Author: Barrie Smith

I’m writing my piece this month having just returned from Wokingham where I have been moving our stored items from one storage facility to another. Ably assisted by Adrian Ellison, Nick Edgley and Ed Butterfield, the four of us managed to move everything across in just under two hours and managed to avoid the brunt of Storm Babet. I have to say a huge thank you to these three and particularly to Ed for the use of his van to move everything across.

In September we were advised by St Crispin’s that we would no longer be able to store anything at the school. This includes everything that we need to actually run a St Crispin’s meeting and we will now have to transport all of these items for each meeting. The reason we had to move our storage facility, was because we could not actually access our previous store on a Sunday. Going forward we’re going to need a few volunteers that, on a rotation basis, would be happy to collect all of the St Crispin’s items from the store in a large car or small van and deliver them for the meeting. Afterwards, they will then return the items to the store and ensure they’re put back into storage neatly. If you feel that you would be happy to volunteer to do this on a rotation, please let Nick Edgley know and he can let you know more about what’s required.

For those at St Crispin’s in October, you will have seen that we had a visit from Santa Clause himself. We of course know him as Steve Harris, who is the Chief Marshal of the Reading Toy Run. Steve and his team do an outstanding job of organising the official road closure and all of the marshals to enable the Toy Run to go ahead. As he said, TVAM provide the vast majority of the huge number of marshals that are needed and he’s once again looking for our assistance. The event this year is on Sunday 3rd December and, regardless of your membership status in TVAM, you can sign up to be a marshal for the day. Please email toyrun@tvam.org if you can offer your time on that day to ensure that the Toy Run can go ahead and get the toys to those children.

Adrian mentioned last month that the end of October marks the end of the TVAM financial year. The Committee, Social Team Leaders and various other volunteers are currently collating facts and figures and writing reports ready for the Annual Report to the Club membership. This is the start of probably the busiest period for the Committee in the Clubs calendar, as the Annual Report has to be prepared in November and sent out in December, ready for the AGM in January. The Club has had another really good year and you’ll be able to read and hear about that in the next couple of months.

The AGM is an opportunity for change on the Committee. As part of the Clubs rules, an individual can only stay in the same ‘Officer’ post for a
maximum of five consecutive years. After this, they are obliged to step down although they can stand for another Committee position if they wish. Adrian mentioned in his ‘From the Saddle’ piece last month that he has decided to step down from the Chief Observer role at the AGM in January. In fact, each of the Officers of the Club stand down at each AGM and have to be re-elected into post by the membership if they wish to stand for another year. Adrian has decided not to stand for re-election which leaves an opening for that role.

At the AGM I will have served as Club Chair for three years and I have decided that I would like to throw my hat in the ring to stand for the Chief Observer position. I see the position as a great opportunity to uphold the excellent standards of training within TVAM and IAM RoadSmart.

This clearly means that there will be an opportunity for the Club to have a new Chair. All Officer positions have to be filled at the AGM, so if you would like to stand for any position then please do make a member of the Committee aware and they can let you know what each position entails. Formal paperwork will be issued for nominations prior to the AGM by Ian Gaitley our Club Secretary.

So this is effectively my last ‘From the Chair’ piece for Slipstream, as we don’t have a Slipstream in December and Adrian will write his final piece in January. I feel that holding the position of Chair of TVAM for the last three years has been a great honour. To stand each year and to be elected by the membership is humbling. I hope that I have served you, the membership, well and helped to move this great Club forward.

All that is left for me to do in this piece is to wish you all a Merry Christmas in December. Have fun, stay safe and I look forward to seeing you all in 2024.

Barrie Smith
TVAM Chair

Autumn has officially arrived although with the amount of rain we’ve had over the last couple of months it’s getting harder to tell when our seasons actually change. It is however time for me to disappear on my holidays and therefore I give you my apologies that I’ll not be at St. Crispin’s with you this month.

The change of season may start us considering how much riding we do and what we wear on the bike. I’m not saying that it’s time to start inserting the thermal liners and getting out the winter ‘claw’ gloves just yet, however we may think about casting aside the highly vented garments in favour of the slightly warmer clothing with optional vent panels.

There are still many activities, including social rides and weekends away happening over the next month. The weekend after this September’s St Crispin’s is packed with rides by Mark Spittles, CLAMS and WOBMOB, as well as Welsh Wanders heading off to Wales. Castle Combe skills day is on the 26th September and Dave Hepworth and his team will be expertly developing your road skills in the safer environment of the track.

Moving into early October we have more offerings of social rides by the GNATs and WAGs on the first weekend and this is swiftly followed by the autumn 7Ws, TVAM’s premium Associate Training Weekend, on the 6-8 September. For those not attending that weekend, there are further social rides by SAMs and WAGs before we all gather back at St Crispin’s on Sunday 15th October.

Moving onto St. Crispin’s and a thank you to all of you that have attended in July and August and for working with us to ensure the parking and meeting venue worked well. I’d like to say a particular thank you to Nick Edgley and his band of willing volunteer marshals who have done their best to ensure that we park sensibly and guide us through to the Science Block where we now meet. Without the assistance of the volunteers, we would not be able to manage the process of observed rides, social rides and our courses all running during the morning.

I’d like to make one request of all riders at St Crispin’s. Please respect the cones and barriers that are put out to mark off our area and only use the lane nearest
London Road to ride in and out of our area of the car park. It has been noted that many of you are seeing the opportunity to pass through the cones and use another lane to exit the St. Crispin’s car park. Whilst this may look like a good opportunity to exit quickly, it is not what we have agreed with the school and could potentially cause us an issue going forward. September is going to be a far busier month, with the stage school returning after their summer break, so please respect the area that we have allocated and work with our marshal volunteers to make the day a success for all.

St. Crispin’s may well look different again this month when we’re hopefully allowed to use the temporary canteen that the school have erected at the end of the science block. Having had a sneaky peek inside, it had solid sides and a decent floor and is about the same size as the previous canteen area we had at the other end of the school. Whilst we have been lucky with the weather in July and August for our meetings, I would suggest that this is a good alternative large area for our general meeting and announcements in poorer weather.

Finally, I’d like to make another request for articles for Slipstream. Salli Griffith, our editor, does an amazing job of putting together the monthly magazine that lands on our doormats in time for St Crispin’s each month. This is highly regarded, within IAMRS groups, as the best magazine that any group produces. It’s your magazine and Salli cannot produce this without articles being sent to her by members. If you have been away on a trip, either of your own making or one that the Club has done, taken a test ride on your next purchase or maybe been to an event that you feel the membership would be interested in, please consider writing a small article and sending it to Salli at slipstream@tvam.org so she can include it in an upcoming magazine.

