Welcome to the New Website

Welcome to the new BMMC web site – I hope you enjoy wandering around the pages and discovering the wealth of information within them.

Eric Ridler has worked incredibly hard to bring this web site to fruition – although I am not sure about some of the pictures he has used (especially mine!).

As you look around I hope you will see just how hard the club works to represent marshals in this country.  Our National Council members and regional committee members all give their services free of charge to ensure marshals are able to enjoy their hobby to the maximum.  Not only do they work within the club, but many work outside in other committees to further our cause.  At the MSA, George Copeland, our National Treasurer sits on the ABMRC (Association of British Motor Racing Clubs) as the marshals representative, Jon Cawsey sits on Rallies Committee, I sit on Race Committee (where the club now has a permanent seat), chair the Marshals Working Group, sit on the Volunteer Officials Advisory Panel and have just been asked to sit on the Drag Racing Sub-committee.

Recently the club has again been at the forefront in furthering the cause of the volunteer official.  In a recent press release the MSA credited Volunteers in Motorsport with bringing marshals’ representation to the Motor Sports Council (MSC).  The truth is that is was our club that brought this about – through the hard lobbying in which we have been engaged, our presentations to the MSC (after which we were promised a seat for the club, which was then rescinded) and the constant influencing of senior motorsport officials in which we are engaged.  We will continue to forcibly represent the feelings of the volunteer official, no matter what the response we receive and I am very pleased that some extremely senior people are giving us fantastic support.

Motor Sport Vision has been a fantastic support, Jonathan Palmer and Dave Scott have proved to be true friends to the clubs, both in financial support (the great renewal prize of a corporate day at Bedford) and in moral support at the MSA.  I hope you will support them in turn, ensuring their race meetings are sufficiently and enthusiastically manned.

The new grading scheme has now been running for a year and is starting to settle down.  The initial adverse reactions seem to be decreasing as more marshals understand the reasons for the changes and the actual new rules and processes.  I make no apologies for the new scheme, indeed I was one of the main authors.  It is not perfect, but I truly believe it is a step forward to multi-skilling marshals to a standard needed in today’s motorsport environment.  We will continue (via the Marshals Working Group) to review and improve the scheme and welcome your comments.

I hope you have been enjoying the recent training season.  No matter what the discipline you follow or the form of motorsport you support many of you will have received training from BMMC trainers.  Again we are working to improve the training you receive and I hope to have developed a series of training presentations to standardise and support next year’s sessions around the country.

Some of you will be marshalling for the first time this year – to you I bid a sincere welcome to a fantastic hobby.  Until recently the numbers of marshals was falling rapidly and we were extremely worried that meetings would have to be cancelled due t o a lack of qualified officials.  Happily this threat has receded somewhat (although it has not completely gone away) and one of the main reasons is the incredible success of Team Wilson’s recruitment campaign.  Again the MSA has claimed it is due to Volunteers in Motorsport that the numbers have increased, again the truth is that the only real recruitment campaign has been the BMMC Team Wilson one.  With some welcome financial support form the MSA they personally have brought in the names of over 2,000 possible new marshals and all of these have been passed on, not only to our regions, but also to all the other major organising clubs.  This initiative is due to come to an end this year, and I only hope we can persuade the other clubs to fill the void and join in this recruitment campaign.

I sincerely hope this year we get some better weather at the weekends.  I am sure that, no matter what the elements throw at us, that our members will enjoy their marshalling at the events they decide to support.  I have said on many occasions before that I do not care who you are, where you are from or what your background, if you are a marshal – “Thank you!”  Without you there would be no motorsport as we know it.  I hope all marshals realise the value our club brings to the cause, and that as many as possible will join our ranks, all marshals are welcome to join our club.  But whether you are a member or not be assured, as the only club that exists purely for you marshals, staffed by marshals for marshals, we will continue to strive to be the leader in marshals recruitment, retention and representation.

Enjoy your motorsport, stay safe and enjoy your hobby, and if you have any comments, criticisms or suggestions, please get in contact with me.
Chris Hobson
National Chairman