A worldwide celebration of the founding of the MG Car Club 16-17 October

The MG Car Club will be staging the largest MG event ever to celebrate our 80th birthday

The first meeting of the club was on 12 October 1930 at the Roebuck Inn, Stevenage on the A1 Great North Road. The date of the event will be the weekend of the 16th-17th October 2010. The plan is for the celebratory event to start in New Zealand early in the morning and travel westwards around the globe, passing through Kimber House, Abingdon, UK at noon and finishing in Alaska late that evening.

Inviting the MG family

The MG Car Club is inviting all overseas MG clubs to join it in this exciting worldwide event. We would like each club to stage a local event of their choosing which is both organised and funded by them, and which involves as many members as possible. We want the clubs to capture the spirit of their event on photo or video, which will be then upload to the Internet and displayed on a time line showing the progress of the events throughout the day.

This has the potential to be an innovative celebration of our 80 years, and we think that the participation of clubs throughout the world will foster a closer relationship within the extended MG family. The PR that could be generated for all the clubs and MG as a whole could be enormous. Our intention will be to generate local, national and international interest.

Clubs and volunteers have already come forward from Europe, Australia and New Zealand as well as the UK.

The technology

Our intention is to use resources already present on the Internet. We will use a geographical/time line on Google Maps. Points on this line will show the progress of events and will be linked to photos and videos uploaded by clubs to well-known media hosting sites such as YouTube, flickr and Panoramio. It will also be possible to upload snippets of text describing events, or to make links from the map to a club’s own website describing the event. The intention is to enable making contributions as flexible as possible.

We will create a single Google Account for all participating clubs and create the ‘bare bones’ of the map. We will then send the account details to all clubs who will then be able to edit the map. Instructions on how to contribute to the map will also be sent and are also shown below, as well as information on how to incorporate the results into other media such as club websites and Google Earth. It will also be possible to view the map and links on Smart phones that can install the Google Earth app.

Google Earth geographical line

On the right is a .kml file which when loaded into Google Earth shows the geographical/time line for the event (as pictured on the left), and gives our first indication of the places and order we think the events will occur.
Click the icon of the ..kml file which will then download the file to your computer. Open the file with Google Earth and the MG80 time line will appear under the Temporary Items menu on the left hand side. Select the MG80 menu title and it will appear on Google Earth.

Note that we are still not entirely decided whether to use Google Maps or Google Earth for the event. At the present time we favour Google Maps, as indicated above, because it allows collaboration on adding to the map of events and the results are there immediately for all to see. Google Earth is a bit messy in this respect because you have to keep downloading amended .kml files of your additions and send the .kml file to all participants.

As this is an innovative MG event, we would welcome enquiries from people who are interested in contributing to the technology.

Costs

There will be a nominal £10 entry fee per club to cover administration of the event.

Contacts

The MG Car Club
Kimber House
PO Box 251
Abingdon
Oxfordshire
OX14 1FF
United Kingdom

Tel +44 (0)1235 555552

mgcc@mgcc.co.uk www.mgcc.co.uk/mg80