Pre-War Prescott is one month today! Two major milestones were achieved today. First, the Souvenir Programme was sent to our printers in Cheltenham for printing today. This year, it will be a bumper 44-page publication packed with useful information for the day as well as several in-depth feature articles to enjoy afterwards. Every pre-war car entry will receive a complimentary copy at the gate. Additional copies will be on sale for a paltry sum.
Second, all of the tickets for entries received so far were shipped in bulk to Colin Lee in the UK today for onward posting, so if you have already entered, expect to receive your tickets in the next 10 to 12 days. Please check them and let me know if I screwed yours up! I will continue to process further online and paper entries from here until the end of June and after that, tickets will be sent directly from Colin who will have a sheaf of spares that I have sent him today. Once we get down to within a week of the day, then entries will still be accepted, but your tickets will be enveloped, marked with your name and given to the gate marshals for handing to you when you arrive. This sounds complicated, but it has worked very well in recent years. (You’d be surprised how many people pop up in the last couple of days, having just heard about the event!)
In other headline news, Hereford Vintage Auctions has generously offered to run their traditional no-reserve auction of spares and automobilia in the lunch break. 100% of the proceeds go to our designated charity, the RAF Charitable Trust, and the majority of funds raised by the Trust go to support the Air Cadets. So PLEASE take a moment to sort out any quality goodies surplus to your requirements and bring them along on the day and hand them in to the Vintage Minor Register marquee first thing in the morning. I suggest, with the enormous octagonal entry this year, that anything MG might attract brisk bidding! Please donate generously and bid recklessly on the day!
A word about spectators. We are expecting a LARGE number this year. The entry remains at a paltry fifteen pounds per car, to include as many occupants as you can squeeze in. In addition, ALL World War Two veterans and their families will be offered completely FREE entry, so please, if you know any, do extend a very warm invitation to them and perhaps help them with transport and logistics if needed, and let me know if they need any special assistance on the day. Once they arrive, we promise them a VVIP day out, and we hope that the sight and sound of the Lancaster in the afternoon will warm their hearts. And wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to give them a ride up the hill?
We are also offering half price spectator entry to any RAFA member who presents their RAFA membership card at the gate, and to further support the ATC, we are offering completely free spectator entry to ANY Air Cadets and their families. Finally, for every spectator turning up with a copy of the 2016 Royal International Air Tattoo 2016 Programme from the previous weekend, we will donate five pounds of their entry to the RAF Charitable Trust.
After months of planning behind the scenes we can now announce that the Air Training Corps, who are celebrating their 75th Anniversary this year, will be joining us in force. Planning is still ongoing, but we are working flat out to have two ATC gliders in the Paddock for your close inspection, along with a flight simulator, marching drum band and Cadets from at least eight regional Squadrons. We are going to try to get as many of the Cadets a ride up the hill as possible, so please offer your empty seats at the start line if you can. These youngsters are just at the age when we should be introducing them to our wonderful world of vintage motoring, if we want our passion to be passed on to future generations. In addition, Bishops Cleeve Squadron will once again be managing our GoPro video operation during the day, so you will be able to take home a DVD of your climbs if you like, with all proceeds going to the Air Cadets.
Sincere thanks to all of you who have checked the boxes on your entries to volunteer a couple of hours of your time on the day to help make things run smoothly. As usual, in the next week or so, I’ll be circulating a draft marshaling timetable to all of you. Please come back to me quickly with acceptance of your time slot or requests to change times, etc. so that I can update the draft and circulate to everyone again. We typically go through three or four drafts in this manner, so timely responses are critical as the days count down. Thanks again to all of you for offering to help, and if there are any of you out here who would like to add your names to the roster, please let me know. If we get enough, I can reduce the slots to one hour from two.
That’s about it for now – keep stopping by for more breaking news as the big day approaches.
See you a month today!
Ian