Thanks for your cooperation and whatever you’re doing this month, have fun and stay safe.

Barrie Smith
TVAM Chair

As I start writing this piece, I’m checking the weather forecast for the weekend ahead. The BBC weather app is showing one thing and, of course, the Met Office weather app is showing the complete opposite. What am I worrying about, I hear you cry, it’s summer so what can possibly go wrong? Well, I am about to head to Wales for the Observer Weekend, at the Metropole Hotel in Llandrindod Wells, and there’s a reason that Wales has beautiful green countryside!

The Observer Weekend is the annual training weekend for Observers. It’s an opportunity for us to meet together to discuss all things ‘Observory’ and receive updates on changes within our training. We usually have two classroom sessions, one on the Saturday and one on the Sunday, as well as a road-based exercise
followed by some social riding on the excellent Welsh roads. It’s also a chance to meet and work with some of our new Trainee Observers and help them on their continued journey within TVAM.

Let’s hope I can stand in front of you at St Crispin’s this month and report what a great sunny weekend we had.

Talking of St Crispin’s, for those of you who couldn’t attend in June, I have to announce that our monthly meetings are going to look significantly different for the next 12 months.

At the end of June, the school started a major building project that involves the canteen and main hall and therefore we’re losing the use of these areas for our monthly meetings, as well as our parking area and slow manoeuvring area at the rear of the school.

The project is to create a 400-seat canteen and improved student movement areas at the rear of the school. Much housing development has taken place around Wokingham, particularly in the catchment area for St Crispin’s School. No new secondary schools have been built and therefore the intake for St Crispin’s will rise significantly in the coming years. Coupled with this, the school has had a safety audit and it has recommended that vehicular movements are to be limited to the front of the school, for everyone other than emergency vehicles.

So, along with all other users of the school, all parking and vehicle movements from July St Crispin’s will be confined to the front car park and this is going to require some management by marshals to assist members with where best to park and see people through to the rear of the site. Thank you to those people who have already volunteered to assist with this from July onwards.

When you arrive in the front car park, marshals will be there to point you to where is best to park your motorcycle, based on what you’re doing that morning. We will try to allocate areas for Associates and Observers who wish to do observed rides. There will also be areas for those Full Members who want to attend a social ride and for Members who wish to attend the slow manoeuvring and machine handling courses. Finally, we’ll try and allocate an area for the many people who attend St Crispin’s to make the morning run smoothly and don’t generally go out and ride. Please try to be clear on what your intention is for the morning, to give the marshals the best opportunity to get you parked somewhere suitable.

We’ll also do our best to ensure a smooth exit, at various times, for our social rides and observed rides. This may mean that we need to stagger the exit of our social rides in order to ensure safety for all users.

As I have said, our courses will run in the front car park once the observed and social rides have left. If you’re returning from an observed ride and these courses are still running, please be courteous and park in an area away from these activities. There’s nothing quite as distracting as a rider cutting across your path when you are doing a slow riding exercise.

From this month, our meeting will be in the Science Block area at the far end of the school. There is a walkway through from the front car park and you’ll be pointed in the appropriate direction. There is a large external covered area that we will utilise; weather permitting.

From September onwards we should have use of a temporary canteen that is being erected next to where we used to hold the slow riding course.

We’ll need everyone to help where they can and be as flexible as possible to enable this to work. Things are going to look very different for the next couple of months, before getting fully into the temporary accommodation, and it will be at least 12 months before we get back to anything like normal.

This month will be a learning exercise for both us and the school. Please help us and the school by making this work, as we want St Crispin’s to be the home of TVAM for many years to come. The Committee will update the membership via groups.io and Slipstream about specific changes, as and when we’re aware of them.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Barrie Smith
TVAM Chair

I’m writing this piece at a really busy time for the Club, with the riding season really getting off to a fantastic start and so much going on for all members.
I’m just back from France where I have spent 4 days, with 3 friends (TVAM members), visiting 3 of my great, great Uncle’s graves. They all served in the Allied Forces in WW1 and unfortunately never came home. Whilst the weather wasn’t always in our favour, it was certainly a great long weekend riding around the French countryside, on some great roads, that clearly looks significantly different than it would have 125 years ago.

If you have never ridden abroad, then a trip across to northern France is a great way to get some experience. Do look at the specific road traffic laws though, as priority on junctions is not as clear cut as it is in the UK. In fairness, the locals appear to understand that us Brits are unlikely to get it right all the time and are relatively tolerant of our errors!

Whilst I was away in France, both 7Ws and Welsh Wanders took over Llandrindod Wells in mid Wales. Apologies that the Club didn’t manage to coordinate better on the timings for these two trips, as we know that many people like to attend both weekends where possible. We promise to do a better job of getting the dates sorted so there is less likelihood of a clash in future (WW September – 7Ws October ’23).

7Ws appears to have been another successful training weekend, with 17 Associates, 12 Observers, 5 Trainee Observers and 8 Full Members having a great time.

Welsh Wanders saw 31 Club members away for a weekend of social riding on the fantastic Welsh roads.

Thank you to the organisers of both of these Club events that are put on for the benefit of the membership and new dates for both weekends are already announced in the late summer, early autumn.

And the fun didn’t stop there. The last weekend in April saw both a Core Skills Day and BikeCraft both hosted in the Sixth Form Block at St Crispin’s.

The Core Skills Day saw 8 new Trainee Observers working with 8 Full Observers and the Training Team to develop their communication and observing skills. This is a day of workshops and breakout sessions where the Trainee Observers learn ways to meet new Associates and take them through an observed riding session. It’s just one of the many disciplines that our Trainee Observers have to complete in order to become an Observer with TVAM/IAM RoadSmart.

I was lucky enough to sit in on the BikeCraft day that was being hosted by our excellent BikeCraft team. Di Woodcock, Richard Barker, Paul Naish and Steve Mason took 11 members through the fundamentals of riding, working in harmony with your machine and making progress, all in a classroom environment with some great images, videos and practical advice. Thank you all for a really informative day. I cannot recommend this course highly enough for Associates working towards their test and Full Members wishing to refresh their own knowledge.

