Powered by Clikpic
Archive
Archived news items.
New gallery added to gallery section 17/12/2016.
Photographs taken during club visit to Greatmoor Energy From Waste facility 10/12/2016.
Many thanks go to Harriet Coupe for taking the photographs.
A new link added to the links page 17/12/2016.
Found this by chance, the link will take you to the home page of a farm based in Sherborne St John, a village near Basingstoke in Hampshire. Click on "media" on their website menu to view "videos" that have been filmed over several decades. You will see 5 Massey Ferguson combine harvesters working in one field at the same time! Pea harvesting. Lettuce harvesting along with numerous other operations. Features tractors and machinery from Massey Ferguson, Ford, County, John Deere, Mather Platt, Howard, McConnel, New Holland, Grimme plus others. The Lettuce harvester based on a County tractor was built by the farms own resident engineer!
There is also a selection of black & white photographs. Take a look at the "up & over" single bale loader attached to a Fordson Major.
As I grew up in a neighbouring village and served my apprenticeship with the Massey Ferguson Dealership, later to become FIAT and Claas dealers, in Basingstoke, it was a wander down memory lane for me!
Quiz Night 06/12/2016.
The quiz night was very well attended and thanks to Jo & Carl Spencer for preparing the questions a very enjoyable evening was had by all. The mix and balance of subjects and difficulty of the questions was excellent. The food was very well received and there was plenty of it! Thank you to all of those involved in planning, purchasing and preparing the food. The quiz required a tie breaker to finish the evening, the scores from top to bottom were very close. It was also good to see a healthy number of members from our neighbouring clubs, thank you all for travelling on a murky winters evening to be with us. Thanks again to Jo & Carl for putting in the time and effort that underpinned a great evening.
Don't forget the January road run, full details in the events section.
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Defibrillation 01/11/2016.
Our guest speaker for the evening was Dick Tracey, Divisional Manager, South Central Ambulance Service. Dick explained some of the basic differences between cardiac arrests and heart attacks. He went on to explain how some very simple, prompt first aid actions can make a serious improvement to the survival rate of those experiencing cardiac arrest. We were shown a defibrillator of the type now springing up in more and more places, Public Access Defibrillators or PAD's for short are, to say the least, an amazing piece of kit. Everything has been thought of, for example if the user attaches the sticky pads the wrong way round on the patient, the PAD will realise that and automatically change round the way it needs to work. PAD's "listen" to the background noise level and will automatically adjust the volume of its audio instructions so the user can still hear what to do regardless of the situation. By following the simple instructions it is totally safe for both patient and operator. PAD's are classed as AED's Automatic External Defibrillators designed for use by laypeople in public places. They cost well below £2000 to buy, lets hope more and more keep appearing across the country. Our thanks go to Dick for a very informative presentation of this serious, potentially life saving, subject.
Herbert Jeffree Bi planes to the bouncing bomb and beyond 04/10/2016.
Our guest speaker, Tony Hadland, gave us an insight of Herbert Jeffree and his path as an aeronautical engineer whose career started in the days of the bi plane running right through to the early days of supersonic flight. Along the way Herbert worked with Barnes Wallis at the time of the bouncing bomb. Herbert was always confident in any situation, so much so that he was actually in the room, uninvited, when the RAF Dambuster Crews were receiving their pre-flight briefing prior to taking off on that well documented mission. Herbert was a dedicated Aeronautical Engineer descended from a long line of Cornish Steam Engineers. We were shown some excellent images of the aircraft, people and places that formed part of Herbert's distinguished career. A very enjoyable and informative presentation.
Club night 7th March 2017.
We can now confirm that our guest speaker for this meeting will be from John Deere, his presentation will be "50 Years of John Deere in the UK". Our thanks go to Paul Dunning for arranging this one.
The Dave Bagnall Ploughing Match & Fun Day 18/09/2016.
What a fantastic day! The event was well supported and attended. The weather was perfect, rumor has it that Dave might have had a hand in organising this from up above..... A wide range of tractor makes were in attendance, including, Allis Chalmers, SAME, Lamborghini, Leyland, Massey Ferguson, Ferguson, International Harvester, Ford, Fordson, County and Muir Hill. The majority of the ploughs were made by Ransomes, others present included Ferguson, International Harvester, Dowdeswell and Rabe.
