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| 29.8.2009: MPH cover preview |
REMOVED FOR EDITING
BUT READ THE COMMENTS
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CLICK HERE
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CLICK HERE
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| Not the Nigel Seymour-Smith Model but the John Lumley Model PS |
The Dirt Issue: an apt strapline
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| Classic Bike: VOC management mouthpiece? |
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| VOC Officials at the Cannon-Keating Meet |
The management have had it in for Huxley since he refused to cook the books for them to cover up the holes in the Club and Spares Company accounts. That's why he resigned as Treasurer. You've got all these bad investments, expenses-paid trips by Kirker to the USA to promote the Spares Company and so on, and he wouldn't play it their way. They're all in it for what they can get and the VOC has more money than most.
ReplyDeleteI just read the management tactics page. Roy Huxley said:
ReplyDelete'Since resigning from the VOC Executive Committee, (due to major problems in trying to work with an obstructive bullying Chairman), I have tried to distance myself from anything to do with the running of the Club and Club politics as the Chairman made my tenure as Treasurer so traumatic that my health suffered and I was obliged to pull right away from anything to do with the VOC.'
The Chairman is Tim Kirker who was so keen to promote the VOC Spares Company Ltd that he was sometimes heard talking of 'smashing' the competition. He and Andy Everett banned Ron Kemp from selling us spares at the Isle of Man Rally in 1999 but the Spares Company wasn't there to help anyone. Kirker has also used VOC funds for trips to America to promote the Spares Company. Roy Huxley simply refused to play ball with Kirker and his Exec cronies. Simple as that. Check out this item from a 2005 GCM and you can get a feeling of how deep the rot is in the VOC management. They're bent. I tried to post a GCM minutes quote from 2005 here but it's too long so I will send it to you.
The VOC management voted to throw Cannon and Keating out of the VOC. 50 votes were cast. 28 were against Cannon and Keating. 3 or 4 abstaining. 9 or 10 votes by VOC officers and members who took or got Lumley bikes. What were they doing voting? Demands for a membership ballot according to rules and members rights ignored. Totally rigged vote. Take out the votes by people being investigated by the law and you've got a minority. Cannon and Keating didn't lose the vote. It was RIGGED.
ReplyDeleteThis is grim, Been in the velo & Ariel owners club for years and it's all about riding and keeping these old bikes going. I really don't know what to believe now but I'm going to exit the VOC this year.
ReplyDeleteSure they didn't want to know it was one of Lumley's bikes. But having it donated by a living member also let them out of gift tax, didn't it? As long as Seymour-Smith lived to let his telegram from the Queen, they'd have been in with a chance of getting away tax-free under the seven years rule. But it's a Lumley bike and we know that now because someone lost their bottle and declared it to the executors once they knew that other people had seen what was in Lumley's place. They should of shut up about it.
ReplyDeleteSo who is "Twisted Vinny Rapido" that is trying to have a go at Mr Keating for voicing his opinions? Put your head above the parapet, please!
ReplyDeleteSomeone close to the top told me it was Graham Smith and that Everett ballocked him for it. Graham also wrote most of the comments that have now been removed. Arthur Farrow had something to do with it too. Graham was told to take it down as it made the VOC look bad.
ReplyDeleteI see that the SGCM carried a motion that Members of the VOC should not defame other Members. So who is going to be slung out for defaming Messrs Keating & Cannon - who were at the time of the apparent defamations themselves Members????
ReplyDeleteFreedom of Speech should not be a reason for
ReplyDeleteslinging someone out of the club - especially when what they say is true! All other members should support these outspoken people and be glad they are made aware of the dirty dealings
of the morons running their club [and it is THEIR club, not the EC's].
Sounds like the VOC received stolen property. Where are Lumley's lawyers in all of this? Are they seeking the return of the bikes so the heir can get the money when they are sold?
ReplyDeleteMembers of the EC have been making money for years by getting bikes and parts from families of dead members. Check out the eBay history of Adams, Farrow, Wheeldon and others and ask yourself where they got all this gear and why, when it was donated to the club by widows, it was not offered to members in the pages of MPH. Does Classic Bike know the EC used them to 'ring' the Model PS, because that is what this amounts to. Shocking! I won't be renewing my membership as long as these scumbags are running the club.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard a solicitor made a remark like that about probate. You sure you heard him right?
ReplyDelete"I have never heard a solicitor made a remark like that about probate. You sure you heard him right?"
ReplyDeleteI think the blog writer only hears what he wants to here. I am a VOC member, but nothing to do with the exec. I can understand where the blog writer is coming from and agree with some things, but I can spot a lot of holes in most of the statements made. Enthusiastic writing or poor journalism? Make your own mind up.
