The Pathway grading are still available to members. Members can contact me using the usual methods.

If members confirm their SM marshal membership number and expected grade. I will return the relevant grading badges.

Currently I have enough badges to cover 50% of the membership. If you do not receive your grading badge members will get their badges with their annual membership at the beginning of next season.

I will be at the following meetings:

• 750MC Birkett Relay 28th October
• 750MC 29th October
• Walter Hayes 4th & 5th November.

Adrian Cashmore

SM.Regalia

Sm.regalia@marshals.co.uk

All marshals from around the country are invited to the BRSCC’s inaugural Driven by Racing event at Silverstone on 18 and 19 November.

The weekend includes a variety of Marshal’s training for both on and off track grades, including ‘live’ practical training scenarios.

There is also an opportunity to explore other roles in the sport, including scrutineering and other senior official roles.

For more information, please visit the event page on the BRSCC web site.

We are holding this year’s AGM on Saturday 28 October. Please find below the draft minutes from the 2022 AGM:

Hi, I’m Annette, and I’m the Zero Hero for the BMMC South Midlands Region. Here’s my August thoughts for our Sustainability Campaign.

Have you been thinking about sustainability since last month? With the cancellation of the Formula 1 race at Imola due to the extreme flooding, and damage to many communities in Italy, and then the forest fires in Canada which have caused many sporting events in the northern USA to be cancelled due to dangerous air quality, it can’t have escaped your notice that climate change is having an impact on the activities we love the most. Humans have a huge impact on the planet, but we have the power to change the way we do things.

So, my first question this month is: What’s in your lunchbox? And to start with, what IS your lunchbox? As we both marshal in our house, we have very cheesy pink-and-blue, his-and-hers insulated lunch bags. Perfect for keeping our lunch and snacks together, and we can pop in a freezer pack for any hot days to make sure everything stays cold.

Secondly, what about your lunch itself? I don’t mean your preference for cheese-and-pickle sandwiches or a love for sausage rolls (no discussions of pork pies, please). We’ve managed to give up using clingfilm or even foil to wrap sandwiches – we use plastic tubs which can be used over and over again. I’ve got a selection of them at home, and yes, we certainly do have a strange collection of lids!

Have you heard about Plastic Free July? This is what first got me started on using less single use plastic in my packed lunch. You can find out more at https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/

There are a whole range of inexpensive food storage options, some of which will keep very secure and leakproof if the contents are my favourite pasta salad, but you could re-use a plastic tub that had a take-away in it. In, fact you could use up any leftovers from last night’s takeaway as your lunch!

We have stopped using single use plastic bottles for drinks. There are a wide range of options for re-usable insulated water bottles and flasks, to keep water or squash cold, and to keep coffee hot! These can range from high end brands to much cheaper unbranded steel bottles. I just can’t make it through the day without a coffee (or two). Non-insulated ones are useful too – and lots of locations now have drinking water refill points so there’s no excuse for getting dehydrated during the day.

I hope to hear that you are finding ways to reduce your impact on the planet whilst enjoying marshalling.

Best wishes, Annette

All members are eligible to a free grading badge for each of the accredited grades under the Pathway grading scheme.

These are available from myself. If members confirm their SM marshal membership number and expected grade. I will return the relevant grading badges.

Currently I have enough badges to cover 50% of the membership. If you do not receive your grading badge members will get their badges with their annual membership at the beginning of next season. 

If any members are attending the following meetings at BDC 12^th August and 19^th & 20^th 750MC at Silverstone if they let me know I can distribute the badges.

Adrian Cashmore

South Midlands Regalia

Sm.regalia@marshals.co.uk

We have started making the arrangements for our Annual Regional Dinner, which this year is planned to be held on Saturday October 28th
The location is yet to be finalised, but it will be somewhere close to Silverstone so those of you marshalling at the Birkett Relay Race will be able to join us after the racing finishes. Members’ Guests are also welcome, and as usual BMMC will be offering a contribution against the cost of the meal for members.
We are also planning to hold our Annual Regional AGM immediately before the dinner.
Further information will be available soon.

Shortly every member of BMMC should receive an invitation to attend and vote at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to adopt revised Articles of Association and Club Rules; the club’s principles of Governance. The meeting will take place online on the 5th September and the invite will contain copies of the revised Articles of Association, Club Rules and a new Standing Order for BRMC together with instructions on how to join the meeting.

I urge every member to attend and vote, if only because this is your club and you should have a say in how it is governed.

So why are we having to change our Articles and Rules? To put it simply a number of contradictions have become evident, some rules said one thing but the Articles either did not allow that or they implied something else. In addition it was felt some Articles would be better expressed as Rules and vice versa. It was also clear that BRMC needed a set of Standing Orders that sat below the Articles and Rules and addressed matters relevant to them.

A Working Group was established to undertake a fundamental review both the Articles and the associated Rules and Marion Quarrington and my self were invited to be in the group. It was chaired by our National Secretary John Edwards ably assisted by Elizabeth Anderson, a professional Governance consultant and BMMC member who provided advice FOC.

