Presidents Report to the Annual General Meeting
August 27th 2005

Although this would rate as a 'steady' year for the Federation, this first year as President has been one of great learning for me. As I have said before, my initial involvement as a club representative was triggered by what I perceived at the time as a threat to our clubs' activities, being the release of the first draft of the code of practice. When asked to nominate I reminded myself how important it is to have the Federation as a voice for all clubs. I agreed and I am constantly reminded that it was perhaps against my better judgement with the pressures of a new family, new house and new job. I don't regret it though and it has been a rewarding experience.

It was rewarding to meet and talk to new people and hear their views. I can see the merit in most of those views and a lot of them contradict. It reminds me of my take home message from my first overseas trip - 'In my lifetime there will not be world peace, but we can still try and make things the best we can.' Similarly my take home message for this year is that in my lifetime there will not be true unity of views in the Federation, but we can keep trying and make things the best we can. I think the way to deal with our differences is pretty much the same too ie. Tolerance and take a minute to try and see things from other peoples point of view.

We had a go at some constitution changes and I learnt a valuable lesson about communication. I should not have assumed that others would read the changes the same way as I did and I think it was my job to explain exactly what the aims of the changes were. With better communication I think the parties involved worked the situation out well. The cooperative effort of this Federation saw some of those changes withdrawn (twice!) and we still intend to get there in the end! This does not worry me too much as I have never seen this process work terribly smoothly and given the size and diversity of our organisation and frequency of meetings, I think it takes time to get it right.

This has been my first involvement in the organisation of the Bay to Birdwood and that has been an eyeopener. There is just so much involved and this relatively small group of organisers work so hard to bring it all together. It is an eyeopener too as to how much it costs to put on an event of this size and you do get your $46 worth! The 1750 quota has been filled and we are looking forward to a full and exciting event. Nowhere else in the world do so many historic vehicles get together and go for a drive. I think there are limited places in the world where it would be possible. Ask any Formula 1 team and they will tell you nobody has ever put on a Grand Prix like Adelaide and that is due mainly to so much South Australian support. That goes for Bay to Birdwood too with in excess of 100,000 out there on a sunny day.

Another very dedicated band of supporters put on the Cruising Classics program. Once again they have a done a great job and I encourage everyone to take part in these events. You never know, you might have a lot of fun. There is good support for most events but the drivein night could do with a few more, to take us back in time to see a drivein full of period vehicles will be an unforgettable experience.

Talking of hard workers, we have had another very successful, long distance 'meet the clubs tour' - the South-east Saunter. This would not happen without all the hard work put in by Joy and Bill Watson and Nola and Arthur Clisby. The planning for the 2007 Mid-north Meander is already underway and I am hoping our 'family planning' will allow us to take part!

We have seen some successful negotiations on the part of the variations subcommittee in getting modifications to some vehicles approved, that will allow club members to continue enjoying their vehicles and unfortunately some that couldn't be approved. The committee of Arthur Doecke, Ian Bell and for most of the work up until his resignation, Terry Parker, have worked very hard and in a job that is not always popular when peoples desires can not be accommodated. Steve Henderson has assumed his position on the committee as vice president (as Arthur was at its creation), and this has maintained the number on the committee at three.

We have maintained our meeting night on a Saturday despite this being inconvenient for some. This means we can continue to get attendance from those that travel great distances for these meetings. I thank these people for that extra effort to support us.

My prize for the most exciting thing to happen this year is the introduction of the Federations website. Arthur Clisby has created something that I think is right on the money. It is clear, simple, easy to access, won't take all day for your vintage computer to access and does everything it needs to be able to better communicate with clubs. The last stage will be to introduce a forum page which will truly bring it alive with active communication between club members across the state.

We are still growing with 112 clubs on the books and new applications all the time. I am saddened when we lose older members from clubs or when we lose old vehicles to a better market overseas but despite this the historic vehicle scene will grow and change of course. Our 30 year old vehicles seem like everyday vehicles to some but when our latest crop of drivers were born, these vehicles were already 14 years old. On your way to work try what I do and count all the 30+ vehicles. You might be surprised how few you see, especially if you just count the ones that are in good enough condition to be likely to live another day. I look forward to being part of this evolving Historic scene, where we continue to do our bit to preserve our history and also remember to have some fun!

Craig Baulderstone