The match plots saw a good standard of ploughing throughout. One very pleasing aspect was the number of young people taking part, VERY well done to them all. Lets continue to support and encourage them they are the future of the vintage tractor & farm machinery movement! The working area for non competitors saw action most of the day.
The big THANK YOU must go to Jackie, her family and support team for providing the venue, the food and everything else that went in to make this such a brilliant event. They did an amazing job!
Our thanks also go to our two judges, Derek Hedges and Bob Wilbury.
After the match prizes had been presented the auction saw some very generous bidding. The raffle draw followed, the raffle table straining under the under the weight of so many generously donated prizes. Thank you to all of the competitors, bidders, buyers and donors.
The event raised an absolutely brilliant total of £2,100.00. for the Air Ambulance.
To end this item where it started, What a fantastic day!
Dave Bagnall memorial ploughing match pictures in gallery section.
Report of this very successful event coming soon.
Also see tractor for sale in gallery section.
Looking forward, first Road Run in 2017.
Details in events section.
Brian Homans, China 06/09/2016.
Our speaker for the evening was Brian Homans. Brian gave us an insight of China, its people, culture, public transport and its history. There is a stark contrast between the rich and the poor people of the nation, the gap seeming much wider than in many other countries. Brian’s travels included a 14 hour overnight train journey, his photographs showing the very small sleeper compartments on the train. Road travel in China is not for the faint hearted, one picture of a very busy road junction looked like there are no rules, more a case of every man for himself, vehicles at all angles and directions!
The process of buying a car in China is a little unusual too. The first step is to buy yourself number plate costing in the region of £8,000 to £9,000! The state controls the availability of the numbers.
Brian described the plumbing and electrics in, on and around many of the buildings as “haphazard at best”. The photographs of this leave you thinking “Glad I’m not a Plumber or a Sparky in China!”
Whilst the variety of the food available was wide, some it certainly fell into the category of “Best avoided” some of it looked more like life threatening! As you might expect tea was available in many varieties.
Brian’s pictures included some shots of the amazing Terracotta Army. The amount of man hours that must’ve been taken to create it is mind boggling!
Our thanks go to Brian for the very interesting overview of such a huge subject.
Ploughing Match, Sunday 18th September, full address with postcode now added in the events section.
Correction of date. Also more details for ploughing at Bucknell August 27th & 28th
More pictures from Finmere Road Run added to gallery 18/08/2016.
First pictures from Finmere Road Run now in gallery section 17/08/2016.
More pictures to follow soon.
Finmere Road Run 13/08/2016.
Members enjoyed a very sunny road run on a route of approximately 25 miles as planned by Paul Chambers. We were out for over three hours before returning to our start point at Finmere railway station. Finmere station is home to our hosts Coulsdon Old Vehicle Engineering Society, or COVES for short. The invitation from our hosts also included a BBQ in the evening. We were very generously fed and watered! The station is also home to Network SouthEast Railway Society, who were running a train during the afternoon. Their website www.nsers.org/1753.html details their projects, achievements and aims.
A very pleasant and full day. A big thank you to Paul Chambers for organising the Road Run and to our hosts, COVES, for their hospitality.
Events page has been updated 11/08/2016.
Several dates for your diary.
Full details of the Finmere Railway, Road Run & BBQ now on the "Events" page.
Contacts page has been updated 06/07/2016.
Please go to club contacts page to see latest details.
Skittles night at the Red Lion Islip 07/06/2016.
Almost 40 members and guests enjoyed the evening. The wide range of skill (luck) provided plenty of entertainment. There was plenty of food for all including birthday cake! Special thanks go to Steve Holmes and Will Trinder for spending most of the evening putting the pins back up. Some of us generated more work for them than others! Also thanks to Val for doing the scoreboard.
Massey Ferguson part two, 03/05/2016.
