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From: “Eric Capron” eric@beaconsfield.demon.co.uk
To: “XK List” XK@jag-lovers.org
Subject: Re: An other opinion on the XK Club - Okay at best and you live
in the UK.
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 21:26:04 -0000As a member of the XK Club from its inception, clearly my comments are
going
to be biased in favour of it, especially as I also live in the UK.
However,
from a US point of view, I can see that David makes a valid criticism of
some aspects of it.Certainly, it is mainly UK oriented with input from Australia and some
from
other European countries and SA but Philip has said over and over again
that
he wants to make the club international. He is trying to expand the US
interest but so far there have been few contributions. Possibly, you
already
have enough XK information in the US and don’t need this type of operation
but were not particularly well served in the UK before the XK club
started.JEC and JDC in their different ways both appeal to a much wider Jaguar
owning audience and their XK content is very limited. Porter writes a
monthly article for JDC and the relationship seems cordial. Recently,
things
have become less frosty with JEC too.The comparison of XK Gazette to a newsletter is, in my view, a little
harsh.
I think that it is distinctly more than that. I agree that it is thin but
it
is totally devoted to XKs and apart from this list I don’t know of any
other
forum that is. JEC produce a quarterly XK supplement but if you are not
interested in racing XKs then that too, is lacking solid material.The real problem that every editor is faced with is finding people to
write
new articles about XKs. Before the XK Club, the most interesting stuff
that
I came across came from Guy Broad in the form of an information sheet
every
couple of months. This was largely an advert for their products but also
shared some of the knowledge that they had accumulated running their
spares
business. If you want to know how many teeth on a 120 flywheel that was
where to look. Guy now writes the same kind of article for the Gazette.Whether or not Porter runs the XK Club for his own gain I don’t know and
for
me, it really doesn’t matter. Not having a committee or elected officials
doesn’t give me a problem . Like this list, it isn’t a democracy and like
this list, it encourages debate and controversy. Porter certainly does
publish opinions contrary to his own (although actually not all that
often).Personally, I welcome any source of information about XKs wherever it
comes
from but as I said at the start, David has a valid point about some
aspects
of the value for money for XK owners in the US.My advice is that if you are thinking about joining the XK Club you should
contact Philip Porter and ask for a couple of sample issues of the
Gazette.> See for yourself if it is worth the money.Eric C
Beaconsfield UK