Hi All,

Another day and another update! The good news is that the weather reports are looking ok but not great! Friday and Saturday are looking quite bad with rain forecast and Sunday will be cloudy but warm, bad news for those of you who are planning to camp, good news if your just doing the run on Sunday. I do not really believe long term forecasts so don’t worry just yet!

If you were not already aware Autoglym are sponsors of our Show n Shine competition and this year they have been fantastically generous. Everyone who enters the competition will received a polish pack, which includes car shampoo, polish and wash sponge. In addition to this, everyone who participates in the run will receive a small bottle of the brilliant Autoglym polish branded with the L2B plaque (bet these are selling on eBay a day later as collector’s items). In addition to this Autoglym will be giving demonstrations of their products all day in the middle of the drive (lookout for the Autoglym Route Master Bus), and Mark Hawthorn their National Sales Director has kindly agreed to present the awards to the lucky 20 winners. Show n Shine judging starts at 12.30 this year and as ever everyone who participates MUST attend Crystal Palace and fully participate in the run (no secret trailers). If you are entered into the Show n Shine and your plans have changed and you cannot participate please do let us know (saves us waiting for you). Monty Watkins at Mini World Magazine will be presenting all our other trophies and selecting the Mini World Magazine Car of the Show, this coveted trophy is something very special and most cars go on to feature in the pages of that wonderful magazine.

I am pleased to say that our charity auction will be starting at 2pm at the LSMOC Information Centre and if you have been watching the auction page you will know that we have a fantastic line-up of auction lots, there are 33 items and a catalogue with the full details will be handed to you with your run pack on Sunday morning. If you cannot wait until then you can down load the catalogue by CLICKING HERE.

If you have not already made a donation to our charity auction I can confirm that I have 4 stand passes remaining for people who make a £50 of more donation to www.justgiving.com/l2b2008 you have until 4pm on Wednesday to make your donation (then can be posted 1st class on Wednesday to hopefully arrive on Friday / Saturday). You do need a ticket to take advantage of this offer and I hope you will agree it is worth the money!

Finally, if you are unable to make the run and you would still like your run pack I can confirm that you have until the 18th June to claim your missed pack. You can do this by posting your complete and original ticket along with your name and address and telephone number and a cheque for £4.50 made out to LSMOC, to the address printed on the ticket. I cannot promise that we will have your shirt size; however we will do our best to fulfil orders, you should also allow 4-6 weeks for delivery (because we need a little break after the event, to recover).

Remember if you missed a ticket for this years event you can still participate in an unofficial capacity. All you have to do is use the public car parks (not the mini parking areas) at Crystal Palace and Brighton and then you can walk-in on foot to all show areas and buy a run pack from the LSMOC Merchandise Stand in Brighton. You can also come direct to Brighton or join the run on-route but please remember the show area in Brighton does not open until 10am.

More news tomorrow.

Hello All,

Well this week the weather has been fantastic, and I really hope that it holds out for just a few more days! As ever the weather reports are mixed, but the BBC website says it will be sunny and weather.com says it will be partly cloudy with highs of 18 degrees! Either way it is looking good, so fingers crossed! One downside is that warm weather and Minis do not really mix, so remember to have lots of water for radiator top-ups and try to be patient, tempers can become short without air-conditioning and as ever, there is bound to be lots of queuing.

My last news update seems to have prompted lots of last minute number plate changes, so I can only guess that those plans to have cars ready for the 18th were perhaps a little too ambitious. Remember you only have until noon on Tuesday to provide any updates.

I have been racking my brains trying to remember all the news that I wanted to share with you, however say here now my mind seems to have drawn a blank!

I do want to remind you all that we do expect everyone with a ticket to enter Crystal Palace Park Mini Parking area, and not use the public car park. We do not allow cars into Brighton parking area before 10am so there really is no advantage to getting out at 7.30am and arriving in Brighton at 8.30am, all it means is that you will queue and wait in your car for hours. So do it properly and enjoy the event!