We have lots coming up in the next month between the May and June Club Meetings. There are no less than 12 social rides on various dates; Castle Combe Skills Day on 23rd May; the RAMs T-Run on 28th May; Look Lean Roll on 11th June; Run Leader & Back Marker course on 17th June and of course St Crispin’s on the 18th June. All are published in the Slipstream and Groups.io calendars and regular reminders come out weekly on Group.io to jog your memory. Why not join another local team for a social ride or try something new to keep up your skills? If any Observers are available to support the T-Runs throughout the riding season, I’m sure that you’ll be welcomed with open arms by the various local teams. The more we can work together, the better for all our members.

I’m just off now to pack for 3Rs, the Full Member Training Weekend in Llandrindod Wells that takes 20 Full Members and 10 Observers to Wales for a balanced
weekend of social and observed rides, with plenty of tall tales and banter in the bar afterwards. Hopefully you’ll be able to read about it in next month’s Slipstream.

Whatever you’re planning on doing this month, have fun and ride safe everyone.

Barrie Smith
TVAM Chair

I always find the start of the year strange, in that it seems to take us forever to get through January and then February goes by in a blur. Maybe, because of the colder, damper conditions we’re just not out on our bikes as much enjoying ourselves. It’s hard to believe that we’re now well into March and springtime is beckoning us to uncover the bikes that we carefully put away for the winter (those that didn’t ride throughout), give them a dust off, a really good clean and check them over before firing them back into life.

For those people that did mothball their bikes over the winter months, it’s worth taking a look at an article that Pat Coneley wrote in Slipstream back in April ’13 (page 21). You can find past copies of Slipstream on groups.io under ‘files’ in the ‘all members’ section.

It’s important to check our bikes regularly, particularly after lengthy spells of not riding. The Advanced Rider Course (ARC) talks about pre-ride checks and Roadcraft specifically uses the acronym POWDDERSS to work around your machine. Most of us like to add another S (self) to the end, ensuring that we’re also ready to ride the bike. We carry out these checks to assist in preventing incidents happening. That said, when incidents do happen it’s important that we reflect on what happened, why it happened and see if there is anything that we could have done differently to change the course of events. It’s then really good practice to let the Club know about the incident.

Nick Edgley has written a piece for this month’s Slipstream that looks at an incident and the importance of reporting it. I would urge you all to read this and please do let the Club know about any incidents that you may be involved in. We only use the data to enable us to build courses to learn from each other.

Looking ahead to getting out and riding, the calendar does seem to be filling up nicely with many social rides. It seems that with many of the social teams offering regular social rides, pretty much every weekend in the calendar has a ride, or a choice of rides, that you can take part in. We also have our training and social riding weekends starting.

The fantastic 7Ws takes place on the 21st – 23rd April in Llandrindod Wells in Wales and is followed two weeks later, on the 5th – 7th May, with the 3Rs weekend at the same venue. These are weekends with an emphasis on training, however they have social riding elements built into them. 7Ws is geared at Associates and 3Rs is geared at Full Members. The feedback that we received from participants on these weekends in 2022 was overwhelmingly positive in relation to the organisation, location, venue and structure of the events. We carefully review all feedback and make changes as necessary.

For members that wish to have a social weekend in Wales, Welsh Wanders is also taking place in Llandrindod Wells on the 21st-23rd April. So, what better way to kick-start the 2023 riding season than riding arguably the best roads in the UK and socialising with large groups of friends in these three weekend trips.

A couple of items for Observers to note. Adrian, our Chief Observer, has published the list for Aardvarks on groups.io, so please try to find your riding buddy and get these booked as soon as possible. The earlier you book, the better the chance of getting the best dates to suit you both. The Observer Weekend is also running again in Llandrindod Wells from the 30th June – 2nd July and booking for this is now available on the TVAM Webshop. An early bird discount is available.

Spring is looking like being really busy for TVAM members so have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith
TVAM Chair

I’d like to start my piece this month by wishing you all a Happy New Year and I do hope that you had a merry and peaceful Christmas to round off 2022.

As mentioned in my last article in October, the Committee and other volunteer members had been working hard putting together the Annual Report which has since been published on groups.io to all members. I do hope that you have been able to find time to take a look and see how well the Club has done over the past year.

In January we hold our AGM after our monthly Club meeting. This year it will be held on Sunday 15th from 12.30pm – 2pm in the Sixth Form Block at St Crispin’s School. In order to be quorate, we require a minimum of 5% of the membership to either be in attendance or to have submitted their proxy vote to the Committee by the start of the AGM. This is your opportunity to hear about how the Club has performed in the previous year and for the Committee to present their proposals for the coming year. It is also an opportunity for members to vote for the officers of the Committee, for those Committee members being re-elected and on the various resolutions being proposed. Should you wish to submit your proxy vote or register your interest to be elected to one of the officer positions, please visit groups.io where you will find the AGM announcement pinned to the top of the ‘All Members’ area and links to both of the forms.

I very much look forward to seeing many of you at the AGM and a finger buffet will be provided, just in case you needed any more encouragement. This is your Club so please do attend and make your vote count.

Plans for the new riding season are well under way and the Training Team have been busy planning the spring 7Ws event. This event generally kicks off the riding season and is a training weekend in Wales where Associates get priority. We’re awaiting dates to be confirmed by the Metropole in Llandrindod Wells and an announcement will be made soon. Look out for notifications in groups.io coming soon, if not already announced.

Like myself, many of you ride your bikes all year round. Riding in less than perfect conditions is a skill that we should all work on to ensure that we can adequately deal with all conditions. I was lucky enough to be chatting with Alan Thomas at a recent weekend away in Devon. Alan is an IAM examiner, long standing member of TVAM and Rapid Training instructor. It was a particularly moist weekend and some words from our conversation that really struck a chord with me were “we should ride in the wet exactly as we should ride in the dry”. Paying particular attention to the word ‘should’, Alan’s point was that our bikes and tyres are designed to work as well in the wet as they do in the dry, it’s only our ability and fears that make us feel and do things differently. If we keep things smooth and remain able to stop in the distance we can see to be clear then the bike will cope with the conditions.

This brings me nicely onto the fact that Rapid Training offer coached rideouts and development days throughout the winter and TVAM have secured excellent discounts for TVAM members. By using the link on the groups.io ‘Wiki’ in the ‘All Members’ area, you can gain access to these excellent days and other discounts on Rapid Training courses throughout the year. I can happily say that your money will be well spent and you’ll have a fantastic day’s riding.

To finish my piece this month I’d like to talk briefly about a couple of Committee members who have stepped down or are stepping down at the AGM. Firstly, I’d like to mention Alan Hudson, our previous Green Team Leader. Alan stood down in May ’22 after four years in post and whilst leading the Green Team, Alan was an active member of the Committee and instrumental in the creation and running of the pillion rider course. Alan did a good job in the role and is now looking for his next challenge alongside continuing to run the pillion rider course.

