Happy Hogmanay everyone!  Thought it would be nice to use a different turn of phrase for the greeting at this time of year and as I am married to a half Scot I can use it!  After all the feasting and drinking comes the hard work of car preparation and the blowing away of cobwebs while marshalling on the Kent Rally. It’s the weekend of February 15th/16th (for those of you whose brains have been befuddled by your new V Rally 3  Playstation game that Santa brought you) and we need you—yes...YOU. You will see this plea peppered through the pages of this month’s edition to make you sit up, take notice, lift the phone to Chris Scudder and volunteer a small or large amount of your time to your club. Chin and Iain Gibson have worked hard in the background and we want it to be successful and fun for those taking part. It won’t be if we do not have enough marshals.
Speaking of marshals (nicely linked there) February’s Social night is being used for a marshal’s training evening for anyone who marshals and especially if you are interested in becoming registered. Even if you don’t want to take it that far, a very useful evening for those wanting to marshal on the Rally of Kent in March! This is also open to all the Weald Clubs too so please spread the word, come along and make this a successful evening.
Recently myself and Ralph (sitting back in the navigating seat) turned out for Croydon MC’s December 12car, starting from Westerham.  It was a very cold night (as you would expect for the time of year) however, it was made more unpleasant by thick fog appearing on all but part of the route.  This time the navigation took us through fairly familiar territory around East Grinstead and the Ashdown Forest.  For the first time in years we were presented with navigation that needed tracing paper.  Ralph got very excited about this ..Hmmm sad case methinks! I have to say I found the driving pretty hairy given the poor visibility.  I had flashbacks of driving that Toyota Corolla blindfold during the ANT event back in June.  In fact I really started to get travel sick and nearly had to stop to regain my equilibrium (throw up) but we kept going (albeit slowly) and finished a very consistent 6th out of 11 entries.  Chin, ever the hero managed to wend his way successfully round the route navigator-less.  I believe all but one crew managed to get to the finish and all enjoyed the event, despite the weather.
I hope that all our members have received their exclusive 2003 7Oaks diaries by now and like what they see.  Personally I think they are once again of a very high standard and thanks must go to Neil Brooks-Johnson for organising the collating and printing of these in good time for the New Year.. not an easy task.
I would also like to thank all of you who have sent articles, jokes and snippets of gossip during last year.  It all helps to make my task easier and I hope you all found them enjoyable reading.

Dawn Travers