Our guest speaker, David Walker gave us part two of his presentation. He detailed some more of his work and experiences during his time with Massey Ferguson. His work took him far and wide, not only in the UK, but in Europe and Scandinavia too. His various roles covered the lifetime of several product ranges. David explained how some of the problems he encountered on tractors were identified and diagnosed, as well as what was done to reach a successful solution. We were also given a preview of the subject of his next book, the Ferguson LTX tractor. David has already written some 4000 words for the book, we look forward to its publication.
Steeple Barton Road Run, 02/05/2016.
The sun shone, the tractors, all 43 of them, made the distance of 29 miles without any breakdowns. what more could we ask? The route was a good mix of both on and off highway. At one point an off highway section was blocked by a mound of dirt! Phil Robbins and his Ford with its front end loader set to and made it into a negotiable obstacle rather than a complete block! Nice one Phil and thank you! This successful road run was independently organised by Steve Phipps and Richard Long, supported by their respective partners Kim and Sharon. Also taking an active role in the all important catering department was Carrie Morris. At the time of writing this event had raised at least £680.00 which will be donated to the Thames Valley Air Ambulance.
The weather did have the last say as some of those whose tractors are of a cab less variety got caught by an absolute cloud burst as they headed for home! It was the sort of cloudburst that got, even those with waterproofs, soaked to the skin in mere seconds! A great day, thanks again and well done to Steve, Richard, Kim, Sharon and Carrie.
More new photographs in the gallery 27/04/2016.
17 Photographs taken at the Brick works are now in the gallery, many thanks to Roy & Val.
New photographs in the gallery 26/04/2016.
Five photographs from the Merton Road Run, 17/04/2016, are now in the gallery. Thanks to Val & Roy for sending these.
H G Matthews Brickworks & tractor collection. 24/04/2016.
Members enjoyed an interesting and informative visit to the Brickworks and tractor collection, go to the "Visits review" section to read more.
Merton road run 17/04/2016.
What a totally brilliant road run! The sun shone, the tractors all performed well bar one that developed a steering issue just before we got started. Dawn Holmes laid on an excellent lunch, featuring plenty of homemade goodies! Steve Holmes and Family put in the hard work to deliver the 21 mile run which was enjoyed by all! A commendable 33 tractors, traveled through rural West Bucks and East Oxfordshire. Tractors made by the following manufacturers took part, Fordson, Trantor, Massey Harris, David Brown, Ford, International Harvester, Ferguson, County and Massey Ferguson. Then to really round things off we raised £513.00 for Macmillan Nurses in the process! Again a BIG THANK YOU to Steve, Dawn & Family and all those who assisted them. If anybody has got any photographs from today that they'd like put on the BVTC website, please send them to bvtc.ontheweb@gmail.com
More photographs added 09/04/2016.
A few more photographs have been added to the "Ardley energy recovery facility" gallery and the "Pictures from various past events" gallery.
Churchill's toybox 05/04/2016.
Our guest speaker, Gordon Rogers delivered a very informative and enjoyable presentation covering his own personal experiences of explosives and their applications from a very young age! Gordon explained some of the military developments, testing and resultant devices & weapons that had been the centre of activities at the military establishment in nearby Whitchurch during the 30's & 40's. It was a fact packed evening blended with personal anecdotes and excellent humour! There were plenty of "Well, I never knew that" moments for many of us! Gordon is also very interested in astronomy, he showed us one of his photographs taken from his own observatory, the one image was the result of a twelve hour exposure! To put that in context a simple point & shoot camera with an exposure time of 1/125 of a second could manage well in excess of 5,000,000 exposures in that time!
New section added,"Visits review" 10/03/2016.
A section for reviews of our visits, where we've been, what we've seen. Any member can contribute to this section.
More photographs added to the "Gallery" section. 09/03/2016.
They are from various past events. More to follow over the next few days
New addition in the "Links" section. 07/03/2016.
Tractordata.com. This website is exactly what you'd expect given it's name. It is loaded with information from a vast range of tractor manufacturers past and present. Information, where available, includes power, weight, dimensions, number produced, oil capacities and original retail price of the tractor in US Dollars. Some models have lots of data listed, others very little. It is an American site consequently liquid capacities are generally quoted in US gallons.