Secondly, I’d like to mention Chris Brownlee, our Chief Observer. Chris will be standing down at the AGM as his 5-year tenure is up and constitutionally he must leave his post. Chris took over as Chief Observer in 2018 and has seen the Club through one of the most testing times in its history with the pandemic. As Chair of the Club, I have worked closely with Chris, as did the previous chair Andy Slater, to ensure that we have managed a route through an extremely difficult three years to help keep us all as safe as possible whilst continuing to train as and when we could.

It’s been a pleasure working with both Alan and Chris and I hope that both will remain with the Club for many years to come and share their skills further in other areas of TVAM.

Barrie Smith
TVAM Chair

It’s hard to believe that we have arrived at October already. The year just seems to have flown by and I hope that you have all had the chance to get to experience some of the many Club activities that have been running throughout the riding season.

As October marks the end of the TVAM financial year, the committee’s attention turns
to drafting the Annual Report that goes out to Club members over the winter, ready for the AGM in January. This takes a huge effort from many members, as well as the Committee, as it has to be sent to the Charities Commission to ensure that we meet the aims and objectives of the charity that is TVAM. I thought that I would share a few thoughts with you all for my piece this month.

It’s been another challenging year, in our attempts to get back to the Club’s full package of activities post-Covid. That said, it is in a good position with membership continuing to grow at a sustainable rate and activities for members are building back to pre-Covid levels and higher. The Club’s finances are also in good shape.

We’re continuing to invest in training, as the bedrock of what we do, and developing the Club to provide the social and riding activities for all of our members.

The number of social rides has continued to grow and we now see a huge range of rides that have as few as 2-3 riders and as many as mid 20s. There are many of the old favourite routes being re-introduced as well as many new ones that incorporate new stops for coffee or lunch to cafés and farm shops all over the southern end of the country. Welsh Wanders has once again headed for Wales for their end of summer social riding.

For those that wish to develop their skills, 7Ws, the principal Associate training weekend, ran in April and the relaunch of the 3Rs as a training weekend for Full Members ran in May. The Autumn edition of 7Ws will be taking place as this issue of Slipstream goes to print and will be the final training weekend of the TVAM year. Hopefully more on that in November’s edition.

For our Full Members our Advanced Plus, with an extension into Yorkshire, is working well with lots of Full Members taking advantage of ongoing coaching on their riding. Full Members now have the opportunity to do an Advanced Plus with Hull & East Riding Advanced Motorcyclist (HERAM). Nigel Taylor, HERAM Chief Observer and long-standing member of TVAM is very happy to introduce TVAM Members to the delights of the Yorkshire roads. Have you done one? When was the last time you received some positive input into your riding? It’s as easy as emailing advancedplus@tvam.org to arrange a day in the TVAM area or maybe a couple of days with Nigel in Yorkshire.

I am particularly pleased to see that all of our courses have been able to run at least once this year. Some have clearly been easier to make happen than others, however it is great to see that we have finally been able to re-instate Look Lean Roll to members and we kept going with Advanced Bike Control. BikeCraft made a comeback to a classroom environment, after several successful online versions of the course, and the ‘full’ Observer Core Skills Days returned to enable us to ramp up the number of Observers within the Club. If you’re a Full Member and are interested in becoming an Observer, please email observerinterest@tvam.org and we can arrange a chat with a member of the Training Team and start you on your next journey within TVAM.

We’re progressing well on the project to build a new database function for the Club and this is likely to cost a lot less than we had originally budgeted for.

So that’s a taster of what we’ve been doing and you’ll see more when the Annual Report is issued at the end of the calendar year.

I hope that you all enjoy reading this month’s Slipstream and don’t forget that if you take part in a course, social ride, training event or anything else of a motorcycling nature that you feel you would like to share with your fellow members, please put a short article together and send it to Salli at slipstream@tvam.org so she can include it in a future edition of our excellent monthly magazine.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

As an Associate, you will have heard your Observer say ‘ride for yourself’ on many occasions and always before you have an observed ride or take part in a social ride. It forms a fundamental part of what we do as an advanced rider. It basically means look after yourself and take opportunities for you, not for anyone else.

Many of you will know that I spend a lot of time following Associates as a TVAM Observer. I also spend considerable time following Direct Access Students as a DVSA Approved Instructor, as well as leading social rides for the Club, and I like to think that my riding standard is reasonably high. I therefore take the ‘ride for yourself’ message to mean just that, ride for myself and enjoy the ride. This message came back to me a few weeks ago when I was leading a full day’s ride with a really good group of TVAM friends.

We were doing a long day’s riding and I had split the day up into six stages. On the first stage another Observer, a really good friend of mine who I respect immensely, happened to mention that some of my lines in bends were a little unconventional. I had to admit that one or two were not up to my usual standard. After the first stop we set off again and suddenly I found myself thinking about every bend. Worse, I found myself over thinking every bend and things very soon started to go downhill. My standard of riding was now, in my opinion, awful and when we found a few showers and then a prolonged period of rain I just started to get angry with my riding. This, as you can imagine didn’t help at all and the coffee stop couldn’t come soon enough. Luckily the small group of friends could see my own displeasure and they left me alone for a few minutes to calm down.

Now when I say I was riding badly, I mean that I was not happy with my riding style. I certainly was not dangerous, however I was not as smooth as I usually am. That was enough for me to want to do something to change.

The third stage to lunch was an improvement, although I was still having to think my way through the bends so, after lunch I decided to hand over the leading of the ride to another rider. This was easy as we all had the routes and it gave me an opportunity to sit at the back and just focus on my own riding and get back to enjoying the ride again. This simple change worked brilliantly and during the fifth stage I asked a couple of other riders to sit behind me and give me feedback on what they saw.

By the final stage I was back in front and back to my old self. This is where all the training pays off. With a little nudge from my friends, I was able to recognise that I wasn’t riding as well as usual and with the support of those same friends I was able to do something about it.

I guess the moral of this story is that we need to realise when things are not going as well as they could be and do something about it. I reached out to my peer group and they responded in a supportive manner. TVAM is such a supportive group, we should never be embarrassed to say if we have an issue and ask our friends to give us support and feedback.

This brings me nicely onto a couple of things that I’d like you all to think about – riding standard and incident reporting.

