Presentation Evening
VSCC Club Chairman presents cheques to Laura Pratt from DebRA UK and Dee Cokeley from Caerphilly District Miners Hospital League of Friends.
The 2007 Valleys Heritage Tour raised over £4000 for its selected charities. On Wednesday 30th January, the club turned their normal weekly meeting at the Crown Hotel, Pontllanfraith into a very special evening. Laura Pratt from DebRA UK and Dee Cokeley from Caerphilly District Miners Hospital League of Friends were invited to the meeting to collect their cheques from Chairman Vincent Brickley for their respective charities. The presentation was followed by a buffet very kindly donated by the hotel management.
The club is extremely grateful to all those people who helped to organise the event, and raise such a substantial sum of money. The club would like to pay a special tribute to sponsors Tandem Transport, Ystrad Mynach, Stonehouse Garage, Cefn Fforest and Lyons Engineering, Brynmawr. Thanks also go to Simply Graphics, Blackwood and National Britannia, Caerphilly for providing their services free of charge. Bryn Meadows Golf & Country Club boosted sales of prize draw tickets by donating the first prize – a year’s membership of their health club.
We have recently received a letter of thanks from Laura Pratt.
Tour Report
On Sunday 29th July, Valley Sports & Classic Cars held their second annual charity car run. At 9.00 a.m. cars started to assemble at Pant Station, Merthyr Tydfil, home of the Brecon Mountain Railway. By 10.30 , 120 cars were ready to start the Valleys Heritage Tour. The cars were flagged off by Laura Pratt, regional organiser for the charity DebRA UK. She was ably assisted by 9 year old Hannah Rosser of Cwmbran who suffers from the skin condition known as epidermolysis bullosa (eb), and her younger sister Niamh.
The first car away was a Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 driven by Neil Taylor and navigated by Debbie Gilbert. Following closely behind were seven members of the South Wales Ferrari Owners Club. These were then followed by a wide variety of vehicles from an AJS to Austins Healeys, Minis to Morgans, and Vitesses to Volvos. Entrants had travelled from as near as Cefn Coed, and as from as far as Wrexham. Visitors from ‘across the border’ came from Berks, Birmingham, Glos, Wilts and Worcs. The last vehicle to leave was a Scammel Pioneer driven by Alex Drummond who took the seven ton monster on a shortened route.
Thankfully, the rain that was forecast for the morning and threatened to put a dampener on proceedings had passed through during the previous night, and the event was blessed with glorious sunshine. The tour followed an 80 mile route from Merthyr then through the top towns of the south eastern valleys before heading southwards to the end at Llancaiach Fawr, near Nelson. The weather conditions were perfect. There was hardly a cloud in the sky which meant there were numerous opportunities to stop and enjoy the spectacular views that could be seen along the way.
There were very few breakdowns. One casualty was Les Jones’s MGB. However, this meant that he returned home to bring out his wonderful Brough Superior, which he used to finish the tour.
At Llancaiach Fawr, the event was concluded with an exhibition of models, a buffet in The Barn, Llancaiach’s function room, an awards ceremony and raffle draw held in the courtyard. Councillor Liz Aldsworth from Caerphilly County Borough drew the winning tickets. The list of prize-winners is shown below. Yes, Boma did win a prize again. How he has failed to win the National Lottery is a real mystery to us.
The tour was a huge success, both as an enjoyable motoring experience and as a fund raising event. The proceeds from July’s run take the total raised by the Club for good causes to £7,600. The two beneficiaries of this year’s efforts are DebRA UK and Caerphilly Miners Hospital.
V.S.C.C. would like to thank everyone who contributed to the event, whether financially or otherwise. The Club would especially like to thank the main sponsor Tandem Transport, buffet sponsors Stonehouse Garage, and Lyons Engineering, Simply Graphics for the rally plaques and National Britannia for printing the route books. Further thanks go to the Brecon Mountain Railway and the staff at Llancaiach Fawr.
We are currently compiling a comment book about the events of this year's tour. If you have any comments you would like to make please add them using our new Guestbook