The Plough Inn

26th July 2009
 

The Plough Inn 1st Custom & Classic Car/Bike Meet

Hello folks.
I’ve been asked to provide a little write-up about this event. It all came about because I heard several people saying that they / we always had to travel miles to go to such a meet. So I decided to organise a local event. It proved to be a much harder task than I first thought, but I never gave up. The first thing to do was find a suitable venue to host it; it needed to have a large enough car park, a music licence, food etc. After visiting several pubs in the New Forest area, some of them said yes, but when it came down to it they decided not to go ahead, without explanation. This took 4 or 5 months of searching and asking questions in various places & was hugely frustrating.
The second thing, which was just as tough, was to find a compatible date which didn't clash with other events in the area. All that done and sorted, the next step was to find people that were willing to attend with their vehicles. After countless emails and phone calls to many clubs / individuals I had lots of promises to attend. Sadly though, several clubs / people that promised to come didn’t show. A shame, but par for the course I'm told. Never count your chickens until they roll through the gate.
On the day we had a problem with our dog, Ginny, which meant Chrissie had to be at the vets surgery in Southampton with him that morning, (Ginny is ok now).
Although there was a reasonable amount of vehicles arriving, I was busy sorting out a few small issues and welcoming people, so didn’t get around to asking for donations to the Air Ambulance until lots of them had left. If anyone would still like to make a donation, please PM Triker Pete on the forum for my address to send your cheques to, made payable to “Air Ambulance”. A few people left early, saying that it was "a bit quiet”. I'd hoped the band was going to play from 1pm but for reasons beyond my control this didn’t happen until nearer to 3:30pm. All in all, apart from the rain starting mid afternoon, it went fairly well. It was nice when people thanked me for the day.
Thank you to all those that did attend and to Steve & Ken who came with their stalls.
Maybe I'll try and do it all again next year, maybe even at a different venue, who knows. It's been a steep learning curve -not nearly as easy to organise as I'd first thought, but very rewarding. If anyone has any suggestions / input for the next one, please feel free to PM us.
Take care

-Pete & Chrissie