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NOTES OF A MEETING OF A WORKING GROUP TO CONSIDER FBHVC’S REPRESENTATION IN FIVA, HELD ON WEDNESDAY 24 JANUARY 2007 AT MOTOR SPORTS HOUSE, COLNBROOK
(by kind permission of the Motor Sports Association)

Present:

Andrew Burt (chairman) David Davies Colin Francis
Eri Heilijgers David Hurley David Mead
Alan Putt Geoff Smith (vice president) Jim Whyman (secretary)

Andrew Burt welcomed Eri Heilijgers and David Mead, thanking them both for volunteering to help FBHVC’s cause and for taking the trouble to attend the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to review FBHVC’s current representation within FIVA, to consider how this could be improved and plan for the future while at the same time allowing Eri and David to see what was happening and to meet those involved before making any firm commitment to go further.

1. Structure and work of FIVA
Andrew Burt outlined FIVA’s structure thus:
75 member organisations representing some 800,000 people in 50 countries.

Three main strands to the work - protecting the right to use old vehicles by monitoring legislation;
setting technical standards and authenticating vehicles against those standards; and encouraging events within a
self-regulating standard framework of requirements. From FBHVC’s point of view, legislation is by far the
most important element.

FIVA has a main board and three “commissions” dealing with the three main tasks. Each commission is led by a
VicePresident with a seat on the board. There are working groups to support the responsibilities of the directors,
and FIVA employs a professional lobbyist in Brussels (funded by means of a surcharge on subscription from EU
member organisations). FIVA employs a Secretary General (who happens to be UK based).

2. FBHVC involvement
A chart showing current FBHVC involvement in FIVA had been circulated in advance. Following the surprise
election of Peeter Henning to replace David Davies as Director of Communications, FBHVC committee had
become concerned that with only one remaining seat on the board (Vice-President, Andrew Burt), it might prove
difficult to keep FIVA focussed on the importance of providing a top class legislation monitoring service. As a
result, the committee wished to strengthen FBHVC representation within FIVA.

3. Long term plan to re-establish FBHVC presence
Positions of responsibility in FIVA are elected; elected positions have specific tasks. People need to be working
effectively within the organisation, gaining experience and visibility, in order to become electable.
The aim was to increase representation at working group level of people willing to stand for election to higher
office when the opportunity arises. Two particular areas had been identified where new work was needed, but
not yet underway - improving the “heritage” element of the historic vehicle movements, and getting the trade
more involved. If FBHVC was able to make a start on this work independently of FIVA, those doing the work
would be in a prime position to be elected to carry out such tasks for FIVA.

4. Schedule of FIVA meetings for 2007
No separate discussion.

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5. Activity of FIVA committees
Events Commission: Colin Francis commented that the aim was to encourage more interest in events,
and felt that the next task of the events commission would be to provide more reason to encourage organisers to
run their events within the FIVA code.

Technical Commission: Alan Putt said the Technical Commission was in the process of revising the
technical code, and had recently completed a review of the vehicle scrutineers’ code. He felt the whole ID card
system was in need of an overhaul.

Legislation Commission: David Davies commented that there were concerns about direction for this
commission, and the FBHVC legislation committee had approved a list of topics to be considered at the next
meeting, due to take place at the end of February. It was agreed that David Hurley should attend this meeting, in
particular to press for improvement in communication of national problems and solutions between members to
help national lobbying activity.

Motorcycle working group: David Davies said this group was involved only with the annual rally.

Heritage working group: Until recently, this group had been focussed on transport history, a topic well
covered elsewhere. The focus had changed under leadership of Patrick Rollet and was now aiming at exploiting
the cultural and heritage aspects of the historic vehicle movement. Culture and heritage was becoming an
increasingly important element of EU work, and aside from providing an opportunity for the historic vehicle
movement to demonstrate a responsible face to government, it also opened opportunities for international
funding for special projects. It was felt this was a key opening for FBHVC to re-establish itself at director level.

Trade links: At present, there was no director responsible for trade links, but Andrew Burt said the
recommendations of the recent survey of the historic vehicle movement in Europe provided a reason for
FIVA to make such an appointment. Meanwhile, there was a need to get similar work underway in UK, and the
committee wished to appoint someone to do the work who would be able to stand for election to fill the new
FIVA position with a track-record. The purpose of improving links to the trade was both to establish support
from the trade for the monitoring process and aid measurement of trade activity to improve FIVA’s lobbying
capability.

After general discussion, the chairman suggested that if David Mead was still interested, his background
technical knowledge would make him an ideal person to foster relations with the trade and that if Eri Heilijgers
remained interested he should take up the heritage baton, perhaps initially working with the UK legislation
committee. It was felt David and Eri should have some time to think before making a commitment and
suggested they should contact Andrew when they had decided.

6. Cost / benefit analysis of FBHVC involvement with FIVA
The cost of subscribing to FIVA was reported as approximately £19,000 a year, split between £14,000
subscription and £5,000 expenses for travel and accommodation for attendance at meetings. There was an offset
of about £2,000 from income for handling FIVA ID cards.

It was recognised that this was less than the cost of maintaining the monitoring/lobbying service provided for
FIVA by EPPA, and it was thus clearly beneficial to FBHVC to subscribe to FIVA whilst this service was
maintained. Geoff Smith cautioned that it was important to shadow FIVA activity and so be ready to work
independently should the need arise.

7. FBHVC / FIVA research policy
Geoff Smith handed round a paper outlining proposals for further research to be undertaken by FIVA with the
aim of improving knowledge of the trade underlying the historic vehicle movement; the skills that that trade
relies on; the composition of the “historic vehicle park”, patterns of usage and consequent emissions.
It was agreed this should be put forward to the FIVA planning group for consideration.