New additions in the "Links" section. 05/03/2016
Two new links have been added. They allow free anonymous access to the New Holland/Ford/FIAT parts catalogues, and the CASE-IH, International Harvester, Case, and David Brown parts catalogues. They cover implements, balers and combine harvesters as well as tractors. If you are looking for a part on an older tractor or machine whilst it might be obsolete from the manufacturer, having a part number might just help when searching for that elusive item. Also the parts illustrations can occasionally be helpful when dismantling and reassembling tractors & machinery.
Massey Ferguson do have parts catalogues on line, however getting free access to them appears to be more involved! The link will take you to the start of the process.
Members photographs 05/03/2016
If any member has any relevant photographs that they would like to be added to the website please send them to, bvtc.ontheweb@gmail.com
Please include the who, what, where and when details if possible.
The website reawakens. 03/03/2016.
After a long hibernation the BVTC website "baton" has been passed into the care of Glen Nash and Paul Dunning. As we learn our way around the site there might be some random items appearing and disappearing equally quickly! Please bear with us. For any issues regarding the website please email us, bvtc.ontheweb@gmail.com
Mike Lawrence Heavy haulage 01/03/2016.
Our guest speaker, Mike Lawrence gave us an interesting presentation of his personal history in heavy haulage. Starting with life on his Father's small Devon farm, through from the development to the culmination of his own heavy haulage business. Mike recalled some of the more memorable loads and challenges he faced in keeping up with customer requests. During his time in heavy haulage Mike transported a wide variety of loads including boats, steam locomotives rescued from Barry scrapyard and some of the largest construction plant & mining machinery operating in the UK at that time, to name but a few! Mike's first truck was a Seddon coupled to a single axle low loader. He went on to own trucks made by Bedford, Leyland, Scania, Scammell, Volvo and Mack. The Mack being recalled as powerful, but way behind the European manufacturers when it came to driver comfort!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to the 37 Tractors that showed, the excellent food, run & raffle, a massive £600 was raised for Prostate Cancer, in honor of Pete Day, one of the Original Club Founders. It was a great success with beautifully chilly weather, lovely run and a super soup stop! Photos will be uploaded on the website this week. We also made a big effect on several Facebook Sites asking who we were and what we were up too - all finding it to be a great cause, idea and lovely to have witnessed!
Christmas Quiz Night - 02/12/2014
Well, what a marvelous Christmas Quiz we had this week! Big thanks to all that turned up and took part, a big Thank You from us all to Jo Spencer for being a fantastic QuizMaster, Thank You to Natalie White & Richard Dixon for the Dinner ( apologises for the odd hard Jacket Potato! ) and to Jean Day for a fantastic Raffle! All in All, a very succesful evening enjoyed by all!
Mike Lawrence - Jones Balers Presentation 04/11/2014
Mike Lawrence came on Novembers Club Night, with a fasinating and informative presentation on the History of the Jones Balers and Family. All enjoyed the Evening and cannot wait for his next visit in 2015.
BVTC Coach Trip - S E Davis 26/10/14
BVTC Members enjoyed a lovely day out at S E Davis' on the 26th of October, with a good amount raised in aid of S E Davis' chosen Charity. There are some brilliant photographs on the Facebook page and on here - Many thanks to the Davis family!
PLEASE REMEMBER
You help make The Bicester Vintage Tractor Club what it is, so please don’t hesitate to put forward ideas for Speakers, Events, Possible New Members or Trips.
We can be found on Facebook! www.facebook.com/BicesterVintageTractorClub
On here you will find lots of information on The Club, Contact Details, Dates for the Diary, Photographs, Newsletters etc. Please come and have a look, there is always something new to see!
SOME PEOPLE ARE YET TO RE-JOIN – RENEWAL FORMS CAN BE FOUND ONLINE, OR CAN BE POSTED IF YOU LET US KNOW. THERE WILL BE SOME AVAILABLE AT MEETINGS TOO, SO PLEASE FIND ONE OF US TO SORT THIS OUT. RENEWAL FEE REMAINS THE SAME AT £10, SHOULD YOU WANT TO BRING ALONG POSSIBLE NEW MEMBERS, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THEY RECEIVE ONE FREE VISIT.
