14th March 2023 – Notice of the Annual General Meeting which will be held at Hycilla, Bowcliffe Hall, LS23 6LP on Wednesday 19th April 2023 starting at 11.00. Members are invited to attend. Members wishing to nominate a trustee should notify us by email before 5th April on alvisarchive@btinternet.com
28th March – The agenda and reports are here
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The Trust became an independent charity as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in September 2018, succeeding the original trust established by the Alvis Owner Club in 2002.
The first charity trustees were Graham Clode, John Fox, Steve Horne and Neil Millington. Chris Taylor was co-opted as a trustee in April 2019. At the first AGM in March 2020 Steve Horne retired as a trustee. In December 2020 Neil Millington passed away. At the 2021 AGM John Fox retired as a trustee and two new trustees were appointed, Martin Wickham and Edmund Waterhouse.
At the 2022 AGM held in April at Bowcliffe Hall two trustees had completed the maximum permitted period of office of three years and retired.
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Some meetings in previous years……
The trustees held their Annual General Meeting on Saturday 22nd April 2017 at the Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa, Lincs. Ten Friends joined the meeting of the four trustees.
4th January 2016: The trustees met in Bradford at Classic Connections to review 2015 and plan for 2016-2020. Our goals remain the same, more accumulation of archive material, scanning photos and articles, publishing books and finding a suitable permanent home to display them all, and cars – our 2020 Vision.
The first of what we hope will be a series of books is planned for publication in May ‘Alvis Cars 1946-1967; The Post War Cars’. We will be present at International Alvis Weekend near Kenilworth on May 22 with a selection of items available, not least the invaluable DVD collection of Bulletins.
Our suggested theme for the NEC 2016 display is one special car from each decade, and new AAT board displays of Fighting Vehicles and racing Alvis, to widen the appeal of the marque.
We also discussed plans for special events to celebrate the Alvis Centenary which starts in three years’ time with T G John forming a Company. The first Alvis car was completed on 31st March 1920 according to ‘The Vintage Alvis’. We look forward to working with the Register and re-telling the stories of a hundred years ago.
25th February 2015
Following our habit of meeting at the premises of similar minded organisations all four trustees converged on the Nene Valley Railway for a lengthy lunch. As our 2020 Vision coincides with celebrating the Alvis Centenary discussions centred on what was practical for us to contribute to the events in five years time.
29th October 2014
After a morning visit to the Herbert for more scanning of the photo albums held there we met at Gaydon for our annual general meeting, and to meet Bob Dover, the Chairman of the trustees of the BMIHT, the custodians of the archives of the British Motor Industry and the management team led by Julie Tew. Although we have all visited Gaydon several times, we had the benefit of a guided tour by the Curator, Stephen Laing, of the archive room and the workshop where by coincidence they were also working on another 1928 Alvis FWD (also ex Diana Russell) . We left with a sense of optimism that our motoring heritage is in good and dynamic hands with people who understand the challenges of attracting a younger generation into the old car movement. Their website is comprehensive and gives details of their expansion plans.
http://www.heritage-motor-centre.co.uk/about-the-heritage-motor-centre/museum-collections-centre/
and http://www.motorgraphs.com/ for access to their photo archives.
While we we there we did some research on Vanden Plas but it seems someone had already skimmed off the Alvis drawings before they were donated.
28th October 2014
Today we visited the AOC President Emeritus, Ken Day, at his home. We then went to the Brooklands Museum where we met Head of Collections, John Pulford and had a brief tour of the Alvis area.
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International Alvis Weekend at Milton Hill House Hotel, Steventon 29-31 August 2014
Sunday visitors to Milton Hill House were spoilt for choice of what to do with a packed programme of events but several visitors took time to visit our display of archive material in Yellow Birch, popped in for a chat and picked up a book or two
and were tempted by our DVD which is now available for purchase….
Once again we were pleased to have our Patron, Mike Dunn, giving a talk on Friday afternoon in the Rose Suite.
