table of the Burns Night Dinner Dances at Bashley Park. He was quite a character, there was never a dull moment when he was on the rally field.  He will no doubt be a sad loss to the West Hampshire Centre, the Caravan Club and now the Caravan and Motorhome Club.

He married Heather in 2001.  They rallied when possible until he became unwell  and with great regret gave up caravanning in 2005 and had to go into a care home in 2012.  Even there he was still trying to organise things !!!   One thing for sure is we will never forget our time and rallying with Eddie Bowers.

There are no funeral arrangements at the moment. It will however of course be subject to the current Covid – 19 Government restrictions for funeral arrangements.

If you would like to send your condolences or a card please contact the Centre Secretary at for address details

Your Committee

**** Happy New Year ****

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

We would like to wish you all a

Happy New Year

and

good health to all.

Your Committee

Dear Members

This is the season to (try)be jolly and now is the time to put this strange year behind us. ENJOY whatever CHRISTMAS plans you have SAFELY. Give thanks that we are all still here to enjoy it. We can have all the riches in the world but without our good health it means NOTHING.
Please spare a thought to those families and friends close to you who won’t be together celebrating their planned Christmas and raise a glass to them.
Take lots of pictures and share with loved ones if you’re not together,if you are together enjoy every minute SAFELY.

So as the SLADE song says “ IT’S CHRISTMAS”

ENJOY raise a glass to ALL and remember “were in it together”

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

YOUR COMMITTEE

Update From CAMC

Dear Members

Yesterday we received an update from CAMC HQ (shown below) for you all to see.  I think it highlights the difficulties the Club and your Centre’s Committee have had to deal with in making any decisions in this ever changing situation. As we have done so throughout this pandemic, we will keep you updated, but as I have said in the past we are not out of the woods yet and with the TIER SYSTEM in place we will all have to wait and see to what extent this affects our 2021 Rally season.

Graham and Committee