PH Meet - St Neots - Sunday 14th May

[offshoreeddy]

Usual format for the monthly St Neots car meet, Sunday May 14th.

Please ignore my earlier dumbass post about the 14th April

PE19 7SA, the Ambiance Cafe by the Riverside in St Neots, 10am-12pm, coffee and cars format, all welcome.


OffshoreEddy - Something wheeled

[offshoreeddy]

Wow, great. Thanks for that Ciro... not.

Carry on as normal.

[offshoreeddy]

Thanks to alll who turned up today, another great meet. 11th June for the next one.

[offshoreeddy]

I've commented on it on the expected FB post that popped up about it:
https://www.facebook.com/bbcradiocambridgeshire/

However, the order is to stop anti social behaviour basically but only between hours of something like 7pm and 9am, so it won't affect this meet or indeed the kind of meet that everyone was complaining about, whcih was the rev-tastic one from a few weeks back.

[offshoreeddy]

ciciampi said:

Hey Guys,

Not quite sure where all the 'hate' is stemming from?

I was invited to attend a Secret Supercar Meet in Bedfordshire early March 2017 and on arrival we joined up with the existing PH meeting there. I got speaking to the Owner of Ambiance Cafe who knew of our events @TheSharnbrook and he said we were more than welcome anytime - from there on in with the planning of our event hosted at Sharnbrook for Cars & Coffee Charity Cruise, we arranged to have our end of show cruise to St Neots.

Amil was extremely pleased with the turnout and yes we raised £4500 for charity that day however I do not condone the behaviour of drivers' pulling burnouts or any form of anti-social behaviour as is evidenced with your comments above it reflects on me & our business. I repeat I do not condone the behaviour of those acting in this manner.

We have 3-4 driveout/cruises a year with Wrest Park having been one of our locations as well as Shuttleworth in the last two years and as we have so many regulars we like to change the destination/route regularly. With Amil's support we chose the Riverside Car Park as a one-off cruise destination - NO intention to ruin it for the regular monthly PH'ers but from the sounds of it you also have issues from time to time with anti-social behaviour - unfortunately not everybody knows how to control their feet in front of some kids with cameras - peer pressure indeed!

I'm a passionate petrolhead, love everything about cars and love bringing people together with one common interest - if you know me then you know this to be true. As for the hate/name calling above, I'm not into all that but understand this is an emotive subject.

Reading between the lines and with my reasonable head on, the restrictions is from 7pm and overnight therefore PH Meets or any future cruise from Sharnbrook to St Neots' arriving in the morning or afternoon would not be affected. I personally spoke to the Police on the day and also stayed until the last cars had left, yes the police had had reports from local residents but they did not witness or feel there were any issues, but enjoyed the cars on show.

The Riverside Car Park was soon besieged with visitors enjoying the spectacle and Amil/Ambiance Cafe were ecstatic with the turnout, another string to our bow is helping local businesses too. If any of you would like to meet to discuss the above and comments you can write to me directly on [e-mail] or continue to respond below,

Regards

Ciro Ciampi (Prick - apparently)
General Manager
The Sharnbrook Hotel & VesuviO

Hey Ciro

First off l agree that the hate is somewhat unnecessary, so let's simmer down there folks.

Second, Ciro I'm sure you know who I am as you and I have met on a number of ocassions either at Ferrari Owners Club events at the Sharnbrook or elsewhere, and I for one have respect for your ability to organise those events, cater efficiently and thoughtfully for attendees and make them the undoubted resounding success that they are.

What this is about, however, is the unsuitability of this location for the event that we're discussing. I felt it more appropriate to continue it here rather than over on FB which is, in my opinion, too public and unnecessary.

Let's not be all naive about it and pretend that you didn't know the kind of people who were attending or, in fact, the kind of event it would turn out to be. I've attended your events at the Sharnbrook and they are totally rev-fests, which everyone enjoys. It's your property and you're entirely free to conduct them there, and no doubt the residents who are local to the Sharnbrook expect noisy cars arriving and departing.

Residents of this small car park, located in the centre of a fairly small town, do not. And that's where the problem lies and it's one entirely of suitability. I haven't suggested for one moment that this car park is "only for PH meets" nor would I because it's a public car park. But the fact remains that you were aware that there was a PH meet held here, you were aware of the location and you were aware of it's suitability (or not) before you arrived. Hindsight is usually 20/20 and i think we can probably safely say that in hindsight you would have chosen a different location because of the debate that has gone on about this for a few weeks now.