On 16th October 2013 three trustees met at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford to witness no less than six Alvis offered for sale at the H & H auction. None reached their reserve and only one was sold post sale. The opportunity was taken for a brief tour of the aeronautical display, including a brief trip on Concorde.
On 12th September 2013 two trustees had a day out at the Science Museum Wroughton Library and Archives and visited a few hangars of vehicles and other heavy objects. There was nothing Alvis to find but it was a fascinating day and it raised a number of questions, not least, what is worth preserving for the long term? A surprising find was that they hold the archives of Hooper & Co. the coachbuilders. The final visit of the day was to a hangar using “hempcrete” as a building material which does away with the need for air conditioning as it maintains humidity at a constant level. A case of the Science Museum using science to reduce the long term costs of storage.
On 14th August we all met at the Bourne Museum home of the ERA/BRM Collection and over lunch discussed the “Bulletins on a Stick” project.
Just some of the Alvis boxes at CTM.
On 4th April, we returned to Coventry Transport Museum for a first foray into the archives held there, some not catalogued. Several gems were unearthed.
On January 29th 2013 we posted that on Thursday February 21st we had arranged an exclusive visit to the off-site store of the Coventry Transport Museum which houses about 100 vehicles not on current display. The current collection of vehicles is acknowledged as being one of the finest in the world, and the largest in public ownership. It includes several Alvis cars.
This date was fully booked and 44 Alvisianados enjoyed the day travelling from as far as Sweden, Holland, Scotland and Wales.
We had a presentation from the Head of Collections, Steve Bagley. And afterwards the Trustees met with Steve Bagley to discuss our own potential involvement with the proposed new Archive building.
NEC Classic Car Show 2012 – November 2012
For the first time we manned a corner of the Alvis Owner Club stand in Hall 20 at the NEC. The theme this year was “Specials” and some fine examples of the special builder’s art were on show. Two of the current owners had built their cars but a pleasant surprise on Friday was a visitor to the AAT table who built another of the cars on the stand. He was Derek Baker who had worked for Peerless, Gordon Keeble and Key West and had built the Burns Special.
- The Burns Special on the NEC AOC stand
- The signage meant you could not miss your target.
Alongside the AOC stand was the Fisher Restoration stand which had three fine examples of Alvis including Bill Rankin’s 4.3 short chassis tourer ALV 15.
Coventry Transport Museum showed a red TB14 in unrestored condition.
The Midland Automobile Club showed Alan Stote’s TF21 Graber coupe as it won their Concours this year.
- 1966 Alvis TF21 coupe super by Graber on the MAC stand at the NEC 2012
September 2012 – International Alvis Day at Llancaiach Fawr Manor
Thanks to the W O Bentley Memorial Foundation we were able to display some 1963 designs for the update of the TD21 by Peter J Wharton, Senior Stylist at Park Ward, the Rolls-Royce owned coachbuilder of the post 1958 production cars.
These form part of the Collection of the late George Moseley who was also responsible for designing the Vanden Plas 4.3 Alvis short chassis tourer.
This was the first opportunity to use our new display boards in the marquee and also to use our new camera which will hopefully ease the task of digitising our archives
- The Trustees met on 22 August 2012 in the library of the RREC headquarters
Ten Friends enjoyed a summer’s day on 22nd August 2012 at the headquarters of the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club, The Hunt House in Northamptonshire. The Curator of the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation, Philip Hall, gave us a personal guided tour of the extensive premises, exhibits and archives. Some of us had been there before when the AOC held the first Technical Seminars there making use of the workshop areas, the seminar room and the dining facilities. These are perhaps the most impressive archive facilities we have visited in the last year and well worth a visit.
The four Trustees held their meeting in the Library in the afternoon and made a number of decisions on future activities and expenditure which will be reported in due course when final arrangements and agreements have been made.
Alvis Archive 