Photographs taken during club visit to Greatmoor Energy From Waste facility 10/12/2016.
Many thanks go to Harriet Coupe for taking the photographs.
A new link added to the links page 17/12/2016.
Found this by chance, the link will take you to the home page of a farm based in Sherborne St John, a village near Basingstoke in Hampshire. Click on "media" on their website menu to view "videos" that have been filmed over several decades. You will see 5 Massey Ferguson combine harvesters working in one field at the same time! Pea harvesting. Lettuce harvesting along with numerous other operations. Features tractors and machinery from Massey Ferguson, Ford, County, John Deere, Mather Platt, Howard, McConnel, New Holland, Grimme plus others. The Lettuce harvester based on a County tractor was built by the farms own resident engineer!
There is also a selection of black & white photographs. Take a look at the "up & over" single bale loader attached to a Fordson Major.
As I grew up in a neighbouring village and served my apprenticeship with the Massey Ferguson Dealership, later to become FIAT and Claas dealers, in Basingstoke, it was a wander down memory lane for me!
Quiz Night 06/12/2016.
The quiz night was very well attended and thanks to Jo & Carl Spencer for preparing the questions a very enjoyable evening was had by all. The mix and balance of subjects and difficulty of the questions was excellent. The food was very well received and there was plenty of it! Thank you to all of those involved in planning, purchasing and preparing the food. The quiz required a tie breaker to finish the evening, the scores from top to bottom were very close. It was also good to see a healthy number of members from our neighbouring clubs, thank you all for travelling on a murky winters evening to be with us. Thanks again to Jo & Carl for putting in the time and effort that underpinned a great evening.
Don't forget the January road run, full details in the events section.
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Defibrillation 01/11/2016.
Our guest speaker for the evening was Dick Tracey, Divisional Manager, South Central Ambulance Service. Dick explained some of the basic differences between cardiac arrests and heart attacks. He went on to explain how some very simple, prompt first aid actions can make a serious improvement to the survival rate of those experiencing cardiac arrest. We were shown a defibrillator of the type now springing up in more and more places, Public Access Defibrillators or PAD's for short are, to say the least, an amazing piece of kit. Everything has been thought of, for example if the user attaches the sticky pads the wrong way round on the patient, the PAD will realise that and automatically change round the way it needs to work. PAD's "listen" to the background noise level and will automatically adjust the volume of its audio instructions so the user can still hear what to do regardless of the situation. By following the simple instructions it is totally safe for both patient and operator. PAD's are classed as AED's Automatic External Defibrillators designed for use by laypeople in public places. They cost well below £2000 to buy, lets hope more and more keep appearing across the country. Our thanks go to Dick for a very informative presentation of this serious, potentially life saving, subject.
Herbert Jeffree Bi planes to the bouncing bomb and beyond 04/10/2016.
Our guest speaker, Tony Hadland, gave us an insight of Herbert Jeffree and his path as an aeronautical engineer whose career started in the days of the bi plane running right through to the early days of supersonic flight. Along the way Herbert worked with Barnes Wallis at the time of the bouncing bomb. Herbert was always confident in any situation, so much so that he was actually in the room, uninvited, when the RAF Dambuster Crews were receiving their pre-flight briefing prior to taking off on that well documented mission. Herbert was a dedicated Aeronautical Engineer descended from a long line of Cornish Steam Engineers. We were shown some excellent images of the aircraft, people and places that formed part of Herbert's distinguished career. A very enjoyable and informative presentation.
Club night 7th March 2017.
We can now confirm that our guest speaker for this meeting will be from John Deere, his presentation will be "50 Years of John Deere in the UK". Our thanks go to Paul Dunning for arranging this one.
The Dave Bagnall Ploughing Match & Fun Day 18/09/2016.
What a fantastic day! The event was well supported and attended. The weather was perfect, rumor has it that Dave might have had a hand in organising this from up above..... A wide range of tractor makes were in attendance, including, Allis Chalmers, SAME, Lamborghini, Leyland, Massey Ferguson, Ferguson, International Harvester, Ford, Fordson, County and Muir Hill. The majority of the ploughs were made by Ransomes, others present included Ferguson, International Harvester, Dowdeswell and Rabe.
