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Overlord - Show report.


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Folks.

 

Could someone be as kind as to write up a show report of Overlord for all of us who can't make it. Doesn't have to be Shakespear just your thoughts and feedback.

 

It would be very much appreciated.

 

Many thanks.

 

Jack.

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despite the weather a really good turn out of vehicles, the really wide variety of vehicles from the usual number of Jeeps right through to a Sherman which was excellent to see being ragged around, nice one :-D.

 

Beer tent was its usual party place in the evening, if not a little damp at times that didn't seem to dampen any spirits.

 

Good show, well done the folks who put the hard work in to the preperation, especially the road signs, well done Bob :-D, shame about the weather :dunno:.

 

Looking forward to next year already

 

Baz

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REME museum display had an interesting collection of former Queen carriers (parade inspection :police: Land Rovery type things and big, black cars) along with some prototype air portable vehicles. They were also very hospitable and offered Mike and I a couple of beers while we chatted (thank you Roger).

 

Apart from our tents feeling like they were trying to blow away last night, we had a jolly fun time, :beer: and nobody got ill from my cooking. Also found this strange looking fellow lurking in the beer tent last night. I think his camel had broken down....

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Mike - as and when you have the report (no hurry, by 20:00 tonight would be just fine) could you PM it to me please and I will upload to the front page - some images with it would also be very much appreciated!

 

Haven't seen any pictures of any Jimmys yet :oops: and who is the owner of the Sherman?

 

Cheers

 

Jack.

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O what a good show...... shame about the weather tho...

 

Great fun, great company, and even got to drive some dodgy forum members freshly restored mutt :-D :-D That was deffinately the high light of the show, and I am now just counting my pennies......... I WILL have it!!!

 

O, that dodgy guy at the bar was called Samir, and he kept trying to sell me used carpets.... :whistle: :whistle:

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The piccys are fab Tootallmike :-)

especially the Jimmy showing its axle articulation ;-)--nice one, thanks.

 

It was a good weekend, I was on the gate all day Saturday and a good and steady flow of MOPs came through. Unfortuantly the weather was not so good on Sunday but still a steady flow of public. Today well where do I start? Last night the mother of all storms hit us head on! :-o

 

I thought the electricity cables were going to come down on the tent, or the Jimmy would slide through the mud and squash us, or simply that the wind would blow us over to Waterlooville! Happily none of the above happened, in fact both our boys slept through the whole thing!

Obviously nothing could be done to retrieve the show today but I certainly spotted more MOPs around, so good on them!

I have had a great weekend as usual at this show and will treasure my Fez forever (I was the one wearing pink wellies and shorts on Sunday!!!)

Thanks to Richard Notton and crew for all the hard work you put in to put it all together. (More cheese gromit!)

Heres to next year...........................................................................................

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Nice pictures, I spent my weekend in Croydon with the Scouts and that storm sure was fun, bloody cold all the way though. Ended the weekend prematurely though...

 

Croydon's about 10mins from where I live. Where were you camping?

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There was no need to go to the Sout Coast to get hypothermia, could have done that in Croydon just as easily!

 

Too bad I missed you, are you going to Bolero by any chance?

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I'm pleased you enjoyed it. That's about 15mins from my house!

We weren't about anyway as we were busy contracting hypothermia on the South Coast all weekend :-)

 

Well, it was a bit like that!!!!

 

I do have to say though Rosie and R³ were well founded for the unseasonably cold conditions having brought an Onan flat twin powered space heater that ran an Argus V1 pulse jet a close second for size and calorific output together with a near authentic sound.

 

Way before the Clerk of the Weather's wind took a hand, the awesome output of the device gulping propane from a 25kg cylinder almost as fast as Fawley can make the stuff nearly had the spacious R + R³ tent off across the site as an unlicensed hot air balloon.

 

Great stuff.

 

My thanks to TTM for the report on the front page, much appreciated.

 

There is always a but. . . . . . . . . . . a few things to correct and some comments from me as I'm told its all my fault :-D being the show sec.

