Our AGM and annual Dinner was held on Saturday 18th February 2012 at Harris Manchester College, Oxford for a very well attended evening and our 62nd AGM.
Sir John Stuttard, our Chairman, commenced proceedings with his report on what had been a very successful year with four exceptional tours.
The first – a delightful tour of Holland – was memorable for the excellent weather, beautiful tulip displays and the clever route that led us to a final dinner in the heart of Amsterdam. After our annual Irish Georgian tour, which had been in North Wales and Anglesea, and had encompassed a number of beautiful country houses, a large private collection of Rolls-Royces, and Portmerion, it was off on a celebration of Rolls-Royce’s success on the 1911 Prince Henry Tour, which followed a rural route from Beaulieu through the Midlands and the north-east, to Edinburgh and back via Wales and Gloucestershire to our final destination at Brooklands. Along the way we visited many of the country houses visited in 1911, the highlight being Badminton where the Duke personally supervised our tour.
The final tour, in September, was the centenary celebration of the top gear run, also in 1911, from the RAC Club in London up the old Great North Road to Edinburgh by the first of the London-to-Edinburgh Silver Ghosts. One hundred years on, the original car, 1701, accompanied by several other Silver Ghosts, repeated the feat of driving all the way to Edinburgh in top gear, before returning to Goodwood for a suitable celebration.
The formalities of the AGM were then carried out and the Chairman was pleased to announce that HRH The Duke of Gloucester had agreed to become our Honorary President, in place of the Earl of Elgin who stepped down at the end of last year after giving many years of support and encouragement.
Following the AGM we retired to the College’s Arlosh Hall for a truly excellent and enjoyable dinner, with the menus being suitably illustrated in honour of the forthcoming great Tour to Scandinavia and the Baltics (see below).Following the Dinner, the annual awards were made and trophies presented. Notable amongst these was the achievement of the winner of the Small Horsepower Trophy, who covered 910km in one day in his 20HP on his way back home to Switzerland. The follwoing morning a small number of hardy members ventured out in the February chill to visit nearby Blenheim Palace, rounding off a very enjoyable week-end.