The match plots saw a good standard of ploughing throughout. One very pleasing aspect was the number of young people taking part, VERY well done to them all. Lets continue to support and encourage them they are the future of the vintage tractor & farm machinery movement! The working area for non competitors saw action most of the day.
The big THANK YOU must go to Jackie, her family and support team for providing the venue, the food and everything else that went in to make this such a brilliant event. They did an amazing job!
Our thanks also go to our two judges, Derek Hedges and Bob Wilbury.
After the match prizes had been presented the auction saw some very generous bidding. The raffle draw followed, the raffle table straining under the under the weight of so many generously donated prizes. Thank you to all of the competitors, bidders, buyers and donors.
The event raised an absolutely brilliant total of £2,100.00. for the Air Ambulance.
To end this item where it started, What a fantastic day!
Dave Bagnall memorial ploughing match pictures in gallery section.
Report of this very successful event coming soon.
Also see tractor for sale in gallery section.
Looking forward, first Road Run in 2017.
Details in events section.
Brian Homans, China 06/09/2016.
Our speaker for the evening was Brian Homans. Brian gave us an insight of China, its people, culture, public transport and its history. There is a stark contrast between the rich and the poor people of the nation, the gap seeming much wider than in many other countries. Brian’s travels included a 14 hour overnight train journey, his photographs showing the very small sleeper compartments on the train. Road travel in China is not for the faint hearted, one picture of a very busy road junction looked like there are no rules, more a case of every man for himself, vehicles at all angles and directions!
The process of buying a car in China is a little unusual too. The first step is to buy yourself number plate costing in the region of £8,000 to £9,000! The state controls the availability of the numbers.
Brian described the plumbing and electrics in, on and around many of the buildings as “haphazard at best”. The photographs of this leave you thinking “Glad I’m not a Plumber or a Sparky in China!”
Whilst the variety of the food available was wide, some it certainly fell into the category of “Best avoided” some of it looked more like life threatening! As you might expect tea was available in many varieties.
Brian’s pictures included some shots of the amazing Terracotta Army. The amount of man hours that must’ve been taken to create it is mind boggling!
Our thanks go to Brian for the very interesting overview of such a huge subject.
Ploughing Match, Sunday 18th September, full address with postcode now added in the events section.
Correction of date. Also more details for ploughing at Bucknell August 27th & 28th
More pictures from Finmere Road Run added to gallery 18/08/2016.
First pictures from Finmere Road Run now in gallery section 17/08/2016.
More pictures to follow soon.
Finmere Road Run 13/08/2016.
Members enjoyed a very sunny road run on a route of approximately 25 miles as planned by Paul Chambers. We were out for over three hours before returning to our start point at Finmere railway station. Finmere station is home to our hosts Coulsdon Old Vehicle Engineering Society, or COVES for short. The invitation from our hosts also included a BBQ in the evening. We were very generously fed and watered! The station is also home to Network SouthEast Railway Society, who were running a train during the afternoon. Their website www.nsers.org/1753.html details their projects, achievements and aims.
A very pleasant and full day. A big thank you to Paul Chambers for organising the Road Run and to our hosts, COVES, for their hospitality.
Events page has been updated 11/08/2016.
Several dates for your diary.
Full details of the Finmere Railway, Road Run & BBQ now on the "Events" page.
Contacts page has been updated 06/07/2016.
Please go to club contacts page to see latest details.
Skittles night at the Red Lion Islip 07/06/2016.
Almost 40 members and guests enjoyed the evening. The wide range of skill (luck) provided plenty of entertainment. There was plenty of food for all including birthday cake! Special thanks go to Steve Holmes and Will Trinder for spending most of the evening putting the pins back up. Some of us generated more work for them than others! Also thanks to Val for doing the scoreboard.
Massey Ferguson part two, 03/05/2016.
