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Centres
In fact, the idea of centres started in the sixties. The first centre to be formed, as far as I can ascertain, was the London Centre. This apparently had two starts, the first was on Friday the 3rd of November at Jim Banbury’s home in Chelsea. The second billed as The New London Centre Inaugural Meeting was held at W.A. (Griff) Griffiths Garage on the 29th of September 1965. Next, the Northern Centre was formed, around the beginning of 1968 a founder member being Roger Rigden. East Anglia gets a first mention in August 1969 with a letter from David Hepworth.

The number of centres steadily increased to the present day with around 40 world-wide.

The Dinner Dance
The one social function that has been with the club since the start is the annual dinner. The first of these, although it was reported in the March 1952 edition of the magazine as “The Christmas Gathering”, was at ‘Ye Olde Woolpack’ in Warwick on the 15th of December 1951. “A party of around 50 met for a good but rather expensive buffet followed by dancing to a somewhat erratic disc-jockey. The Evening finished at 11.30 with guests going their many ways riding their Morgans”.

The following April saw the first AGM and Dinner combined. This was held at ‘The Royal Hotel’, Leicester. After the meeting had finished at 7.15, the dinner was described as “being far better than can be expected in these days of ‘hard times’”.

By April 1955 the AGM and Dinner were still held together. This time at 'The Warwick Arms Hotel', Warwick. The cost of the meal was 10/6d (52p).

Ten years later and the event now called ‘The Annual Dinner and Dance’, was held at ‘The Star and Garter’ at Upton-on-Severn on Saturday 20th November 1965. 40 members and their friends (total home membership then 120). It was considered a poor state of affairs that only 3 of the 30 trophy winners were there to receive their awards from Mrs. Morgan. The evening progressed with a cabaret consisting of Nick Capaldi with his accordion followed by some ‘astounding magic’ from Billie Magee. A little light dancing rounded the evening of at 11.30. This, of course, is what was meant by the ‘Swinging Sixties’!!

The first dinner to be held at ‘The Abbey Hotel’ in Malvern was on the 7th of February 1970. There was a four course meal in the ‘New fully air conditioned Elgar Suite’. The guest speaker was John Bolster, who was technical editor of ‘Autosport’. There was space for 250 at a cost of 35 shillings (£1.75p) bed and breakfast was available at 1 guinea (£1.05p) normally 55 shillings (£2.75p).

We have been using the ‘The Abbey' ever since, with around 340 easily filling the, usually too hot, ‘Elgar Suite’ and often over spilling into the dining room. The event has expanded over the whole weekend, now including the AGM and a spares fair and lunch time noggin on the Sunday. More and more members staying from the Friday to the Monday.

Same Club, New Name
The first major milestone in the club’s history was the change of name. The question is often asked why the car was called The Morgan 4/4, the answer is quite simply really, just a case of numbers, wheels 4 and cylinders 4. With regard to the club, the 3 wheeler F type (3 wheels and 4 cylinders) was still in production so calling it The 4/4 Club would not confuse it with the already well established Three Wheeler Club.

However, the Morgan Plus Four had been seen at the Motor Show in 1950 and was road tested in the April 1951 edition of ‘The Autocar’ and until the introduction of the Series II in 1955 no 4/4's had been built since 1950. By the time I joined the club in 1968 talk had been going on for quite a while about changing the name. It was said that some Plus Four owners either thought that the club excluded them or would not join on principal. Then the arrival of the Plus Eight sealed the fate of the name.

At the end of 1969 a two question referendum was held with the following results:
“Do members wish for the club to change its name?”
Yes 195 votes
No 122 votes
“If the Club's name is changed which of the indicated names would the members prefer?”
Morgan Car Club 121 votes
Morgan 4 Wheeler Club 39 votes
Morgan Sports Car Club 136 votes

These results were proposed and passed at the AGM in June 1970 and with effect from the 1st of January 1971 we were “The Morgan Sports Car Club”, with just over 600 members. Then the debate began over changing the badge - but that's another story.

MSCC Ltd
The second milestone came in 1991 with the club becoming a Limited Company. This had arisen mainly due to the fact that the Club was supplying spares through ‘The Register (Technical Services)’ and fears were that any failure of any such supplies could lead to litigation against the members.