Unfortunately, over the last couple of months, we have had two or three reported instances of poor riding on social rides. This has resulted in members almost leaving the Club and this should never happen. Chris, our Chief Observer, has put a note out to team leaders on groups.io and I’d just like to reiterate that no one should ever feel pressured to ride above the speed limit or indeed their own limits. Social runs should be enjoyable for all, and all levels should be welcomed and included. The marker system allows for a mix of abilities in a ride so there should never be a reason to ride beyond your capabilities to keep up with the rider in front.

We should also feel able to discuss any issues with the run leader and issues should be reported to the Club. There is no such thing as a perfect ride so if you make a mistake then apologise.

TVAM collects data on incidents and these can be reported by the run leader in their social ride report, which must be completed after every TVAM social ride. They can also be reported by using the incident report form. Both forms can be found on the website, under ‘Forms’, at the bottom of each page. The data is kept to enable us to learn and not to name and shame anyone.

That’s enough from me. I hope that you enjoy this month’s edition of Slipstream and are still out enjoying this excellent weather we’re currently experiencing.
Have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

I’m writing this having just returned from an amazing weekend away in Wales with the Club. We re-launched 3Rs as a training weekend specifically for Full Members with the aim of providing a balanced weekend of social riding and training and what an incredible weekend it turned out. It involved 30 people, with a mix of 10 Observers and 20 Full Members. As recently with 7Ws we stayed at the Metropole Hotel in Llandrindod Wells, a place that the Club knows really well, as we wanted to go to an area where we knew the roads and quality of accommodation.

We met at The Wandering Kitchen in Wallingford for breakfast and a briefing, before three social rides set off to Wales. Led by Jeremy Davies, Salli Griffith and Simon Whatley, they all took completely different routes to our destination for the weekend. Thanks to the three of them for arranging these rides.

The Saturday introduced the training element for the weekend and saw us split into groups of three, with one Observer and two Full Members to carry out an Advanced Plus style ride for the day. I worked with two members who both wanted to develop their ability to maintain their pace, where safe to do so, in bends. We started by taking a look at where they sat in comparison to the IAM RoadSmart test standard and then built from that position. We worked on scanning the road, best positioning for the bend and developing our throttle sense. Both developed well and our key learning point was ‘read the road, don’t just ride it’.

On the Sunday, the majority of people selected a ride to return them back to a choice of finishing points. Tom Gray lead a run back to Blackbushe, Paul Kilby lead a run back to Marlow and I led a run back to Bracknell/Wokingham. It was great to see and hear about the excellent riding standard on the rides back as well as the whole weekend.

3Rs appears to have been a great success and I’d like to pass on my thanks to the organisation team of Tom Gray, Nina Bosley-Gray and Paul Kilby. They did a great job of organising and running the weekend and made it seamless and enjoyable for all who attended. I’d also like to thank all of the Observers for their efforts in putting together routes and development sessions for the benefit of the Full Members. Finally, I’d like to thank the Full Members for embracing the weekend and being open to learning on the Saturday and generally putting into practice what they had worked on. I’m already looking forward to the next one.

The Calendar is getting full of riding opportunities for all members within the Club this year. All local teams are regularly offering social rides and any
member can join these by becoming a member of that group on groups.io and then putting their name onto the database or RSVP event for the ride.

Associates looking for rides could consider the training runs (T-runs) that are being advertised by the local teams. These are designed to give Associates coaching sessions on their riding in an informal manner. The runs generally comprise an Associate, or two, riding with an Observer and then receiving verbal feedback on their riding without the formality of a run report form. Some T-runs use a starburst approach and others carry out observed sessions within a larger ride. Most T-runs offer a social ride in the afternoon to allow Associates the opportunity to practice what they have worked on in the morning
sessions. Keep an eye out in Slipstream and on the calendar and event reminder on groups.io for further information about these.

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the Austin Vince seminar event for June due to a low take up. This may well be down to the fact that members are out riding in the lovely evenings that the summer season brings, so we’ll look to set another date in the future, perhaps when the evenings draw in, to enable members to come and listen to Austin’s enthusiasm of all adventures on two-wheels!

Whatever you’re doing this month, enjoy the good weather and your riding.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

I’m sorry that I was not able to be at St Crispin’s in March. Hev and I were in the Caribbean celebrating a significant wedding anniversary. I have to say, it was a shock walking off the plane at 7am in Gatwick with the outside air temperature of -2°C, when we had left Antigua a few hours earlier at +28°C! That said, the weather since has been positively balmy and the number of bikes out enjoying the dry roads is really encouraging to see.

I am told that the number of motorcycles at St Crispin’s in March was 296, which is the second highest meeting number since we started keeping records of attendance and a record for March. Whether it was just the good weather or you just fancied a ride out on your bike, thank you to all that came along and I hope that you had a great day.

At this time of year we see large numbers of motorcyclists, many of whom have not been out for many months, and we have all seen those that clearly have not been coached in advanced riding. We tend to hear more conversations about (and please excuse the terminology) ‘boy racers’ hooning around and giving motorcycling and motorcyclists a bad name. It’s very easy for all motorcyclists to be labelled the same and it’s therefore even more important for us all to remember to ride to the TVAM/IAM RoadSmart standards, at all times, and show a good example to all other road users.

The calendar in Slipstream is filling up nicely with more and more social rides, many being put on regularly by the seven social groups, and many more being done by various members for the enjoyment of all. It’s great to see rides of 15-20 riders getting out, riding and socialising for whole days, as well as the smaller rides of between 5 and 10 riders who may be out for a shorter time.

If you are thinking of taking part in any of these organised rides, please ensure that you arrive in plenty of time for the briefing and always remember to ride in a manner that is not going to give cause for complaint from your fellow riders or members of the public. We have various categories of ride and therefore the briefing will vary for the type of ride you’re attending. The run leader and back-marker will have worked hard to put the ride together, so please do listen to the briefing carefully.

If you do take part in a social ride and you’ve had fun, why not write about it, add a few photographs and send it to Salli at slipstream@tvam.org so it can be shared with the membership. You could also consider sharing the route for others to enjoy.

Talking of group rides, by the time you read this the 41st running of the 7Ws will have taken place. This is the pinnacle training weekend for Associates in the Club to head to Wales for some great coaching on outstanding roads. I’m sure that next month’s Slipstream will be full of photographs of happy-faced riders having enjoyed the trip away.

As usual 7Ws was over subscribed and, because priority is given to Associates, it meant that we could not take as many Full Members as we have done before. For this reason we launched 3Rs as a training weekend with priority given to Full Members, and this will take place in May. The team have put a fantastic long weekend together, with a balance of social runs and training runs for all to enjoy. We have limited this to a total of 30 people and it was again over subscribed. If you have missed out on this occasion for either of these trips, then details of future trips will be posted in Slipstream and on groups.io as soon as we can secure dates.