Our guest speaker, David Walker gave us part two of his presentation. He detailed some more of his work and experiences during his time with Massey Ferguson. His work took him far and wide, not only in the UK, but in Europe and Scandinavia too. His various roles covered the lifetime of several product ranges. David explained how some of the problems he encountered on tractors were identified and diagnosed, as well as what was done to reach a successful solution. We were also given a preview of the subject of his next book, the Ferguson LTX tractor. David has already written some 4000 words for the book, we look forward to its publication.
Steeple Barton Road Run, 02/05/2016.
The sun shone, the tractors, all 43 of them, made the distance of 29 miles without any breakdowns. what more could we ask? The route was a good mix of both on and off highway. At one point an off highway section was blocked by a mound of dirt! Phil Robbins and his Ford with its front end loader set to and made it into a negotiable obstacle rather than a complete block! Nice one Phil and thank you! This successful road run was independently organised by Steve Phipps and Richard Long, supported by their respective partners Kim and Sharon. Also taking an active role in the all important catering department was Carrie Morris. At the time of writing this event had raised at least £680.00 which will be donated to the Thames Valley Air Ambulance.
The weather did have the last say as some of those whose tractors are of a cab less variety got caught by an absolute cloud burst as they headed for home! It was the sort of cloudburst that got, even those with waterproofs, soaked to the skin in mere seconds! A great day, thanks again and well done to Steve, Richard, Kim, Sharon and Carrie.
More new photographs in the gallery 27/04/2016.
17 Photographs taken at the Brick works are now in the gallery, many thanks to Roy & Val.
New photographs in the gallery 26/04/2016.
Five photographs from the Merton Road Run, 17/04/2016, are now in the gallery. Thanks to Val & Roy for sending these.
H G Matthews Brickworks & tractor collection. 24/04/2016.
Members enjoyed an interesting and informative visit to the Brickworks and tractor collection, go to the "Visits review" section to read more.
Merton road run 17/04/2016.
What a totally brilliant road run! The sun shone, the tractors all performed well bar one that developed a steering issue just before we got started. Dawn Holmes laid on an excellent lunch, featuring plenty of homemade goodies! Steve Holmes and Family put in the hard work to deliver the 21 mile run which was enjoyed by all! A commendable 33 tractors, traveled through rural West Bucks and East Oxfordshire. Tractors made by the following manufacturers took part, Fordson, Trantor, Massey Harris, David Brown, Ford, International Harvester, Ferguson, County and Massey Ferguson. Then to really round things off we raised £513.00 for Macmillan Nurses in the process! Again a BIG THANK YOU to Steve, Dawn & Family and all those who assisted them. If anybody has got any photographs from today that they'd like put on the BVTC website, please send them to bvtc.ontheweb@gmail.com
More photographs added 09/04/2016.
A few more photographs have been added to the "Ardley energy recovery facility" gallery and the "Pictures from various past events" gallery.
Churchill's toybox 05/04/2016.
Our guest speaker, Gordon Rogers delivered a very informative and enjoyable presentation covering his own personal experiences of explosives and their applications from a very young age! Gordon explained some of the military developments, testing and resultant devices & weapons that had been the centre of activities at the military establishment in nearby Whitchurch during the 30's & 40's. It was a fact packed evening blended with personal anecdotes and excellent humour! There were plenty of "Well, I never knew that" moments for many of us! Gordon is also very interested in astronomy, he showed us one of his photographs taken from his own observatory, the one image was the result of a twelve hour exposure! To put that in context a simple point & shoot camera with an exposure time of 1/125 of a second could manage well in excess of 5,000,000 exposures in that time!
New section added,"Visits review" 10/03/2016.
A section for reviews of our visits, where we've been, what we've seen. Any member can contribute to this section.
More photographs added to the "Gallery" section. 09/03/2016.
They are from various past events. More to follow over the next few days
New addition in the "Links" section. 07/03/2016.
Tractordata.com. This website is exactly what you'd expect given it's name. It is loaded with information from a vast range of tractor manufacturers past and present. Information, where available, includes power, weight, dimensions, number produced, oil capacities and original retail price of the tractor in US Dollars. Some models have lots of data listed, others very little. It is an American site consequently liquid capacities are generally quoted in US gallons.
