Scotland was one of the first regions of the MGF Register and we are delighted to welcome it back under the Register umbrella once again. Glenn Neilson was around n those early days and helped run the MGFreedom group more recently. He has now re-activated the Region under the name of MGFun (which we all agree the cars are!).
Glenn tells about the Scotland Region historically and looks to the future:
MGFun are not the first F and TF group in Scotland. Not long after the F was released a group called MGF Scotland was created and organised runs and events for Scottish owners and was very successful for several years before dropping off the events radar. Some owners in Scotland still had an appetite for events so some were organised on the MG Enthusiasts BBS forum (remember forums?) and event was organised for September 2002. The people who turned up became the next group and were called Central Scotland MGF (CSMGF) and run by David Cleland and Gerry Hoirns. Some of you who are long term F or TF owners may remember “Golden Wheels” owned by Gerry and David’s lovely red MGF Steptronic. CSMGF was very successful at holding monthly meetings and runs throughout the year and introduced the HIGHLANDER weekend which attracted F and TF owners from all corners of the UK including Ireland.
CSMGF successfully carried the F and TF flag in Scotland from 2002 until 2008. I attended my first MG run with CSMGF in June 2006 and was immediately hooked but unfortunately, in 2008 both David and Gerry pulled their handbrakes on, selected neutral and switched off their interest in CSMGF and the group events came to an end. Again, all was not lost because there was still a strong desire from Scottish F and TF owners to keep events going so 2008 saw the creation of MGFreedom, run by Alan Dunlop and myself. Alan attended the very first CSMGF run in 2002 so he can only be considered as a veteran of the MGF and TF scene in Scotland. To date, Alan remains true to the models and he has serious F and TF collection. MGFreedom was hugely successful in delivering runs and events in Scotland, nationally and in Europe until around 2016 when events started to dwindle. As at 2021, MGFreedom group still exists, but as an independent group and will focus on holding the famous annual HIGHLANDER event started by CSMGF in 2002.
With MGFreedom concentrating on the HIGHLANDER event each year, this leaves Scotland without a dedicated F and TF group to provide regular runs and evens for Scottish owners. The force of the F and TF in Scotland is strong and with Scotland’s amazing roads and wonderful scenery, we have the perfect basis for having MG “Fun”.
I need to mention Covid-19 as this is the deciding factor for the forceable future and will no doubt impact upon our plans going forward. As I type this in mid-January 2021, there are already cancelled events in Scotland during 2021 so, when allowed, we will start moving towards having pub meets and organising runs/events to allow our members to meet in person but until then MGFun will grow via Facebook.
So what’s the plan? The success of the previous groups cannot be ignored so I won’t be reinventing the wheel. Initially I aim to run MGFun in line with our forerunners and tweaking things as the group develops. This means;
- Regular/monthly pub meets
- Regular/monthly summer runs
- Annual weekend event
- Short winter runs
- Attendance at car shows
Thanks again to Tim for welcoming Scotland back to the Register. Take care, keep safe, best wishes to our fellow regions and we hope some of you can venture north of the border to join us for some MGFun in the future.
Glenn Neilson
Scottish Region Representative.