March saw the first of our evening seminars, held at the Masonic Hall in Wokingham. Hev Smith, our friendly Club Paramedic, hosted an informative evening about what to do if you’re first to arrive at the scene of an incident. Hev started the seminar by getting people into groups and setting the scene of a road traffic incident and told them that they were the first people to arrive. They had to think about what they would do and every few minutes she would add something to the scenario. This was clever because it got the room talking and getting to know each other a little. Hev then went through with the groups the sorts of things they had considered and there was some good open discussion about the importance of keeping themselves safe and managing the scene to assist anyone that was injured and preserve the scene should investigation be required. The second part of the session talked about some basics to look for and deal with in order to preserve life. DRScABC is something that will now hopefully stick in the minds of the 32 members at the event. A huge thanks to Hev for giving the presentation, Michael Hattey for being an excellent patient and to WOBMOB for hosting the event.

We are hoping that there will be 7 of these events throughout the year, each one hosted by a different social group. We want to host events that the members want, so if you have a suggestion then talk to your social team leader and they can bring it to the committee. Seminars can be hosted within your social group location and we just ask that they are motorcycle related and are open to all Club members. BAR are hosting an evening with Austin Vince, on the 15th June, and you can read more about that in this issue.

Finally, if you’re an Associate and would like to know what to expect on your test, or an Observer and to want to know a little more about the test process, the Committee will be hosting a ‘Meet the Examiner’ evening at the Masonic Hall in Wokingham in late April/early May. Details will be coming out to all members on groups.io shortly.

Have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

I’m writing this after arriving home from leading Barrie’s Bimble to the Haven Café, Salisbury. I found out on Monday 24th that they were closing down on 31st January and just couldn’t resist putting together one last bimble to this excellent independent café. I limited the ride to 20 bikes and it filled up within 48hrs. Hopefully one of my fellow bimblers will be kind enough to share the experience here in a future issue.

After St Crispin’s in January we held the AGM. I am grateful to the 52 Members that physically attended the meeting in the sixth form block at St Crispin’s and helped us to eat the food provided. Thank you also to the 48 Members that felt confidence in the Committee and gave us their proxy votes for the meeting.

I’m pleased to report that the minutes of last year’s AGM and the Annual Report for 2020-21 were approved unanimously and the members of the Committee, that were remaining in post, were all duly elected unanimously.

After five years as Club Secretary, Adrian Ellison has stood down and Ian Gaitley has been elected into the role. Whilst Ian has some huge shoes to fill, the Committee is extremely happy that Ian has stepped up to the position and we know that he will have Adrian’s assistance getting up to speed. Adrian has done a huge amount to ensure that the Club has both developed and not fallen foul of the numerous rules and regulations that can so easily trip up a charity such as TVAM.

After four years as our Events Coordinator, Phil Donovan has stepped down. Phil has enthusiastically put on events for our members and a change in his career means that he does not have as much time to devote to the role as he has had in the past.

As at the AGM, I’d like to publicly thank both Adrian and Phil for the efforts that they have put into TVAM for the benefit of all of our members. Both Adrian and Phil received the traditional glass tankards that are given to Committee Members when they stand down.

At the AGM the Committee outlined our objectives for 2022. Some things have continued, as we’ve been a little restricted over the past two years by the pandemic, such as promoting the RideUP scheme, strengthening our links with other road safety charities and continuing to recognise our most active members.

We really want our members to share their experiences, good and bad. Salli is always happy to receive articles about your activities, in order that they may be shared with our membership in Slipstream (slipstream@tvam.org). We also really want to know when things don’t go quite to plan. We appreciate that some
incidents can be a little embarrassing for individuals, however reporting of these enables us to identify where we may wish to strengthen our training for the benefit of all members. An example of this is the Machine Handling course, which was developed to help people with moving their bikes around manually without dropping them. We’re not looking to name and shame, we just want the opportunity to learn. Don’t be too proud to share and ask for help.

The vast majority of you will have heard of, and have likely experienced, our excellent 7W’s training weekends that take place twice a year and focus on training for Associates with a combination of observed and social rides over three days. Well, we now want to run a similar training weekend with the focus being on Full Members that wish to hone their skills. I am pleased to announce that we’re re-launching our 3R’s weekends, which we want to run primarily as a training weekend for our green badge Members. Full details of the weekend will be issued shortly and we hope that this will become another regular event
in the annual calendar, a couple of times a year.

Membership events are also changing. The Committee wish to reach out to the seven Social Groups, that make up TVAM, and ask them for ideas of the types of seminars they wish to have throughout spring and autumn. It’s fair to say that the local teams know their members the best and we’re wanting each team to take ownership of one of our seminars per year. That doesn’t mean being left to deal with the event yourselves, merely coming up with an idea or a contact that could put on a talk to a larger group of enthusiastic motorcyclists. These could be in your social area or at a central location. Please speak to your Team Leader if you have an idea and they can bring it to the Committee for the support needed to get it running. We’re hoping for a seminar each month in March to June and September to November.

We’re starting in March with a seminar hosted by WOBMOB and open to all members within the Club. This will be a talk by Hev Smith, our resident paramedic, about what you should do if you arrive first on scene at a road traffic collision. This will be held at the Masonic Hall in Wokingham and is planned to be an interactive evening – depending on your participation – whereby you will leave far more informed than you may be now. Look out on Groups.io for details coming soon.

I’m excited about the coming year and the things that we have planned already for the benefit of all members. I hope that you enjoy reading this month’s edition of Slipstream and very much look forward to seeing many of you at the various evening seminars, training weekends and out on the road generally over the coming year.

Have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

It was great to see the photographs, the article by Brian Walmsley and the quotes from the attendees of the infamous 7Ws in last month’s Slipstream. After being postponed multiple times due to COVID, it’s great to see the fun had by so many.

I was lucky enough to spend the last weekend in October as a guest at the Bournemouth & Wessex Advanced Motorcyclists observer weekend. North Devon as some excellent and challenging roads, set in some of the most beautiful countryside. It’s fair to say that the weather wasn’t completely kind to us and the road conditions required a little extra thought as we rode throughout the two days.

As well as wet roads and the odd piece of tree branch laying in the road, riding at this time of the year means having to contend with a low sun. It’s not just the sun in your face, it can often reflect in the wet road surface, in our mirrors affecting our rear observation or piercing through the trees creating a strobe effect across our eyes. This can be distracting at best and disastrous if carrying just a little too much speed or riding close to our limit.

