Autumn is now taking a firm grip of the weather so take extra care when you are out and about. There will be increased likelihood of heavy rain, strong wind and the gradual reduction of daylight hours.

I have a couple of good news stories to share with you.

Firstly, we have decided to move our main Sunday morning meeting venue from the St. Helens Community Fire station to the World of Glass. Both are fantastic venues but the World of Glass café provides greater opportunity for our Associates and Observers to chat after  observed runs with a hot drink and, perhaps, a muffin or something similar! We want to strengthen a team spirit among Observers and we also want each cohort of Associates to feel they have other Associates to chat to. The World of Glass has been very helpful and has provided reserved tables in their café for our use when we arrive at 10am. Our presence also supports the World of Glass during challenging financial times. I was delighted to read in the St. Helens Star that the World of Glass has been saved from closing due the generosity of the public and organisations.

We will continue to use the free room at the fire station for ‘System’ and Rural Driving presentations and the meet an Examiner session.

Secondly, As I have mentioned previously IAM HQ has given notice that it will close all of the IAM branded websites like ours. This will happen on the  15th October. The IAM will have a new website but we lose ours. The good news is that we have had just about sufficient time to secure the services of a software company to replicate our current website (as much as was reasonable possible). Our shgam.org.uk web domain is still operational and has been re-directed to ‘point’ to our new website.

www.shgam.org.uk

Safe driving and riding.

Mark Farnworth

Group Chairman