I've just posted this on another forum to explain how amazing RRG13 was, so incase anyone reading this doesn't know the story, I'll share it again here:
I apologise for any factual inaccuracies, the whole story was reasonably new to me, I'm not the best writer and my memories curse word at the best of times. Also I was drunk, oh so drunk.
Afraid I took zero pictures of cars over the weekend, several pictures of drunk people, but none of cars I'll have a hunt through friends facebooks though, there's hundreds appearing in my news feed.
Also, I picked up my new wheels fine, but sadly they're higher offset than I expected, so need spacers to stop them looking awful and handling weirdly, and I probably can't afford any for a week or two, so they'll have to wait a little while.
On the other hand, dear god this weekend was awesome! Retro rides really is an amazing community. Just as a little example to explain why it's awesome:
3 members of the forum had a unit together, and have all been working on fantastic projects for years, one guy had a Talbot Sunbeam which he'd nearly restored to a very impressive standard, having started with a completely shagged grasstrack car. welded shut doors, mesh welded inplace of a windscreen etc, a real shed that anyone else would have scrapped. Another had a Mach 2 mustang that was simply stunning, and the 3rd had a bay window VW camper and an immaculate mk1 Golf. Now I'm using the past tense because a couple of weeks ago an adjacent unit to theirs caught fire. The fire spread, it completely wiped out their workshop. EVERYTHING was lost, the roof came in on the cars because the fire was so hot the girders went floppy! Every tool they owned, all their cars, and all that other random curse word that you end up leaving in workshops. All of it. Gone. It was seriously heart breaking reading their amazingly calm reactions to it. Apologizing for the poor quality of their photos of the destruction, with the reason being that their nice camera had been left next to the pillar drill you could see half melted in one of the blurry phone photos.
A couple of days before the Gathering, one of the guys off the forum had an idea that people could bring old tat they didn't really want or need anymore to the show, and we could hold an auction to sell it, and give the proceeds to the poor guys who lost everything. This was all thought of and discussed over facebook to keep it as a bit of a surprise. Everyone was on board, and we thought 'awesome, we might make what £150?' A great little gesture to the guys to show our support. Well Saturday night, a pile of old car curse word was made, and a very drunk welsh man shouted lots from on-top of a pile of weller wheels, in what must have been the funniest auction I've ever seen. I can't describe it, but there was people literally falling over with laughter (ok, alcohol may have also been involved!). The auctioneer (a member called Kev From Wales, and a generally amazing and amusing man) kept refusing the use of a megaphone on the grounds that if he kept his voice lubricated with cider he'd be fine.
There was some genuinely good stuff there, and pretty much everyone got involved. The rest of the campsite became a ghost town, and the crowd around the welshman must have been 50 feet deep. Mostly things went for sensible money rather than pennies, as there was enough people there that even rare stuff still had one or 2 people who it would be of use to. Plus most people were hugely drunk, and bidding on things just because it was bloody funny! In a lot of cases they ended up knowingly paying over the odds for things because it was for a good cause. We all woke up feeling pretty saw and eventually recovered from the alcohol enough to realize that we now had an old cake tin with a few quid short of £700 in it!
Later in the day we had a chat with the event organizers, they were in full support, and agreed to announce the success while they were doing the prizes for the show, as well as agreeing to chuck in a Retro Rides Gathering tee-shirt as a final auction item. Everyone really felt for these guys; The Talbot Sunbeam had been awarded the 'Most anticipated project' award 3 years running, and everyone was shocked and saddened to hear about the fire. The T-shirt that had been donated was auctioned at the awards ceremony and they started the bidding at £10, after mentioning that its retail price was £10. The auction slowly got going, heading up to about £40 before the guys who organised the show announced that they'd match whatever it when for in cash as a donation. It kept going up quickly, everyone completely in the spirit of it, leading to it eventually selling for £100. A cheap t-shirt, that they'd just admitted retailed for £10, sold for £100.... Insane, but brilliant.
So yeah, basically, the result of a quick facebook suggestion about 3 days before the show raised £900 for the guys. We'd been hopeful of getting £150 at the start, just a token of our support, but ended up with a real gesture that will hopefully make a noticeable dent in their losses, even if it is just a small one proportionally. The moral being: Retro Rides is bloody brilliant, and if you've got a workshop full of cool curse word, for gods sake make sure it's insured well!
