Membership Number One
On our 40th Annual AGM our Chairman Linda Davies received this correspondence from one of the founding members of the Kent Group of Advanced Motorists. Linda has been kind enough to share this wonderful message here.
An email sent by Roger Philips who has the membership number one
"I would like to begin these few brief words by offering congratulations to the Kent Group of the IAM on achieving this 40th anniversary milestone and along with that my congratulations to the Committee for their stewardship of the Group and especially to the Chairman, Linda Davies for her wisdom and able leadership over the years.
As some of the longer serving Group members will remember, I have been involved with the Group from its inception, being at the first meeting held on the 18th April 1978 in a room over the Fountain Pub on the Tonbridge Road in Maidstone. That meeting was sponsored by the South Eastern Group to gauge whether there was enough support to create a new group in the Maidstone/Mid Kent area.
From that packed room the fledgling Mid Kent Group was born. Among the first tasks the new Group faced was finding those attendees who would be willing to fill Committee posts so that the business of running a group could take place. With that done the next task was to organise a venue where the new committee could meet and the Kent County Police Headquarters kindly allowed us to use one of their driving school rooms, helped by the fact that the first Chief Observer was a serving police traffic officer and instructor at the Police Driving School.
Then came the task of filling the officer positions and deciding on a suitable name for the group with the first Committee meeting being held on the 16th of May 1978
From those early beginnings the Group has evolved over the years from the one on one run scheme to the streamlined system now in place, all the while the Group being an innovator, having pioneered the Group Observed Run Scheme that was eventually taken up by other Groups as well as the formal Observed Run Sheet.
It is very gratifying to see that from those early beginnings the Group has flourished and grown into the positive force for road safety in Kent that it has now become.
I have asked Linda to read this message to this AGM because, as some of you may know, I now live on the West Coast of the US in the state of Oregon and although I had hoped to be here tonight unfortunately that has not been possible.
Once again, my congratulations to the Group on its milestone achievement and I hope there will be many more."
Roger Philips
"I would like to begin these few brief words by offering congratulations to the Kent Group of the IAM on achieving this 40th anniversary milestone and along with that my congratulations to the Committee for their stewardship of the Group and especially to the Chairman, Linda Davies for her wisdom and able leadership over the years.
As some of the longer serving Group members will remember, I have been involved with the Group from its inception, being at the first meeting held on the 18th April 1978 in a room over the Fountain Pub on the Tonbridge Road in Maidstone. That meeting was sponsored by the South Eastern Group to gauge whether there was enough support to create a new group in the Maidstone/Mid Kent area.
From that packed room the fledgling Mid Kent Group was born. Among the first tasks the new Group faced was finding those attendees who would be willing to fill Committee posts so that the business of running a group could take place. With that done the next task was to organise a venue where the new committee could meet and the Kent County Police Headquarters kindly allowed us to use one of their driving school rooms, helped by the fact that the first Chief Observer was a serving police traffic officer and instructor at the Police Driving School.
Then came the task of filling the officer positions and deciding on a suitable name for the group with the first Committee meeting being held on the 16th of May 1978
From those early beginnings the Group has evolved over the years from the one on one run scheme to the streamlined system now in place, all the while the Group being an innovator, having pioneered the Group Observed Run Scheme that was eventually taken up by other Groups as well as the formal Observed Run Sheet.
It is very gratifying to see that from those early beginnings the Group has flourished and grown into the positive force for road safety in Kent that it has now become.
I have asked Linda to read this message to this AGM because, as some of you may know, I now live on the West Coast of the US in the state of Oregon and although I had hoped to be here tonight unfortunately that has not been possible.
Once again, my congratulations to the Group on its milestone achievement and I hope there will be many more."
Roger Philips
