Following a largely successful, but not entirely incident free, 2015/16 12 car season a few members of the club's committee spent the summer reviewing the formula, talking to competitors & RLOs and eventually making a few changes which should help ensure the continued success of 12 car rallying.

Common themes included in the feedback were that the navigation, especially for 'experts', is too hard and that the class progression formula is not fully aligned to the actual development of navigators' skills. Experts have also suffered in not having secure entries on all events until a week or so before the event.

The first point is also thought to have contributed to PR issues in that some crews who have dropped time are perceived to be driving quickly to make some of it up, although in fairness observers on recent events have not made any negative comments recently. The impact of additional vehicle noise checks and awareness of PR issues seems to have had a postive impact.

For 2016/17 the following changes have been made:

There will be one standard of navigation for all classes - based on the traditional novice standard of navigation. The beginners will still get pre-plot (plus extra descriptive help), novices the full route at the start and experts plot and bash sealed envelopes.

Class progression will be based on five events completed for beginner to novice and then five class wins for novice to expert, with the counting for the latter starting this month. The competition secretary retains his discretion on class allocation. Masters (typically successful National B navigators) will continue not to be classified in the overall results.

Two 20/20 rallies will run  - one in October in Suffolk and one in April in Essex / Herts. This is expected to address the issue of lack of entries and provide a bit more of a challenge. CMC crews are also invited to all North Weald, CSMA, West Suffolk and SCCON events covering Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk and Herts / Beds - there are some excellent roads in all these areas. Many of these events will not fill up and rely on entries from CMC to be viable. So there's no real justification for claiming that there are no events to do.

Priority for beginners & novices will be retained on all 12 cars - this is a club policy to develop new members' skills. A training evening is being organised this month and can be repeated. Remember that there are still points available for marshalling - the old adage that events can't run without marshals still applies; we haven't yet introduced remote timing although the technology probably exists...

Drivers are encouraged to drive sensibly and quietly and to consider the type of car (or van) they use - it's a known fact that older 'historic' cars generate more noise even when being driven slowly than more modern cars going faster.

The organisers will be supported by experienced competitors / organisers -all navigation will be checked, the quieter parts of some routes will be PR'd (a letter to each house on quiet single track roads) and there will be co-ordination to continue to ensure that no two roads are used more than once in a year. I will shortly be chairing a meeting of all the organisers to discuss all the above issues. We'd still welcome additions to the organising team - the best way to learn is to work with a more experienced organiser.