Keystone Region MG Club, Inc.

19th Annual British Motorcar Gathering

Sunday, June 10, 2012 | Reservoir Park, Hellertown, Pa.
All-British car show hosted by the Keystone Region MG Club

By Mike Jones
Keystone Region MG Club Show Co-chairman

Our British Motorcar Gathering #19 was one of the best. During the week preceding the June 10 show, the weather was poor. We had rain many days in a row. Many of us were worried about the condition of the park. Would the open MG field be too muddy? Could we use the spectator parking area?

I checked on the park on Wednesday evening before the show and found the ground to be pretty soft. I hoped it would be better by the weekend. There was another car show scheduled there for Saturday. By the weekend, however, the park was in great shape. The weather was perfect for car shows.

This year, the Italian, French and Swedish automobiles gathered on Saturday for their first annual car show. Organizer Mike Space, was pleased with the turnout of cars for this event. We look forward to working with him in the future as we develop a weekend of foreign cars in Hellertown.

I can’t remember a better start to our British Motorcar Gathering than that of this year’s show. All of the set-up crew arrived at 7a.m. or before. We had the banners, canopies, class signs, sponsor signs and tables in place by 8:25 a.m.

We were ready for our first car before the 9 o’clock start time. Soon after we were ready, the British cars began a steady flow on to the show fields. There were many cars from New York and New Jersey. By the time 1 p.m. rolled around, there were 175 fine British cars in Reservoir Park.

The weather certainly made a difference this year. We had a great many spectators. This year we had sponsors for 16 of our 22 classes. We are grateful to our sponsors and we recognized them several times through out the day. Our own Robert “Van the Music Man” Van Syckle did another splendid job as DJ, and our food vendor continues to get good reviews.

This year the Borough of Hellertown brought their town “trolley” filled with residents who were interested to see what goes on at our annual British Motorcar Gathering. It was fun to see this big trolley come up the hill and make a circuit around the show grounds. The Hellertown residents and the show participants both got a kick out of this. We were happy to have them tour the park three times. We hope the trolley will come back next year.

It is a distinct pleasure to work with our club membership. Everyone is so willing to do whatever is needed with regard to planning and day of show activities. I know it is hard work for many members of our club. Our club membership can be proud of the work we do to produce one of the best British car shows in the Northeast.

Although our show is one of the best, there is always room for improvement. I welcome any and all ideas and suggestions from our membership that may improve upon what we already have. With that in mind, let’s look forward to the 20th anniversary of our British Motorcar Gathering in June 2013.

The 2012 honor roll of volunteers is listed below, with wishes of Godspeed and good health to all of you.

• Ken & Cindy Beck
  ▪ Tom Brobst
  ▪ Bob Brown
  ▪ Marty & Marybeth Chamberlain and Tracy
  ▪ Ken Czahor & Sunny Sonnenrein
  ▪ Charles & Kim de Bourbon
  ▪ Joe Ditalia
  ▪ Art & Margie Edinger
  ▪ Ed & Angie Haas
  ▪ Allen & Elaine Hess
  ▪ Richard Horn
  ▪ Myra Jones
  ▪ Art King
  ▪ Arch Kunkle
  ▪ Gerry Kunkle
  ▪ Bill Miers
  ▪ Leon Morgan
  ▪ Dennis & Ann Marie Nash
  ▪ Bill Page
  ▪ Bob & Penny Pilat
  ▪ Noel Peters
  ▪ Greg Prehodka
  ▪ Jeff & Lisa Rorhbach
  ▪ Ken & Barbara Saltern
  ▪ John Shoemaker
  ▪ Bob Van Syckle
  ▪ Bill Webb