The Rolls-Royce and Bentley Technical Library

Crewe’d Jottings is produced by the Self Help Group of the R-ROC Australia (Victorian Branch), which meets bi-monthly in Melbourne to help Members, owners and drivers of Rolls-Royce and Bentley motor cars to understand, to maintain and to repair our cars. The Technical Self Help Group started quite informally on Sunday 26th. June in 2005 to discuss over coffee, how we were going to organise ourselves. It was decided to have a meeting every second month and we would keep things relatively simple at first. We also decided that all projects done would not put a car out of action for more than a few hours so the owner of the donor vehicle could be assured of driving it home at the end of the day. Exceptions to this would be cars that are restoration projects at the donor’s home or garage.

We received amazing support from our Branch Committee headed by our president Neil Matthews. It was he who suggested that it become a gazetted Club activity, both to satisfy the events calendar and to ensure that we were amply covered by public liability insurance. We were also very fortunate to receive advice and encouragement via email from Bill Coburn of our Capital City Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, and his notes were vital in the forming of our group. His publication, TEE-ONE Topics-ONE Topics gave us direct inspiration to start our program and we are deeply indebted to Bill for his support. Crewe’d Jottings takes on a different format from TEE-ONE-ONE and it is not intended to be a technical adjunct to any workshop publications. TEE-ONE fulfils this scenario admirably and there is no requirement to have a carbon copy of it. Therefore we decided to make the newsletter a brief coverage with photographs of the events that happened during the meeting with additional handy hints on how to do things. The nationwide support we receive has been augmented and hugely encouraged by the international enthusiasm for the efforts.

Our group of course needs technical people, and we couldn’t have gone the distance without people like Mark Herbstreit and his father Terry or Nick Lang and we are deeply appreciative of their expertise. I recently received an email from Jonas Trachsel of Switzerland, who has very kindly created an index of Crewe’d Jottings for us. Thank you Jonas, this will be an invaluable tool for searching topics as the publication grows and naturally, this will be added to with each issue.

Finally, why the Name Crewe'd Jottings? The ‘Crewe’ bit, is of course, self explanatory, but the ‘d’ on the end signifies that this is not a glossy magazine but rather a basic (crude) compendium of the days' activities. It is hoped that newsletters such as this one and TEE-ONE Topics will Spur on (No pun intended – well, maybe just a little), other clubs around the world to form their own self help groups and to share experiences with others via the medium of the web.

Happy Reading, Happy Motoring and Have Fun !

Robert Wort

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14 September 2010