Other hazards to look out for are microclimates. Tree-covered roads may not fully dry out, even on a bright sunny day. Patches of mist or fog can be present when travelling close to water. Icy patches on damp surfaces that are not exposed to sunlight and on bridges where the surface temperature is often lower than the standard road surface. Understanding that these conditions exist and building them into our riding plan is all part of becoming an advanced motorcyclist.

I’m sure you have all heard the phrase, “there is no such thing as poor weather, just inappropriate clothing”. So, consider a little more what you wear on a bike in poor conditions; layer up on cold days and change that tinted visor for a clear one, perhaps with a pinlock or similar anti-fog system on your visor.

Shorter days often mean that we are having to ride in poor light or complete darkness. There is a great article in the latest IAM RoadSmart magazine, specifically about driving and riding at night. A range of specialists give their top tips on driving and riding in the dark, with Rhys Hughes, Head of Driver Training for Avon & Somerset Constabulary chosen to speak about motorcycling. He advises how riding at night can be relaxing, warning about not getting lulled into a false sense of security on those nice quiet roads. Further views from an ambulance crew, a highway maintenance worker, a Royal Airforce driver and a racing driver negotiating the Mulsanne straight at 170mph at Le Mans is certainly worth a read. Understanding other people’s views can massively improve on our own knowledge.

And that’s the point really. As advanced motorcyclists we have a responsibility to continuously improve our knowledge base. The advanced Rider Course (ARC) book has a section on riding in inclement weather and riding at night in the appendices. If you don’t want to ride in the wet, low sun or at night-time, consider broadening your knowledge so that you can do it if you need to.

Finally, many of us choose to ride all year round and there are many things that the Club continues to offer during the winter months. However, if you prefer to lay your bike up for the winter, then maybe take a look at the article by Andy Slater in the December edition of Slipstream 2020. There’s some great practical advice on how to prepare your bike for winter storage to ensure that it’s in great condition when it comes out of hibernation next spring. You can find copies of Slipstream in the All Members Section of Groups.io, under the files tab on the left-hand side.

Have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

Wow, is it September already? Summer appeared short-lived, and it does seem that when going out for a ride I now reach for the mid-season gloves and Rukka gear, rather than the summer jacket and bike jeans. Yes, Autumn is now officially upon us.

I do hope that many of you were able to get away, relax and enjoy yourselves during this second strange summer we have experienced and perhaps found new parts of the country on your motorcycle. It seems that many have headed north to Scotland to do the North Coast 500 and of course across to Wales to play on arguably some of the best roads in the UK.

August saw a return to St. Crispin’s with a record number of you in attendance and how great it was to be a part of it, seeing so many happy faces, old friends and a whole host of new ones. Over 100 new members have joined in the 17 months since we were last able to meet together in our monthly Club meeting.

Officially there were 315 bikes at St Crispin’s, smashing the previous Club record of 290 in August 2017. What a great job all the teams did to ensure that so many new people were welcomed warmly. A huge thank you to the local teams who arranged rides into St. Crispin’s for new members and Associates, the Meet & Greet Team, Red Badge Zone and others who helped people move around the school to ensure they got to where they were meant to be throughout the morning. What a great job Amanda did of allocating Associates to Observers to enable everyone that wanted an observed ride to get one. I do not think I’ve ever seen the stage so packed. Thank you also to all of our helpers on the tea bar that kept us going throughout the morning. There were people out there that believed St Crispin’s was a myth, yes you Mr Boulter, however that was well and truly put to bed with such a great attendance.

So, as we say goodbye to summer, it doesn’t mean that we must hang up our helmets and gloves just yet. After three previous cancellations, the 40th edition of 7Ws is about to take place. In just a week’s time about 80 members of the Club will be heading to the Commodore Hotel in Llandrindod Wells for this long-awaited event. It’s been two years since the 39th running of the event and it is shaping up to be an amazing weekend for all that attend.

Over the last month we have seen three training runs, organised by CLAMS, RAMS & WOBMOB as well as the return of the Advanced Bike Control course at RAF Odiham. Thanks to everyone that worked to put those events on for the membership.

If any of you are planning a social ride, don’t forget to send it out on Groups.io and contact Salli, our editor, so she can get it into Slipstream to advertise it.

I’m off on my hols now, so won’t be seeing you this month (stop cheering). Have fun and stay safe and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in October.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had been looking forward to welcoming you all back to St Crispin’s this month. I even had a loose plan of the sort of message I would write to welcome in such a return after a year and a quarter. It went something along the lines of “what a fantastic month to return to regular meetings at St Crispin’s, with long, bright days and good temperatures, what better time for us all to return to the roads for fun and socialising”…

The reality was that Boris’ worst kept secret came as little surprise when he announced on the 21st of June that the final step out of lockdown would be delayed until 19th July. Clearly this was a setback for many people, and I certainly do not want to make light of the additional pain that this further delay will have caused many personally and in business, and July St Crispin’s plans became another victim of this cruel pandemic. Back to the 9am virtual St Crispin’s for this month again, excellently hosted by Andy Wedge and lead by Chris Brownlee, to announce the now increasing number of test passes for the month and others in the Club that have gone on to become Trainee and Full Observers. The virtual masses duly applauding each achievement as we would have should they have been stood on the stage, in the main hall, at St. Crispin’s. Fingers crossed that news is better for August and we can all meet in reality, even if that means respectful social distancing of some description.

Since being allowed to carry out peer review rides from the end of March, and Observed Rides from mid-April, our Full Members, Observer’s and Associates have been working extremely hard to get themselves back ‘rider fit’ and comfortable in the saddle. Well done to everyone for putting the effort in to getting themselves and others back to the standard they were at before lockdown and indeed pushing forward in their development.

In early May, I had the opportunity to have a peer review ride with Andy Slater, our previous Chair, and Shaun Cronin, our IAM Regional Service Delivery Manager. Andy and I were due our National Observer Revalidations and Andy was due his Masters Mentor revalidation. I am not going to say too much here, as you can read for yourselves Andy’s article detailing the day in the coming pages, other than to say that it was a fantastic day’s riding that saw me cover about 250 miles across six counties. Those of you that have ridden with me know that I am not generally shy when it comes to overtaking, however, Shaun showed me how I can further enhance my opportunities to develop overtakes sooner and it has certainly made a difference.

