Surprise news for the group this month is that we are about to part company with Liz Turner, who only took up the reins as group Honorary Secretary at the AGM last November.
It is not because Liz has given up on us already, but because she has been offered a job in the internal communications department at JLR after they saw what a good job she had done for us!
We are very sorry indeed to see Liz leave us.
She has had a long and distinguished career as a motoring journalist starting with CAR in the 1980s before moving to Autocar.
She then became freelance, joining the What Car staff again in 2000, before moving to the US, where she continued to freelance and also developed a career as a TV presenter.
Liz returned to the UK five years ago and has continued to freelance ever since.
A move into PR is a great opportunity for her and we wish her considerable success for the future.
This leaves the group with an important committee vacancy to fill. In the short term, we are considering sharing the work over two jobs, with a membership secretary as well as an honorary secretary.
This may be something that our retired and honorary members could help us out, if any of you think you have the time to spare to help us out while we sort out a new permanent honorary secretary.
Elsewhere, the PR Driving Day is now open for booking and Alyson has sent out the invitations. We will be following that up with a series of reminders, to ensure that we have as many as possible at Castle Combe on 2 June.
Elsewhere, congratulations to Pietro Panarisi who will become head of press and PR at Skoda. Pietro will move over from VW Commercial Vehicles where he has been head of press and PR for the past two years, having moved there from Skoda. With much launch activity at VW CV, Pietro won’t be making the move immediately, he tells me.
Launch activity hasn’t slowed since the Geneva Show but we do have two regional events coming up in April. Fiat will host us on St. George’s Day to bring the 500X to our area and VW will follow up the following week on 27 April.
In the meantime, the Easter holidays are looming, so a very Happy Easter to you all. Enjoy the break.
John Kendall | Chairman WGMW
