The night before our event I collected all the boxes of Welcome Packs and prizes into the hallway at home, and settled down to checking the forecast and a sleepless night wondering what I might have forgotten.

At 7:45am Mark Lambourne arrived with two Jaguars, and Martyn East with a third Jaguar and we loaded everything up for the day split between the Jags, and headed up to Pease Pottage Services.

When we got to the Services there were Jaguars everywhere, some parked up with owners having a chat, others pulling up just as we got there, and yet more coming in as we were getting set up.

The services had reserved our usual conservatory room there, but the agreed discount on Costa products didn't materialise.
The Welcome Packs were handed out as people registered, and a number of attendees left quickly in order to get their club areas set up. We ran through the planned day ahead, and everyone set off for Denbies and the main event.

I was the last person out (as usual) and travelling in convoy with Tony from Harwoods to Denbies. Despite knowing the route we managed to take a wrong turn and had a good look around Dorking before arriving :-)

On arrival at the the main event there was a huge queue of Jaguars waiting to get in, with a number of the classic Jaguars pulled over to one side to avoid overheating.
As you pulled into the event it immediately struck you that this years event was radically different to previous years with a lot of Jaguars parked up in double rows as being the only way to fit everyone in close to the trade stands etc.

There was two things that struck you as you parked - one that because of two traders dropping out we had a couple of gaps in the trade area and that the club areas were very busy.

We managed to get a group shot of most of the attendees at the start of the event - as always it was not complete but I would say a good 75% of everyone.
The rest of the event was a blur to me lol.. I managed to get my stand organised, with prizes on show including workshop manuals, a Bag-World Weekend Bag, 10 shoe bags, 1 suit bag, 2 x £50 SNG Vouchers, 4 Scratchshield 2 bucket wash systems, 4 Scratchshield filter systems, Genuine Jaguar accessories from Harwoods inc F-Type Keyring, Classic Jaguar Keyring, Cufflinks, & F-Type Leather card holder to name a few and started circulating, checking in on everyone and promoting the Prize Draw.
The attendees checked out the talks by Bert from PVD Approved, and Michael from the Leather Repair Company, and circulated with the largest range of Jaguars we have ever assembled.. everything from a gorgeous 1938 SS100, through to a 1958 Formula One Jaguar Racing Car, to E-Types, every modern model of Jaguar and even custom Jaguars..

Lunch at Denbies was great.. the 10% discount on food/drink made great food even more affordable ensuring everyone was fed :-)
During the afternoon the weather closed in and we had rain at about 2pm.. leading to quite a few people leaving.. however it was only a shower and passed quite quickly.
Due to people leaving and the potential weather we moved the awards and prize draw forward. The prize draw as always took a while to get through everything, and at the end of it we even had free t-shirts to distribute :-)

The awards went smoothly, although Michael from the Leather Repair Centre had vanished due to the call of nature, so Tony & I judged the Best Interior and Best Exterior awards on his behalf.

it was a great day out, with the weather putting a bit of a dampener on things in the afternoon but we had the largest range of Jaguars ever there, the club areas were very popular, and both attendees and traders and clubs felt it had been a worthwhile day.

There was, as always, some issues which became apparent due to the growth of the event, some due to there not being enough of me to be everywhere with everything, some due to the method of getting people into the main event, a bit of an issue with the start point, and not managing to get all the information to everyone, ticket sales for the draw which fell considerably shorter than expected, and some other smaller issues.

This was to be expected as our event is developing organically, and these things will surface as we develop.

The night after the event and through bank holiday Monday I was brainstorming with a number of core attendees to see if and how we could solve the issues for our 2020 event, and I believe we have, additionally I am now officially being mentored - which I know sounds odd for something that I do in my spare time (OK, OK all my spare time, all year now) but I believe that the changes that the brainstorming agreed on plus my being mentored should make a huge difference for everyone involved with our event. We now have a route forwards implementing fixes for all this years issues, and I am being trained as an event organiser :-)

I absolutely saw nothing of this coming lol

We did also have another issue, finally, with our official event photographer dropping out due to a family emergency but a lot of people who attended have been incredible and photos have been arriving in a steady flow.. a MASSIVE thankyou to everyone for this! All the photos are moving onto the event Facebook page and the events OneDrive account for everyone to access.

A huge thankyou goes out to the traders, clubs, forums and attendees that attended this years event - without you guys we could not manage what we do, not even close - and I apologise for the wrinkles we had this year, but with a plan in place agreed with a number of our core attendees and my being mentored I believe I can truly offer you a 2020 event that trumps eveything we have managed so far :-)

Please keep an eye on our event website, Facebook page and of course of forum threads for all the news as we go, and get involved in any way you can - the more everyone is involved the more we can do, and get right :-)

Thankyou, thankyou so much for making 2019 our best year to-date.

 

Oh yes, I almost forgot - our event should have a feature in next months Classic Motor Monthly, and PVD Approved are planning a feature on our event in a futre edition of the Pro Detailer magazine :-)

 

Photos will continue to be added to the event Facebook page, and our OneDrive account as they come in so please check in on them regularily to see the latest pictures from our 2019 event.

I have signed off on everything else regarding our 2019 event, and have started afresh with our 2020 event.

We have a new simplified one stop registration that includes free entry into the Prize Draw, guaranteed inclusion in the class awards, and of course your free Welcome Pack for the day all for just £5 payable via PayPal when you register.

The order of features will be changing over the next few weeks to more closely match the timings our attendees want, I will be re-signing as many of our current sponsors as possible and be adding new sponsors, and specialist stands for you to meet. Additionally we will be catering for an increased number of Jaguars, increasing our available slots from 160 to 200.

Our 2020 event will have a patron who has been a Jaguar enthusiast for many years, and he will be advising and guiding me to help bring you our best Jaguar event to-date.

Additionally our 2020 event will be donating a percentage of its income to the RNLI to enable them to continue the great work that they do.

So please keep an eye on our 2020 event forum threads for all the latest news as we go, and you will find all the registration details, photos, archive event threads and more on our event website (including the free annual Christmas competition open to all event attendees) at JaguarForumsUK - The free annual convoy & meet event for Jaguar owners

Finally, a huge thankyou to everyone involved with our 2019 event.. without every one of you we could never had achieved what we did, with such a huge range of Jaguars, attendees, specialists, and clubs and forums. Thankyou! and hopefully see you at our 2020 event :-)

 

Steve, another fantastic event as usual

( As usual ) it's what we've come to EXPECT, therein lies the problem. I'm generalising here, but for the most part no one has the first clue as to just how many man hours / days / weeks goes into planning something like this. The face to face meetings / texts / emails / forum updates are just the tip of the iceberg.

Anyhow, a massive thank you and well done from me, you made it happen again. I'm sure anyone who attended had a great day, free as always and met lots of like minded owners / enthusiasts.

Nice one Steve
Jim