For those of you who are camping at Crystal Palace we will be opening the gates at 4pm and there will be a little light entertainment with a giant assault course and bungee run, we will also be selling run merchandise and as ever, there will be food available on site. We would like to remind you that some people do want to sleep, so we need you all to keep the noise down to a minimum after 10pm. So no driving around at midnight. On a very serious note drink driving either inside or outside the park is illegal and dangerous and this includes driving at 6am after drinking the night before – be sensible and do not drink and drive!

The last bit of serious news is that we have to make an improved effort to clean up our rubbish at Crystal Palace, so we will be handing all entrants a black sack upon arrival. Please use this to collect your rubbish and either leave the tied up sack near your tent or remove it to the skip near the entrance.

Well that is all for today – check back tomorrow for more news!

Adam

Hi All,

Well with less than a week to go I imagine many of you spent the weekend either readying your car or enjoying the sunshine in Newquay on the Riviera Run or on the road to the Netherlands for the IMM. Myself well I have been doing even more decorating and completing the million and last minute jobs that need to be completed before the big day.

So what the latest! Well last week will saw the various elements of the run pack assembled and packaged ready to be handed out at registration on Sunday, also last week I finalised the arrangements with the AA and I am pleased to confirm that once again they will be offering free assistance to those with difficulties at Crystal Palace, Brighton and on route, you will have to pay for any parts and if you need recovering you will need to become a member, however support is free and the AA is by far and away the best of all breakdown companies (in my experience anyway).

For those old hands or those who have read my various news articles over the years you will already know that the Mini-Sota Minis, Pizza Eating, and Psychiatric Self-Help Association (www.mini-sota.com) run there very own L2B on the very same day the New London to New Brighton is more of a competition than our event, but our pizza eating cousins love their minis and I know they put on a great show! Every year we ship merchandise to them so they can wear the same  gear as you and they are kind enough to offer to ship the merchandise kit they do back to us here in the UK for details visit their website New London to New Brighton Merchandise Website.

I have received lots of emails in the past couple of weeks from ticket holders who need to change the registration numbers of the cars they have logged with us. This is great as we do need to keep our records accurate; however I wanted to let you all know that changes have to be registered no later than 12 noon on Tuesday 13th May, as on this date we print our lists ready to have manual copies available on the day.

I wanted to give you a little advanced warning that the programme is incorrect in relation to the timing of Canine Partners display, instead of 2.30pm it will take place at 11am. On the subject of timing I can confirm that we have now updated the schedule page of the website and if you want to know what is going to happen and when take a peek at the schedule page.

We have a great line of merchandise lined up for this years event and below are the details of what is on offer and the prices:

Complete L2B Run Pack including programme- £20.00

Adult Run Shirts - £13.00
Children’s Run Shirts - £7.00
Ladies L2B Vests - £7.00
Women’s Run Shirts - £10.00
Run Stickers (inc previous years) - £1.00
Aluminium Small Run Plaques - £2.00
Car Run Plaques (inc previous years) - £5.00
L2B Caps - £8.00
Limited Edition Corgi Classic Mini Models (200 available) - £25.00
Limited Edition Corgi New MINI Models (150 available) - £25.00
L2B / LSMOC Umbrellas - £15.00
L2B Keyring Bears - £5.00 each or two for £9.00
L2B Large Bears - £8.00
L2B Tote Bags - £6.00
L2B Skyline T-Shirts - £10.00
L2B Limited Edition Framed Pictures - £10
L2B Car Flags - £3.00 each or two for £5.00
L2B Limited Edition Promo Shirts - £10.00

As ever we will have a limited amount of merchandise for sale at the LSMOC Stand on Saturday 17th for those camping at Crystal Palace we will also be selling run shirts and flags between 6am and 8am at Crystal Palace and everything else including more shirts can be bought from the LSMOC Merchandise Stand on Madeira Drive.

So, the weather is fantastic and I just hope it hold out for next weekend. News updates will be coming thick and fast this week so make sure you check again in a couple of days time for more news!

All the best

Adam

Hi All,

Well its been a busy week! Trying to decorate the house, work on newly acquired Wolseley Hornet and starting a new job means the L2B organisation seems to be something that fills the hours between 10pm and 1am! However, all is going well and most of the work that now needs to be completed is just the icing on the cake.

