Vintage Horticultural and Garden Machinery Club

The ideal accessories for your show exhibit. Fly the flag and show that you are part of the only club that caters for all things vintage and horticultural. Whether it’s just an enamel badge, windscreen sticker  or a weatherproof jacket there is something to suit everyone; if there is something that you would like that you can’t see, why not drop Shopkeeper a line and ask him if he can do it?
You can pay by cheque, postal order or PayPal (he even takes cash!). Distance is no object either- he has just sent a club banner to a member in Australia- so let’s see everyone sporting club clothing around the shows this year.

NEW ITEM IN THE VHGMC CLUB SHOP.

Keep your head warm this winter!

From 1st December Fleece Hats are available from the club shop.

One size fits all with turn-up band to reveal VHGMC logo. Colour: Indigo Black with embroidered logo in green. Priced at £6.00 each + £3.00 postage. Multiple postage discounts.

Ideal stocking filler for Christmas. 

Contact Shopkeeper: Steve Woollas, 9 Ermine Drive, Navenby, Lincoln, LN5 0HB. 01522 811067. 07973 250661. stevewoollas@yahoo.co.uk 

We are currently building a new ploughing section which will eventually become a complete reference section for all things to do with men, mud and machinery. Whether you are a complete beginner or a seasoned ploughman, there will be something here for all. From a Beginner’s Guide to a list of eligible machinery, something will be of interest.
So, once you’ve read the beginner’s guide you can go along to spectate at a local ploughing match to pick up a few tips, then buy your first ploughing tractor to compete with. You can always come along to one of the “Shine up” days in early Autumn to have a play without any pressure. Everyone that tries it seems to enjoy it!

The first of the machinery registers is now live and more will be added very shortly when time permits. At present it is heavily biased towards Trusty because that’s the register that I compile, but as more people express an interest in publishing their own brand register then it should grow to be quite a useful archive for the club.
To view the registers section, simply click on the “Survivors” tab at the top of the page, then you will see various links at the bottom of the next page that will enable you to navigate to the register that is of interest to you.
Why didn’t I call the tab, “Machinery Registers”? I hear you ask. It’s all about space- if I had used a long name then it would shunt the other tabs off the other end, so a short name is what’s called for.
If any members would like their registers published in this section then please drop me a line via the “Contacts” section.
Thank you for your patience.
Geoff Ravenhall

We will very shortly be starting to add content to the website, and the first stage will be to add as many machinery registers that we can so that members can date their own machinery and also to have them included in the register of surviving machines. The intention will be to only publish serial numbers, dates of purchase and selling dealer; details of the current owners will not appear in any form, so if you haven’t told your wife of  your latest purchase you can rest easy, she won’t find out from here!

If any members are interested in putting their registers on here please contact Geoff Ravenhall using the contact email address for the club- don’t forget, this can be a two-way thing. You can provide information about the brand that you are passionate about, but remember also that when people see the listings they may well want to be included so your register will grow as a result.

The first register to appear will be for Trusty Steeds, both Mk1 and Mk2, so watch this space over the next few days.

In October, 2013, Sam Hitchman organised a horticultural ploughing day near Kineton in Warwickshire. Despite the early downpour many ploughmen turned up with a very varied selection of horticultural machinery to either compete or just play. It was also the first Trusty Challenge, so there are many different working exhibits to see from that well-known manufacturer.
All proceeds from the event were donated to a charity devoted to sufferers of Parkinson’s Disease- a charity suggested by the landowner- and a substantial donation was made.
Shortly afterwards one of our club members put together a DVD cataloguing the day’s events with both action footage and still photographs which has a total running time of approximately 25 minutes. We are selling these discs for the price of £5 each plus £1.75 p&p. Again, all proceeds from these discs will go towards combating Parkinson’s Disease.
To order one of these discs please respond using the club email address in the contacts section and Sam will be in touch.

The VHGMC always has it’s AGM on the second weekend in March. Memberships run from 1st January through to 31st December, so we can’t have the AGM much later in the year because it would be largely meaningless. Similarly, if we had it in January then it may even be snowed off, so the compromise is March.
This year we decided to re-visit the old formula of hiring a room at a popular venue and allowing free entry to the venue for all members attending the meeting. I think most of you will know of the British Motoring Heritage museum at Gaydon which was originally put together by British Leyland; it now has been expanded to cater for all British makes and it really is a museum with no equal anywhere in the world.
Many of the exhibits are prototypes or one-offs made for a specific purpose, interspersed with production cars from all eras. It really is a venue that appeals to all walks of life with exhibits from Jaguar and Land Rover standing side-by-side with cars from Austin, Morris, Triumph and MG to name but a few. Of particular interest to myself was the display of MG record-breaking cars which rose to fame in the 1930’s and into the 1950’s; one of these was EX135 which took speed records in the 350cc class, 500cc, 750cc, 1100cc and 1500cc by ingenious use of a single, six-cylinder engine. To achieve the smaller capacities it was run with just two pistons, then three, and to achieve the record in the 1500 class it was bored out to just over the 1100cc size, so it was sacrificing nearly 400cc’s and it still achieved over 200mph!
 Everyone attending showed their appreciation at the end of the meeting, and one or two even brought machines to swap in the car park. It looks like next year’s venue may be already sorted out!

After a year of planning, head scratching and considering many many options available, the new VHGMC website is here! This has been no easy task, in order to do everything that’s currently required, the website brings to you more options than ever before and makes this the one-stop place for all things relating to vintage horticultural machinery. 

Did I say one-stop? Well this is the place to organize your machinery photos or indeed videos all in your own galleries, create a group of friends, and also keep a timeline of what you are doing with your hobby. You can send messages to friends, comment on their updates, discuss topics in the forum and many other options. This keeps all your hobby related information in one easy place to share – rather than having it scattered across many website services. 

We have also added news articles to the site, so if you have something of interest them we can put it on there for you. And if you are wanting something extra to read then back issues of The Cultivator are available to download free for paid members.

Currently we have pushed the  technology as far as we can, in fact there are a couple of items I wanted to do but the solutions aren’t there yet! Although we do have many other things to add and try and you may notice some tell-tale signs on the site.  

If you have any questions then you can contact me at @alan (how brilliant is that? Just click on @alan and then click on ‘Private Message’  to the right of my avatar picture) or through the ‘contact’ page, there’s also some info about the website at tractorbox too. <