Before I let you go and get reading the real articles in this month’s Slipstream, I just want to give another shout out to various teams that have done such a great job with many of our courses both virtually and physically where the rules enable. I have mentioned previously the great work that Di Woodcock and her Bike Craft team have done in delivering three online courses so far this year. I also want to say a big thank you to Issy Griffiths, Alan Mossman and their team that have delivered a successful Run Leader Back Marker course and also had a session with the RLBM mentors to ensure we have a new raft of run leaders and back markers coming forward. Just before sitting down to write this, I was at St Crispin’s with Si Rawlins and his team to deliver the slow riding course to twelve members and associates, as well as three new Trainee Observers. This is the third course that has been delivered since lockdown and we will have probably had the fourth by the time you read this. Well done Si and the team. Finally, I also want to thank Andy Wedge and the Training Team for continuing to deliver the Core Skills Day’s, for three candidates at a time, to continue to grow the Observer Core.

More courses will be coming back on line as the last restrictions are lifted, so look out for the weekly calendar updates and items advertised in Slipstream for your chance to get on them to further develop your skills.

I really hope to see as many of you as possible at St. Crispin’s in August.

Have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith

Chairman

The last 12 months have been incredibly difficult for all of us, with most of us unable to meet with family and friends and do the things that we label as ‘normal’ in our lives. Like many of you, motorcycling to me is not just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle that when removed, leaves a huge void.

The TVAM year started in November and so we are now halfway through our current year. Realising that got me thinking about what we have been able to achieve in the first six months, given that much of that time has been spent in lockdown.

So I thought that I would share a few stats with you that will hopefully give you all a picture of how the Club is doing. At the time of writing this, we have a total membership of 1045, of which 237 are Associates. At the same point 12 months ago we had 1054 members so are slightly down, by 9 members. Between the beginning of November and the end of April, we have attracted 43 new members. 10 of these joined in March and another 15 in April.

Taster rides appear to be a very successful way of recruiting new members. There have been 35 taster ride requests since the beginning of November, 11 of those being in March and another 11 so far in April. Most of these have been allocated, and many completed, so a huge thanks to all the Observers that have found the time to take out members of the public and tell them more about the Club. Seven people that have completed taster rides since November have gone on to join the Club and this is a figure that we expect to increase from the latest group to go out. I have been lucky enough to meet a couple of our new members through the social group Zoom meetings that have been happening regularly whilst we have been unable to actually meet up.

Test passes so far this year sit at 7. Of these, 4 were in November and 3 in December. IAM RoadSmart suspended all tests between January and early April which is why figures are currently lower than usual.

The Events Team has been putting on regular seminars over Zoom. By the time you read this, we will have hosted three excellent seminars: One from Steph Jeavons, talking about her trip around the world on a motorcycle; Motolegends, talking about the different equipment that’s out there; and Kevin Williams, talking about the science of being seen on a motorcycle. These events have been extremely well attended by members and many more are planned throughout the remainder of the year.

Communications within the Club are extremely important. We have 1004 members registered on Groups.io and 541 messages were posted from 126 individual posters in March alone. Our new website, which is far more customer facing than the previous one, received 5,049 page views from 1,757 unique visitors. Our Social Media Team is also working hard on promoting the Club via Facebook and Instagram.

So, considering that for four out of the first six months of the TVAM year we have been in lockdown, the figures above would suggest that we’re still doing very well as a Club. In the next few weeks, we’re going to see far more of the ‘normal’ Club activities being allowed, like Observed Rides, Social Rides, X-Checks, Observer Assessments and it’s even rumoured that we may be able to meet in the not too distance future at St Crispin’s.

I really hope to be seeing many of you out on the road soon..

Barrie Smith

Chairman

Welcome to my first ‘From The Chair’ piece. As I take over the reins from Andy Slater, I’d like to say a huge thank you to him for all of the years of service that he has given to the Committee. Andy’s achievements have been an inspiration to me and I hope that I can continue to steer the Club in a forward thinking manner for the benefit of all.

One of the Committee’s aims for 2021 is that we become more visible to you. We are Club members too, the only difference is that we have offered our services to a role in the Club that will benefit everyone. Whilst we can’t meet you face to face at St Crispin’s just yet we can see you within your social groups at your virtual meetings and allow you and us to put the faces to the names. I thought therefore that I would take this opportunity to tell you a little about myself and my journey in motorcycling.

Like a lot of teenagers, I started my riding career messing around off road as a kid on old bikes that my mates had cobbled together. Safety was of no real importance as we messed about in the fields around my home. In March 1986 I progressed to riding as a learner in London, (where I worked) and Kent, where I returned at weekends on my Honda Superdream. Training was limited in those days and the words, “Here are the keys, good luck”, were all that you needed to be allowed onto the road as a learner rider. I passed my full motorcycle competency test in October 1986 and I have had a bike ever since, riding as often as possible.

My introduction to the IAM, and subsequently TVAM, was whilst working my day job as a designer in the late 1990’s. I was involved in the design of the IAM’s Headquarters in Chiswick, under the watchful eye of Christopher Bullock who was the CEO at the time. I used to ride into Chiswick once a week for design meetings with Christopher and his team. At the official opening of the building, in 2001, Christopher awarded me with a Skills for Life Package and his words, “You have the best IAM bike club on your doorstep and you should join them and take your advance test.”

It was four years later, in 2005, with the voucher expired, that I finally walked through the doors of St Crispin’s. I went to an open day in May of that year, where I met Andy Hunter. We had a short chat and then went out for an observed ride. I was immediately hooked by the professionalism and friendliness of the club and signed up that day. Simon Whatley was my Observer and guided me through to my X-Check with Steve Huckins. I went on to pass my IAM test in February 2006.

I started on the programme of becoming a Trainee

Observer (TOb) immediately, only having to set that aside as I started my own business and didn’t have the time             to commit. I went back to that in 2012, gaining my gold badge in 2013. As a sideline, I became a down-trained CBT Instructor in 2010 for a friend’s motorcycle school in Surrey. In 2018 I set myself three targets to develop myself. First, I took and passed my National Observer assessment. Second, I joined the Training Team. Third, I became a fully qualified DVSA CBT and DAS instructor after assessment at Cardington.

Last year, in all of the negativity of the pandemic, a new opportunity arose of becoming Chair of TVAM for which I thank you all for your votes at the AGM in January this year.

So that’s a little bit about me. My journey has been progressive, developed over many years, and it’s one that I have genuinely enjoyed. There’s nothing like riding and socialising with other motorcyclists and I look forward to, later this year, riding with and meeting as many of you as possible.

Have fun and stay safe everyone.

Barrie Smith

Chairman