 

We had the Met Office input, not that anyone can do anything about our weather, and the reality of 1½ months worth of rain with 50mph+ winds in one night was wholly missed by the Bracknell Cray Computer. Come back Michael Fish, all is forgiven. :-o

 

Surprising really that having arrived on Tuesday 22nd to get our SOE control area settled, we ended up regularly running back to camp for liquid and more factor 15 over the next few days while setting it all up.

 

I have to record the tireless work done by the small team I had and especially the four heroes who didn't go to bed Sunday night but tirelessly helped in the rain and whole gale with the errant tent recovery/holding down and re-pinning exercises; that would be SOE members Neil & Matt with Kane and (surprised me) my eldest daughter Mercedes, seems joining the TA has done her a lot of good.

 

There was a fair bit of destruction and we understand and feel for those exhibitors and traders necessarily going early after that lot, I'd have done the same myself as an ordinary person.

 

Still, we had a good go at it Saturday and a bit of a rub at it Sunday.

 

Now, to TTM's report, there were a bit over 200 vehicles that actually booked in and I can assure you 75 stalls were checked off on arrival and had a red upside down paint marked pitch, I know this for a fact as I did it and the file is right beside me! This is a number up on last year and even so people were calling for trade entries right up to Friday night.

 

The Saturday public gate was significantly up on last year too with many MOPs reporting an about face from elsewhere as the pocket depth was inadequate; it augured well for Sunday, which is always the best day, until the weather intervened, however, a fair number did brave the elements. I do not know yet how much lost revenue was donated to members of other "clubs" and it will likely be less than the 600 quid of last year.

 

I think you have perhaps mis-identified the Horch, this was a early 4WS Stoewer R200.

 

Roger Jones from the REME museum did us proud again as always, there was some interesting kit there, including the never seen before Harrier. I was much taken by the Royal MVs, don't often see those about.

 

There were some other interesting things about too, Dave's meticulous restoration of a F15 Polsten (and it has all the gun kit) is not too often seen and it is unique. The eagle eyed may have spotted that DGJ 309 is the actual Leyland-Metz open pump escape often seen in London wartime newsreels and in a semi-comedy AFS propaganda film of the same era, title escapes me presently.

 

I'm a bit disappointed you didn't apparently spot the immaculate Scotthorn trailer our Darren brought along or the LR101 that pulled it being a Luxembourg radio body version and one of three only made. One survivor is still in Lux and the other has been somewhat cannibalised, pity. However, Darren did also do us proud with his 434 and the CVR(T) Striker; together with the 432 of our Falklands Vet John Martin they all had a hack round the rough field left for the purpose.

 

Some reminiscences of John's time down south while he was Chief Engineer for P&O on the MV "Elk" are written up in one of the mags but I have had the privilege of a first hand guided run through his four copious albums of the adventure; subject of a club talk I think when I twist his arm. . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

I see some brave soul posted a picture of my 623 in Jack's hallowed pages herein and I did have the pleasure of Simonstolly for a natter in a spare moment, but the rest of you HMVF people never came round and gave me an ear pounding, perhaps next year then, but beware time isn't always my own as much as I'd like of course and I do have to provide for myself and the Arena Manager too.

 

I have to say something about the Twin Detroit M4A2 Sherman and Jack did ask. It was kindly exhibited by Carl Brown of C&C Military Services in Oxford, someone I have known for many a year. I did get a drive of it after the show and I can say this, it is to me unbelievable that people could operate, live and die in one of these things. I drove it to the gate for loading and that was more than enough, sure even making allowances for being a 61yr (next week) old fart, these things are rough, two hands on the sticks heavy, unforgiving and unbelievably loud; 200yds was enough and as a daily driver being a frightened teenager knowing full well that most of what the enemy had would come through is unthinkable. It does put things into perspective.

 

We'll see what we can do next year, maybe Carl's holey Grant, a vehicle purposely devoid of paint and holed post war by German shaped charges, you'll notice no holes overlap. . . . . . . . . .but that's all another story. Maybe too we can obtain a Sexton, I have a cunning plan. . . . . . . :whistle:

 

I take TTM's comments about the bar, its always a quandary. The bar prices are posted and should be close to the local values but we have to remember the overhead of the facility with the paperwork and provision of the marquee which they provide and I suspect is a few thousand for the weekend.