New additions in the "Links" section. 05/03/2016
Two new links have been added. They allow free anonymous access to the New Holland/Ford/FIAT parts catalogues, and the CASE-IH, International Harvester, Case, and David Brown parts catalogues. They cover implements, balers and combine harvesters as well as tractors. If you are looking for a part on an older tractor or machine whilst it might be obsolete from the manufacturer, having a part number might just help when searching for that elusive item. Also the parts illustrations can occasionally be helpful when dismantling and reassembling tractors & machinery.
Massey Ferguson do have parts catalogues on line, however getting free access to them appears to be more involved! The link will take you to the start of the process.
Members photographs 05/03/2016
If any member has any relevant photographs that they would like to be added to the website please send them to, bvtc.ontheweb@gmail.com
Please include the who, what, where and when details if possible.
The website reawakens. 03/03/2016.
After a long hibernation the BVTC website "baton" has been passed into the care of Glen Nash and Paul Dunning. As we learn our way around the site there might be some random items appearing and disappearing equally quickly! Please bear with us. For any issues regarding the website please email us, bvtc.ontheweb@gmail.com
Mike Lawrence Heavy haulage 01/03/2016.
Our guest speaker, Mike Lawrence gave us an interesting presentation of his personal history in heavy haulage. Starting with life on his Father's small Devon farm, through from the development to the culmination of his own heavy haulage business. Mike recalled some of the more memorable loads and challenges he faced in keeping up with customer requests. During his time in heavy haulage Mike transported a wide variety of loads including boats, steam locomotives rescued from Barry scrapyard and some of the largest construction plant & mining machinery operating in the UK at that time, to name but a few! Mike's first truck was a Seddon coupled to a single axle low loader. He went on to own trucks made by Bedford, Leyland, Scania, Scammell, Volvo and Mack. The Mack being recalled as powerful, but way behind the European manufacturers when it came to driver comfort!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to the 37 Tractors that showed, the excellent food, run & raffle, a massive £600 was raised for Prostate Cancer, in honor of Pete Day, one of the Original Club Founders. It was a great success with beautifully chilly weather, lovely run and a super soup stop! Photos will be uploaded on the website this week. We also made a big effect on several Facebook Sites asking who we were and what we were up too - all finding it to be a great cause, idea and lovely to have witnessed!
Christmas Quiz Night - 02/12/2014
Well, what a marvelous Christmas Quiz we had this week! Big thanks to all that turned up and took part, a big Thank You from us all to Jo Spencer for being a fantastic QuizMaster, Thank You to Natalie White & Richard Dixon for the Dinner ( apologises for the odd hard Jacket Potato! ) and to Jean Day for a fantastic Raffle! All in All, a very succesful evening enjoyed by all!
Mike Lawrence - Jones Balers Presentation 04/11/2014
Mike Lawrence came on Novembers Club Night, with a fasinating and informative presentation on the History of the Jones Balers and Family. All enjoyed the Evening and cannot wait for his next visit in 2015.
BVTC Coach Trip - S E Davis 26/10/14
BVTC Members enjoyed a lovely day out at S E Davis' on the 26th of October, with a good amount raised in aid of S E Davis' chosen Charity. There are some brilliant photographs on the Facebook page and on here - Many thanks to the Davis family!
PLEASE REMEMBER
You help make The Bicester Vintage Tractor Club what it is, so please don’t hesitate to put forward ideas for Speakers, Events, Possible New Members or Trips.
We can be found on Facebook! www.facebook.com/BicesterVintageTractorClub
On here you will find lots of information on The Club, Contact Details, Dates for the Diary, Photographs, Newsletters etc. Please come and have a look, there is always something new to see!
SOME PEOPLE ARE YET TO RE-JOIN – RENEWAL FORMS CAN BE FOUND ONLINE, OR CAN BE POSTED IF YOU LET US KNOW. THERE WILL BE SOME AVAILABLE AT MEETINGS TOO, SO PLEASE FIND ONE OF US TO SORT THIS OUT. RENEWAL FEE REMAINS THE SAME AT £10, SHOULD YOU WANT TO BRING ALONG POSSIBLE NEW MEMBERS, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THEY RECEIVE ONE FREE VISIT.