I dont think I've actually seen you at one of the PH events but let's make this quite clear. It's firstly a public car park as you've pointed out, and you and anyone else is most welcome to attend. I'd be all up for you and I getting our heads together and making this a great meet for everyone going forward because you can clearly pull in the exotics better than PH by itself can and, at the end of the day, that's what the meet is about; people coming and looking and appreciating all manner of cars, be they Lamborghini or Lotus or Lexus or Lada (OK, maybe not so much Lada). All that needs to happen for that to be such a great success, which both you and I and everyone else would appreciate, is a little respect for the residents and some thought as to can the location actually cater for the attendees. If people are going to come along, then there needs to be a mindset of "Would you like this outside your house at X o'clock if you weren't a car guy?", and then use the throttle accordingly. As someone commented on your own FB page, a Lamborghini bouncing off it's rev limiter isn't everyone's cup of tea and so this was a little inevitable.

So to summarise; I've run the PH events here now for about 18 months after a suggestion by another member to get something off the ground locally. They've been a resounding success and enjoyed by everyone and I think there's potential for more growth, although from reading the order I think there is little doubt we will have to find an alternative venue (and this would have happened with or without Ciro's recent meet so let's think about that before we all go ballistic). So, if the order is approved - highly likely in my view - another venue may need to be considered, but nobody wants the meet itself jeopardised and that, I suspect, is where the animosity is coming from, though again I agree it's not really called for. Let's behave like the mature folk that we are and try to come to a solution that works for everyone, preferably one with the sole aim of having some fantastic cars to look at and appreciate. As you have pointed out, the order is aimed not at this event nor my regular meets but at the anti-social bazzas in their Corsas, but it's going to affect them, and it's been useful to highlight these issues and hopefully allow us to resolve them and move forwards in a productive manner.

Edited by offshoreeddy on Thursday 25th May 07:01

[offshoreeddy]

It certainly is quite annoying; it's a great location but we are for sure going to fall foul of the 'congregation' rule. I've had messages from a couple of local residents saying how much they want to keep the meet and it's no problem etc etc, but the problem is that all it takes is one irksome individual to report us and we're basically buggered. I'm not sure I fancy that so I have to say I think the days of the Riverside are numbered

Grafham is a good shout but yes, parking fees. Anyone else have any thoughts? Someone suggested the Co-Op but I can't seem them being too happy on a Sunday morning with 50-60 odd cars in the summer.

[offshoreeddy]

Well, that is one possible option, yes. But I think everyone attending would need to be made aware of the situation in advance, whcih I can do on the initial post of course.

[offshoreeddy]

Rawwr said:

I'm quite friendly with the Eaton Oak and I'm going there shortly. They have a decent sized car park around the back and open from 11am on Sundays. Not a bad location as it's right on the A1 and B645 and not a *huge* number of houses around.

OK, perhaps see what they say. What's the car park size do you reckon, I'd say perhaps 50 cars? There is a new housing development right next door to it though...

[offshoreeddy]

A message I've received today from a councillor who's been approached about this is as follows:


Hi XXXX, yes I'm in agreement with you that clause 2 doesn't consider people being branded as anti-social simply for meeting at the car park. I doubt that anyone would be able to get this changed now because of the cost to do so. The wording would have been signed of by HDC Cabinet members without checking with local Councillors.

The meet on Sunday morning has never been a problem as far as I know and neighbours have not complained about this. The complaints all referred to night use of the car park. I'm not sure how friends meeting at the car park on a Sunday morning could be regarded as anti-social under the order and that was not what was intended by HDC.


Reading between the lines, this would appear to almost be an endorsement for us to continue using as before, which is lovely of course. I think we'll just have to make it a strict requirement that you arrive and leave quietly and respectfully, no excessive engine revving etc etc.

[offshoreeddy]

OK, I'm just going to go ahead and post the meet up at the usual venue for the 11th June, and we'll play it by ear.

[offshoreeddy]

I don't think you need to message anyone. There have also been messages of 'support' sent my way from local residents and none of them have mentioned my meet or yours as the problem, just the modified-Corse brigade as the source of problems. Obviously from the video we know there is at least one person who's likely to video the event(s) but I don't think there's a problem with cars turning up, just the noise levels.

[offshoreeddy]

Will_91 said:

I thought this came across very well Matt, and makes it pretty clear that we are not the problem!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0541dl6#play

Play from 1:37:00 onwards.

Cheers, yes I thought it was good, have to say I was a little concerned they might edit it to make it sound otherwise, but in the end it was well edited and presented.

[offshoreeddy]

I'm thinking that the next meet might be better off on the 3rd Sunday next month which is the 16th, purely because the nearby Kimbolton fayre is on the 9th as a few others have said, and also because I usually like to go! I realise it may affect our numbers but the Kimbolton affair is a busy little event and it's likely that if we ran it on the 9th it'd be quiet anyway.

Thoughts?