Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Miscellany

I edited the newsletter for my local motor club (Rhyl and District) for years and it was an absolutely thankless task.

If it wasn't chasing members for copy, it was dealing with those bellyaching about the articles in it!

Those that complained never actually submitted anything for publication, which I found strange!!

I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere!

Arwyn

Thank you Pete. It's not always easy writing a monthly column, especially facing a blank page with a three day deadline. But usually something turns up. I know the chairman and editor face the same pressures.

Luckily I manage to blather on just enough.

I understand the pressures - I used to write a monthly bike maintenance column for a low circulation and now defunct bike mag.

I've offered to write a couple of things article for Miscellany. One was during lockdown - I jokingly suggested that I'm sure they may be struggling for content in these COVID times, but was told that the opposite was the case and they always had lots of stuff to use. Didn't hear anything else back from them.

Offered it to MOG magazine who snapped it up and they created a lovely article.

Same here. I have submitted a couple of articles over the years and never even got an acknowledgement. I think they have a pretty fixed idea of the kinds of articles they want to include. With the notable exception of Dave's, they all seem to be of the 'look where we went' variety and all seem to use the same slightly weird anachronistic phraseology:

"Our merry band of intrepid Morganeers assembled at the prescribed rendezvous, a worthy and notable location and then without further ado embarked on our voyage, completed without mishap and during which many of us took the opportunity to stretch our cars' legs and make "significant progress", to Mrs Miggins' Pie Shop, whereupon a splendid feast was enjoyed by all before wending our tired but happy way home in the darkling twilight etc etc etc".

Very occasionally we get treated to a decent in-depth technical article but TBH you get far better on TalkMorgan.

To be fair, that's not exclusive to Miscellany. I receive a lot of magazines from clubs and organisations and the contributions are almost always in that same semi-formal style. Contributors rarely write as they speak but rather prepare their submissions as if they are writing to the local council to complain about the bins.

One very common example is the word purchased. Open any club magazine and I guarantee you'll find somewhere a phrase such as "I recently purchased on a well-known auction site..." as if the word "buy" is too informal for publication. "I just bought on eBay..." is much more readable.

I'm going down the same path, I don't feel part of the Morgan world any more. The local Centre is really cliquey and seems to enjoy driving somewhere for a large and not very wonderful lunch. It might just be me.

It arrived today!
Reading the criticisms above, I have to say that so far I have found it of interest, although long reports of speed events mean little to me.
As I recently acquired (too formal ) a 1956 Plus 4, I wanted to find a bit more of its history. Thanks to a reply to my post on TM I found the contact number of the son of the first owner. That lead to an exchange of emails and a photo of the car in 1960. Machiel include that photo in Miscellany which prompted the third owner to contact him for my contact details. We were soon in touch. It transpired that he had owned to car for 30 years, with most of them in storage in his MiLs garage.
Without Miscellany I wouldn't have found that history.
Having said that I do find TM useful when I am not sure of something, such as my recent question about the handbrake.

Maybe I should submit a technical article to liven it up

I just did Richard on the front UJs.

Face it guys it is what you put into it, if you don't like the articles why not submit some.

The reality is the centres do events & people write up about them.

You're not wrong there - Model Engineers and Real Ale Buffs seem to also suffer from the affliction.



At least it's not "recently successfully negotiated the vending of"