It’s a while since I organised a Punch Do. I’ve just about forgotten how much time goes into one of these events but it’s made much easier with all the help you receive setting out, and clearing up after said event.
This Punch Do nearly didn’t happen due to other events taking place on the same day, it’s a great shame this happens because the amount of time and effort it takes to setup a day’s enjoyment, you want to try and get as many competitors as possible.
So in the end I thought if we get 10 or so entries we will run with it anyway and make a loss on the day. I needn’t have worried at all because we had 21 entries on the day. Good to see the club supported so well (well chuffed I was).
My band of helpers and myself turned up Saturday morning to set out 80 punches, trying to get a mixture of easy, hard and downright nasty punches for everyone to get. We were trying to have something for everyone to get whether you had the best winch setup ever or just a vehicle and a heavy right foot (Minty and Hilton come to mind!). Think we achieved this by the amount of smiles and laughter being heard all over the site.
It was really good watching some of the different way’s people would think of to get to a punch, from Derek quickly getting on with things to Hilton thinking he was part of the Xmen (there’s a lot of new tracks now!). Xmen cartoons to Xmen Malaysian Forest I think Hilton fits the bill perfectly, I don’t think winch bitch fits the bill anymore, how about two little mad buggers with far too much energy, Hilton had them climbing up trees, jumping into bogs and that’s just of couple of thing s that comes to mind.
Then the guys without winch’s. Chris just drove round all day with a bloody big grin on his face, every time he drove past all you would hear was “bloody great day”. Minty had on his destructive head on again; the jeep only lasted about ½ hour before his driving style totally buggered the back axle. Then Chris turned up with the Suzuki on a trailer just so he could continue with the destruction of all things mechanical.
The chip van was seen doing some obscure driving displays. It just wasn’t like Graeme to do these things he was definitely like a women at times (you all know how it is, not sure what to do so just blundering into things. It still makes me feel hungry every time I walk past; I’m blaming him for me being on the larger side of normal , I’m still hungry just writing this bit.
There are just too many things and people to write about, but if you did something daft or stupid on the day then I’m sorry I missed it, you would have got a certain mention if I had known.
It was quite lucky we had an RTV at the same place the week after as it meant we could leave the trailer there and collect the punches in daylight, rather than trying to hurry to the find them in the dark. Many thanks to the 2 Steve’s and Brian for collecting all the punch’s on the Saturday whilst setting out for the RTV, thanks lads. All we lost was 5 punches out of 80 not bad at all, I still hope to find some of them next time we go back, check the back of your motors just in case any of them have become attached.
Now for the bad point, it seems we have a thief in our midst. I can honestly say in all the years I’ve been in the club absolutely nothing has ever been pinched, not a thing ,whilst I have been part of the most friendly 4 X 4 club in the UK. All I can do is apologise to all our club members who were at Mealsgate or not. I should have been more vigilant and made sure nothing went missing, it really sticks in my throat that some low life could do this to me and all our members. I hope whoever did steal off us never comes back to our club as I don’t want thieving little scum. If whoever stole the items would like to return them then give me a phone and I will arrange to collect them. I will not divulge the names of the people involved if the items are returned. I honestly don’t think this will happen so we will just have to be more careful with anything important. I’m sorry to say this but I think we will have to start locking our vehicles before we go playing in the mud, “sad times, sorry folks”.
Anyway I would like to thank all those who helped make this day so good and also all those club members who came and supported a great club.
Shout
PS will have a phone around and try to get a few more punch do’s this next year. I will try not to have a punch do if any other club in our area are having one on the same day.