Founded 1910              President: Dick Spanton           www.EasternCounties.org.uk

 

O B I T U A R Y

Herbie Nevill • Ipswich BC • 1916-2009

 

Herbie Nevill, president of the Ipswich Bicycle Club since 1972, was also founding secretary of the East Anglian Group of the Veterans Time Trials Association, first chairman of the East Region of the Tricycle Association, and started the Lawford Cyclists' Carol Service.

 

Born in Manningtree in 1916, Herbie Nevill joined the Brantham & District Wheelers in 1932. When this club disbanded he joined the Ipswich BC in April 1937. He served in the Army in Egypt during the war and was proud of his membership of the Buckshee Wheelers, the club that time trialled in the desert. He was elected Pasha for the club's 50th anniversary year.

 

He was secretary/treasurer and newsletter editor for the VTTA East Anglia Group for 30 years, and was awarded the Ted Bricknell Salver for service to the Group in 1983 and again in 1997.

 

Acknowlegements to Fergus Muir East Anglian Daily Times

 

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CENTENARY DINNER/PRIZE PRESENTATION – 23rd JANUARY

 

It doesn’t seem two years ago that the Committee decided to replace our usual Lunch with a Dinner to celebrate our Centenary year. Having had the Shaftesbury Dinner at the Stockbrook Country Club at Billericay for the past couple of years I knew that this was a very good venue and that we could bet on an excellent meal. The one unknown was what level of support we would get, the Lunch usually attracts 70 or so, we had to guarantee 120. In the event we had a full house of 150, what was especially pleasing was that we achieved the maximum for the venue without having to turn anyone down.

 

Organising the affair wasn’t that difficult. The Stockbrook offered a choice of six different dishes for each course, I opted for the simple basis of choosing what I personally liked and this seemed to work out OK. The major problem was fitting 150 peeps onto 15 tables of 10 each, this actually became quite an intellectual challenge, not helped by one Club wanting 21 tickets and another 11. One also has to bear in mind those cases (at least those that I was aware of) of who won’t sit with who.

 

In order to make it a bit special and to keep the ticket price at a reasonable level the Committee agreed a subsidy of £1000. I have to say I failed miserably at controlling the budget as I overspent by £3.18. With the subsidy we were able to set the ticket price at £27

and for this give a five course meal and also include a

special edition of the COUNTIES Magazine. In order to get the venue we had to accept a fairly late start of 7:30 for 8 p.m. Because of this we dropped any idea of including music/dancing into the programme.

 

From my viewpoint the evening went well other than problems with over-running our time estimates which meant that there wasn’t a great deal of “chat” time at the end. The service of the meal was somewhat slower than I have come to expect at the Stockbrook, they had some staff problems trying to deal with three major functions on the same night. Trevor Pedley was inundated with donated prizes for the raffle which meant this went on longer than anticipated, but was worth it as it raised £450 for the Bolton Fund. Our guest speaker, Trevor Mills the Secretary of B.C. Eastern Region, kept to his brief of 15 minutes and Dick Spanton’s response was admirably short. Lea Marshall’s efficient organisation of the Presentation meant we rattled through that at a good pace.

 

I have received lots of positive feed-back and only two complainants so I guess the evening can be viewed as a success. Interestingly a number of people have expressed the view that they prefer a Dinner to our traditional Lunch, there’s something for the Committee to think about.

Terry Anderson