The Western Group of Motoring Writers is an eclectic group and a look at their interests and what the group has done since it was founded has been a learning curve, says Liz Turner.
12 things you didn’t know about the Western Group:
We’ve never had a rodeo.
Our members live in the south west of England and Wales, but they serve regional, national and international outlets.
They include journalists, photographers, editors, authors and bloggers, who must regularly provide evidence of work in the motoring industry.
Our website gets 20,000 hits, and has 4,900 unique users each month.
Since 1983, we have donated £10,000 to different charities.
The group was born in the back of a BMW in 1983
Our members play around 10 instruments (although more than half are played by the same member)
The group is 20% female and has had three female Chairmen (Alyson Marlow, Claire Bowen and Charlotte Blight.
WGMW has produced four Guild chairmen: Tony Lewis, Ken Rogers, John Kendal and Charlotte Blight.
We have had one meeting in St Malo and another 100ft in the air in the observation deck of the RAC Bristol building beside the M5, but have never met in a mineshaft (yet).
One member owns more than 20 classic cars.
Our annual invitation-only Western Group Driving Day has, over the years, challenged PRs to fly a hovercraft; dig and fill in a trench with an excavator; and try to identify a car while blindfolded only by touch and smell (or sniff and grope as one member described it).