In the past week the number of charity auction items has increased which has given us a well needed boost (I was getting a little worried). I am sure we have something for everyone, so take a look at the auction page for more details, there you will find a full list of all the items we currently have.

John Griffin our Show n Shine organiser has also been hard at work, and he tells me we have some really fantastic entries. The Show n Shine is filling up quickly and classes D and E are already full. This year’s trophies are really classy so make sure you get your entry to us within the next couple of weeks because the closing date is looming.

So this week I have to really dedicate my time to the programme, I must get it to the printers by the end of next week, so if any of you have something you would like in print – your L2B experiences perhaps? Drop me a line to enquiries@london-to-brighton.co.uk

Finally I would like to remind you that the L2B chat button is a great place for all you ‘runners’ to discuss your projects, ask questions, arrange convoys so even if you just want to shoot the breeze you should get registered now. I also wanted to remind you that if you would like a special L2B promo sticker all you have to do is make a donation to our charity website www.justgiving.com/l2b2008 and if you can afford to donate £50 we will reserve you a space on the LSMOC Club Stand right in the middle of Madeira Drive.

Best Wishes,

Adam Smith
L2B Organiser

Hello All,

As you will have seen from my last update we have now been sold out for a few weeks and once again all the tickets went in record time, and to-date we have about 100 applications which will have to be returned as unsuccessful. By the time you read this most of you will have received your tickets, or be about to receive your ticket or a sorry letter!

There is now only 53 days to go, and even I am starting to get a little freaked out by how many loose ends I seem to have! In the past few weeks I have spend time doing the following:

And in the next couple of weeks I will be mostly…. Chasing loose ends and producing the programme!

Actually I suppose I should put a little more detail behind that list, hmm where to start! Well security is something that is increasingly important in this new work of risk management and health and safety and I am very pleased to say that we have again managed to use the same company we used last year! I will always seek out the best prices and consider improvements but I really do love it when something works and it can be replicated the following year with just a single phone call and a letter, I only wish everything was that simple!

T-Shirts well that’s lots of work, I usually have the designs and colours all signed off in January, however it isn’t until I have all the ticket holder details that I can finalise the order based on the real quantities size mix and what I found amazing this year is that the mix is almost identical to last year – only 10 difference and there from M to L so I guess we are all getting a little fatter, either that all you all smoked and stopped and gained weight.

This year trophies are again being produced by Adams Engraving in Woking and they do look fantastic, as ever these are all one-off items that cost a fortune and are really very exclusive! It may interest you to know that I have had to order 29 of them and this is 13 less than last year (due the changes in Show n Shine classed and due to no longer running the Sound Off competition).

Entertainment is, as ever, being provided free of charge and this year campers can look forward to the giant inflatable assault course and a brilliant bungee run at Crystal Palace we will also have the usual LSMOC merchandise stand selling L2B flags and promo shirts along with special L2B bears and other exclusive items. We have also arranged for a little face painting on Sunday morning so hopefully this will help keep the children amused whilst you queue to get out of Crystal Palace Park.

In Brighton we have Punch and Judy, stilt walkers, balloon modellers and more face painting to join the usual display of fantastic Show n Shine cars and traders, and whilst on the subject of traders the list confirmed for 2008 is starting to look quite impressive – visit the trader page to take a look at the companies attending.

Anyway that’s enough from me, more news next week – news will be coming thick and fast now!

Adam Smith
L2B Organiser

Hello All,

Well that’s all folks! Once again the L2B is a sell-out and once again we have broken records and sold out sooner than ever!

If you have applied for a ticket and been successful you should receive your ticket within the next couple of weeks, and if you have applied and been unsuccessful you should get your application and cheque returned to you within the next two to three weeks. If you are anxious to know you are welcome to email me with your details and I can check the system, however I will not be able to do this for another week, as I have not yet managed to transfer all the details from the application forms onto our database.

If you didn’t manage to get a ticket don’t worry you can still join the fun and here are your options:

Remember even if you don’t have a Mini you can still enter all the show areas on foot and we really do welcome everyone and we recommend you pay us a visit.

We really do wish we could accommodate everyone, but Madeira Drive just isn’t that big!
All the best

Adam Smith
L2B Organiser