 

Entertainment is a difficult one, what's praised one year is denigrated the next and I don't think we'll ever win. Within the limited budget of the bar concession there isn't much more than 300 quid a night to put something on and I can tell you it doesn't go far; it also seems that bands and discos don't seem to read the audience reaction to better attune the music selection and they haven't yet realised the volume knob does actually work both ways. Suggestions welcome and we'll have a go at something slightly different next year perhaps. I can tell you all, I get a deluge of arena and bar entertainment brochures every year, they all start around the £800 a pop and go way up from there.

 

Bogs and bins, essential kit and we never want the reputation of Beltring or the GDSF for these, but it does cost plenty and I can see why commercial enterprises look closely at these areas for minimising overheads. You can never win with placement though, put the loos in one place and it evens the usage together with making servicing easy but over half the site will whinge justifiably, spread about and the usage varies with awkward servicing. We largely address this by hiring on-site service rather than once daily attention and being prepared to drag some sentry boxes around as necessary.

 

Bins are a similar issue but I am always amazed that people won't walk more than three paces it seems to use them, although we've had worse; we had the usual half a day of four people collecting rubbish afterwards and dragging skips to the largest piles; incidentally a 623 can easily slide a skip at some 20mph+ and flatten the ruts in the process.

 

If any of you are involved in show organisation, the 1m² wheeled Eurobins are ideal, easy to move and they do not attract govt landfill tax being classed as domestic waste, whereas skips are commercial and expensive. The problem is finding a company with a lot more than 8 or 10 available at the one time. Also note the lids must close, contractors will simply throw out and leave stuff until it does, a couple of agile youngsters who can vault into one and do a jumping act for compaction seems to work though.

 

Showers are easy, plenty of notice as they get snapped up quite quickly, mains water on-site and deep pockets. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

I, and all of us do greatly appreciate TTM's closing comments and in that respect we seem to have achieved the overall aim of a relaxed show without any petty officialdom and restriction, sure there has to be some control but its mostly common sense, encouragingly evident this year, with a bit of consideration for your neighbour exhibitors; happily only one occasion arose for me to have a word this time and that was a non-MV exhibitor who has been a PITA before, is borderline appropriate, and so will not be there next year. ;-)

 

Enough of me droning on, our thanks to the exhibitors for coming along and especially the hardy souls who actually turned up on Monday and enjoyed themselves, and my thanks to the little band who helped me make it happen, we start again at the end of the month for 2008. . . . . . . .

 

Must make a mental note to wear the reading glasses when doing the 2008 climate request form for the Clerk of the Weather, I have a guilty feeling I slipped a line and ticked the wrong box.

 

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A good write up Richard. Yes R cubed was a (not sure I can type the word you called him) for bringing the space heater!!!! At least we dried our clothes and tent for a while, along with the rest of the field I think :-o

which reminds me I must remind hubby the tent canvas is still in the back of the truck where it was chucked on Monday! Better get it out and dry before we go off to Bolero :|

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Was indeed a nice weekend!

 

nice to see new and old faces!

 

And nice to meet Ginger and Co. who are joining us at War and Peace!

 

Well, here are a few pics...

 

Why has everyone missed the Rare! and Oldest Humber Pig! that was there!

 

here is My merry group on front of the fine Humber:)

 

 

width=640 height=480http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q199/LFK_bucket/mod2.jpg[/img]

 

Chris PWRR , P Connor , and Tunnellrat

 

width=640 height=480http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q199/LFK_bucket/mod1.jpg[/img]

 

Chris PWRR, Tunnellrat, P Connor

 

 

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There were obviously more forum memers at the show than we realised (despite probably knowing who was going). I think between collecting our trailer, setting up camp and hiding from the rain (not forgetting drinking beer), we didn't relly get around to hunting you all down for a chat. Mike and i got near to Richard, but he scooted away on his little quad. Had a chat with R3 and Rosemary, and hung out with Karl and his SAS guys. Big thank you to Richard and his team for an enjoyable show, despite the weather.

 

The first show of the season has made me realise how little time I have left to get our CVRTs running for Beltring! :shake: Best get my a*** in gear...

 

 

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