I wonder if Classic Bike magazine will be keen to send anyone along to any VOC events ever again after this.
ReplyDeleteI rarely respond to the comments here but the second-last remark merits a reply. There are indeed many holes in many of the statements made...by the people whose statements I am simply reporting. As for only hearing what I want to hear, I would reiterate that I am simply reporting statements and facts. In fact, I have tended if anything to avoid reporting much of what people have told me in favour of statements made on the record. I did not "hear" the MD of Thackray Williams; he wrote to me by email, making the statements I have reported. I have not taken them out of context. I have simply reported what the man stated in writing. Enthusiastic writing? It's an unpleasant subject so I wouldn't claim to be in the least "enthusiastic" about it but I had a duty to the whistleblowers in the club and to the reading public to take a stand against the attempted cover-up of this matter. Intolerable though the club management evidently find the idea, some of us place morality and ethics higher than the twisted notions of clubmanship and confraternity to which many VOC members seem to adhere in a way eerily reminiscent of sect members. I am glad to out of such a club, even if the expulsions were entirely illegitimate and based on false, slanderous allegations made, as the Hon Sec admits in the Minutes of the SGCM, without the slightest shred of evidence against Cannon and myself. At least we have hard evidence for what we have reported...
ReplyDeleteAs an afterthought, I'd be interested a more specific definition of "I can spot a lot of holes in most of the statements made". I expect the readers share my interest. Feel free to write a critical review. You can send it to me and I will publish it as a sidebar for everyone to read. Of course, I would expect you to sign it but I am sure a lot of people would be interested in any credible refutation of what I have written, myself included. It would make a welcome change from the moronic efforts of sundry management shills.
ReplyDeleteI Say give it back! Simple as that! Where is the president now then?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone read the new MPH? The Hon Sec seems to be saying that everyone knew the Model PS belonged to John Lumley, that Wheeldon discussed it all directly with Nigel Seymour-Smith and that Brian Werret is wrong. So now Brian Werret is a liar? So if they all knew the Model PS was John Lumley's bike, why did they try to pass it off as belonging to Nigel Seymour-Smith? Why not call it "the John Lumley Model PS". They're also lining Roy Huxley up for expulsion. At what point do these thieving, lying scumbags start acting like men, putting their hands up to what seems to have been a tax dodge that went wrong because they screwed up? Or are they going to carry on slandering and expelling members who call them out over the John Lumley collection and the Model PS scam?
ReplyDeleteI know Brian Werret and he is no liar. He is a friend of Nigel Seymour-Smith, who has the sort of memory and concentration problems that affict many who reach his advanced age. If Brian says he acted as an intermediary between the Seymour-Smith family and Dick Wheeldon, you can take it as gospel. Contrary to what you read in MPH this month, it is highly unlikely that Dick Wheeldon spoke directly with Nigel Seymour-Smith. This is just another example of the lies upon lies emanating from the current Exec, which is rotten through and through.
ReplyDeleteIf Dick Wheeldon says he spoke with Nigel Seymour-Smith and Brian Werret was not involved, then that is what happened and we should thank Andy for giving us the truthful version in MPH. Obviously Prosper and all the people feeding him information have axes to grind of some kind or another. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. This is why it is Hugo Wilson and not Prosper Keating at the helm of Classic Bike.
ReplyDeleteFunny how Mr Huxley had the same promblem when he was treasurer for the VMCC ,must be all clubs are bad ,
ReplyDeleteOf course Dick Weeldon is telling the truth. Give it up Prosper. If Brian Werrett spoke to Nigel Seymour-Smith Dick Weeldon would have said so.
ReplyDeleteIf Wheeldon is telling it how it was, then who paid the taxes due on the Model PS? If Mr Seymour-Smith accepted the bike, then he is liable for the gift tax under the seven year rule. Doesn't matter that he gave it away. All that means is that the VOC will be liable for taxes if the old gent, who is 95, passes on within seven years of the gift. Did Mr Seymour-Smith include it on his 2009 tax returns? Did the VOC enter in their 2009 tax returns? Did the Executor of the John Lumley Estate do the necessary paperwork, such as the IHT Form 100a, in respect of a Potentially Exempt Transfer?
ReplyDeletePlease note that the slurr against Mr Huxley and the VMCC, made on 17th January, is both mischievous and incorrect. Mr Huxley has never been Treasurer of the VMCC.
ReplyDelete"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. This is why it is Hugo Wilson and not Prosper Keating at the helm of Classic Bike. 16 January 2011 07:06"
ReplyDeleteUncle Festus got his old Morini Owners Club mate Hugo Wilson to help with the Model PS story. I think PK ended up rising ever so slightly higher in journalism than HW.