It quickly became apparent that some changes were required in how the club was administered. Elizabeth initially felt that there were too many Directors and Executive Officers for a small company and that Regional Chairs could have a conflict of interest between their role as Director and head of region. The Group felt strongly, that members interests should continue to be directly represented at Board level so it has been decided that Regional Chairs should remain as Directors and be fully briefed on their responsibilities to the club as a whole and the region. As they are elected by members they are best placed to represent them. However, the “Executive Officers” are not elected, they are appointed by Council and the title does not reflect their role, which in most cases is to be a national co-ordinator for a function. It has been proposed that they are instead called Co-ordinators and although remaining on Council they will not have the same voting rights as Directors who will form the Board. So in essence the National Chair, Secretary, Treasurer together with the Regional Chairs and the Chair of any Special Interest Group (BRMC) will comprise the Management Board and Council will consist of the Management Board and the Co-ordinators.

Elizabeth also felt it is good management practice to have a process that requires a turnover of officials at governance level so that the company does not stagnate and is open to fresh ideas and initiatives. The new Articles/Rules propose that all officials are elected for a three year term and if willing to continue must offer themselves for re-election every three years but can only serve a maximum of nine years before they must stand down for at least a year.

So to sum up, BMMC will be run by a Board of Directors (The Board), supported by Co-ordinators for day to day management (Council). Regions and Special Interest Groups will be managed by a committee elected by BMMC Members and led by a Chairman who is a Director and member of the Board. The rules for electing the National Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer have not changed but they are also obliged to stand for re-election every three years with a maximum term of nine years. As always the devil is in the detail so read the new Articles and Club Rules carefully before you attend the EGM. If you have any questions please forward them to me or Marion in the first instance.

Chris Whitlock

The BRDC Motor Sport Charity, formerly the BRDC Benevolent Fund, was established in November 2000. Initially formed to support BRDC Members only, start-up funding was provided by a small number of generous benefactors including the British Racing Drivers’ Club and its members. In 2006, the Fund extended its reach to include people and their families who work or have worked, both in a paid and voluntary capacity, in the Motor Sport industry. In early 2018 the fund re-launched as the BRDC Motor Sport Charity. The aim of the charity is to support people in times of need due to ill-health, disability or financial hardship.
Recent Chairman, David Richards CBE, said: ‘Marshals play a vital role in the success and safety of our industry, from grass roots motor sport to Formula One and everything in between. We want them to know that we are here to offer support to them when it is needed.’
The current Chair is Dario Franchitti and along with Chriss Bliss and Ian Holloway, they make up the three Trustees of the Charity.
The BMMC representative at meetings is Stephen Woolfe and is happy to talk about the charity, however, ideally if you would like to know more, visit the website at http://www.brdc.co.uk/BRDC-Motor-Sport-Charity or you can speak in confidence to the charity’s Facilitator, Jenny Brown. She can be contacted on 07801 441695 or email: jenny.brown8@btopenworld.com.

This year we are aware that there will be some positions on the regional committee made vacant by recent resignations, but I am also acutely aware that some members are responsible for more than one role and I would like to spread the work a bit more evenly. Having said that, we also need to plan ahead, the new Governance arrangements are going to insist that the period of time committee posts are held is limited; see Governance Working Group article elsewhere in this newsletter. We need to do some succession planning.

So what does being a committee member involve and how do you become one? Well most of the committee roles are administrative, that is keeping records up to date, issuing advice and updates on procedures. Currently we meet virtually using Zoom, on the first Monday of the month for an hour or so in the evening. However, there are occasions when we need to meet collectively to deliver a service for the members. That might be to man a recruitment stand or to help to deliver training. But don’t worry, we are volunteers and nothing is compulsory. We also understand that you join the club to go marshalling, not to sit at a desk drafting letters or updating procedures.

How do you become a committee member? Officially you are nominated and elected by BMMC members of a region as a committee member at their Annual General Meeting (AGM). You do not necessarily need to belong to that region but it is preferred you are. Roles and duties are usually assigned at the first committee meeting after the AGM. You can also be co-opted on to a committee at any time to fill a recently vacated role, but your official membership of the committee does not commence until it is ratified at the AGM even if you are delivering a co-opted role in the interim. You are nominally elected for a three-year term and the new Governance arrangements would limit you to a maximum of three terms, i.e. nine years. But at the risk of repeating myself, we are volunteers, you can quit at any time, but remain “in post” until the next AGM.

You will hopefully have noted that we are currently looking for a new Training Officer and our Membership Secretary has very recently advised of his decision to resign at our regional AGM in October. From time to time we do issue notices of such vacancies but we do not expect anyone to jump into a post without some knowledge of what they are letting themselves in for. We have detailed job descriptions for each committee role and we strongly recommend that you attend a committee meeting or two before you make any commitment to join.

We are a friendly group of like-minded souls in South Mids and are always happy to meet members and discuss their issues. We need to know what members think about the club and what we are doing. If you are interested in getting involved please contact Marion Quarrington at sm.secretary@marshals.co.uk and she can send you job descriptions and invites to committee meetings.

Being a Committee member might sound incredibly boring but we seem to enjoy ourselves and we do get involved in setting the marshalling world right. We would welcome your involvement.

Chris Whitlock