Well the Summer Ball at Leeds Castle has come and gone and what a fabulous evening it was too! It was great to see so many familiar faces from the past and current membership of the club. We were fortunate that Vic Elford, one of our Vice-presidents, was kind enough to make the transatlantic trip from Florida and entertain us during the evening as our guest speaker. Vic had been reunited earlier in the evening with the magnificent Gulf-liveried Porsche 917 sports car that is owned and raced by Mark Finburgh; We are indebted to Peter Piper for his efforts in persuading Mark to display his wonderful car in the courtyard of the Fairfax Hall. Thank you also to Dave Balderson and Robert Handyside from Citroen UK for lending us a Citroen World Rally Car for the evening, it proved to be the car of choice for those who took part in the mid-evening sprint up and down the drive of the castle, the long travel suspension coping beautifully with the occasional speed bump!

Thank you to all who were instrumental in making the ball such a memorable evening, the displays of the scrapbooks from the early days of the club and the slide shows of member competition photographs through the years worked really well on the night. As for the food, it was excellent and we were well looked after by the Leeds Castle staff, the live band were great too with lots of people dancing into the small hours of the night. Lastly, thank you to all who gave so generously in the raffle, we have been able to donate something in the region of £600 to the Whizz-Kidz charity that helps children with mobility problems.

Looking ahead to Sunday 12^th September we are planning a Family Fun Day at Ian Wright’s facility near West Malling, further details can be found in a flyer inserted within this copy of Acorn. For a mere £10 per family/household for the day, it has to be the cheapest day out that you can find this summer! We have arranged that a number of Trials Cars and Apache Cars will be available as well as a 4x4 and a reverse steer vehicle; there will also be an all day BBQ, Bouncy Castles and Face Painters to entertain the younger children. Please support the event by sending in your completed entry form early. If we fail to get sufficient interest in the event then there we will have no alternative but to cancel, so please enter early, as we would love to see all of you come along and join in.