Also, I picked up my new wheels fine, but sadly they're higher offset than I expected, so need spacers to stop them looking awful and handling weirdly, and I probably can't afford any for a week or two, so they'll have to wait a little while.
On the other hand, dear god this weekend was awesome! Retro rides really is an amazing community. Just as a little example to explain why it's awesome:
3 members of the forum had a unit together, and have all been working on fantastic projects for years, one guy had a Talbot Sunbeam which he'd nearly restored to a very impressive standard, having started with a completely shagged grasstrack car. welded shut doors, mesh welded inplace of a windscreen etc, a real shed that anyone else would have scrapped. Another had a Mach 2 mustang that was simply stunning, and the 3rd had a bay window VW camper and an immaculate mk1 Golf. Now I'm using the past tense because a couple of weeks ago an adjacent unit to theirs caught fire. The fire spread, it completely wiped out their workshop. EVERYTHING was lost, the roof came in on the cars because the fire was so hot the girders went floppy! Every tool they owned, all their cars, and all that other random curse word that you end up leaving in workshops. All of it. Gone. It was seriously heart breaking reading their amazingly calm reactions to it. Apologizing for the poor quality of their photos of the destruction, with the reason being that their nice camera had been left next to the pillar drill you could see half melted in one of the blurry phone photos.
A couple of days before the Gathering, one of the guys off the forum had an idea that people could bring old tat they didn't really want or need anymore to the show, and we could hold an auction to sell it, and give the proceeds to the poor guys who lost everything. This was all thought of and discussed over facebook to keep it as a bit of a surprise. Everyone was on board, and we thought 'awesome, we might make what £150?' A great little gesture to the guys to show our support. Well Saturday night, a pile of old car curse word was made, and a very drunk welsh man shouted lots from on-top of a pile of weller wheels, in what must have been the funniest auction I've ever seen. I can't describe it, but there was people literally falling over with laughter (ok, alcohol may have also been involved!). The auctioneer (a member called Kev From Wales, and a generally amazing and amusing man) kept refusing the use of a megaphone on the grounds that if he kept his voice lubricated with cider he'd be fine.
There was some genuinely good stuff there, and pretty much everyone got involved. The rest of the campsite became a ghost town, and the crowd around the welshman must have been 50 feet deep. Mostly things went for sensible money rather than pennies, as there was enough people there that even rare stuff still had one or 2 people who it would be of use to. Plus most people were hugely drunk, and bidding on things just because it was bloody funny! In a lot of cases they ended up knowingly paying over the odds for things because it was for a good cause. We all woke up feeling pretty saw and eventually recovered from the alcohol enough to realize that we now had an old cake tin with a few quid short of £700 in it!
Later in the day we had a chat with the event organizers, they were in full support, and agreed to announce the success while they were doing the prizes for the show, as well as agreeing to chuck in a Retro Rides Gathering tee-shirt as a final auction item. Everyone really felt for these guys; The Talbot Sunbeam had been awarded the 'Most anticipated project' award 3 years running, and everyone was shocked and saddened to hear about the fire. The T-shirt that had been donated was auctioned at the awards ceremony and they started the bidding at £10, after mentioning that its retail price was £10. The auction slowly got going, heading up to about £40 before the guys who organised the show announced that they'd match whatever it when for in cash as a donation. It kept going up quickly, everyone completely in the spirit of it, leading to it eventually selling for £100. A cheap t-shirt, that they'd just admitted retailed for £10, sold for £100.... Insane, but brilliant.
So yeah, basically, the result of a quick facebook suggestion about 3 days before the show raised £900 for the guys. We'd been hopeful of getting £150 at the start, just a token of our support, but ended up with a real gesture that will hopefully make a noticeable dent in their losses, even if it is just a small one proportionally. The moral being: Retro Rides is bloody brilliant, and if you've got a workshop full of cool curse word, for gods sake make sure it's insured well!
I apologise for any factual inaccuracies, the whole story was reasonably new to me, I'm not the best writer and my memories curse word at the best of times. Also I was drunk, oh so drunk.