Welcome to this months newsletter.

I think I am suffering from SAD, this may sound a bit stupid, but since the days have shortened, my motivation to do anything has completely left me. Now I am not a massively motivated person to start with, but in winter I seem to go into complete couch potato mode.

Having said that I seem to still find the motivation to search for ‘treasure’ on eBay. My push iron collection, over the summer, was getting a little out of control. My wife encouraged me to lighten the load somewhat and sell on some of the collection. So with a heavy heart I listed my Grolsch beach cruiser, and sadly it sold for a fair sum. The thing is, the following week my boss offered me two Raleigh Choppers (only the MK3 version but still a score nonetheless as they were a donation to the collection), I also got offered an old Raleigh Boulder, again free to a good home.

I managed to store the ‘additions’ at work, but with me still having the B3 wagon I bought in the summer, taking up enough room in the warehouse, the pressure was on to have a re-shuffle. Now some of you may know that I had a MK2 Golf 1.8 8v GTI stashed in the garage at home. But this had been in a state of disrepair for over 5 years, so the decision was made to send it off to the great car park in the sky. With the car well stripped, it was sent off and my palms were greased with some silver, which I promptly spent on a Raleigh Team Banana road bike. I always wanted a Team Banana when I was younger. I had sold one bike on and acquired 4 in replacement. Oooops.

Well, as most of you know, eBay takes no prisoners, and the evil app threw me another bargain. In the shape of a Raleigh Saffron, which although not one of the most well know models, is a 20” wheeled classic shopper, complete with spokey dokeys! All for the meagre sum of £1.04. The plan with this bike was to strip it for parts, as it has a three speed Sturmey Archer rear hub, and all of the R bolts which seemed to be going for good money. But after pumping the tyres up and adjusting the seat, I had a ride, and it is such a nice ride. I mean it has a light covering of oil all over it’s pink frame, and the white walls are cream, the seat has seen better days, but it rides really, really well, too well to break. So it is now become the office bike, so we all get to share in the glory of the 80’s styling in a modern world, there is something life changing watching a 6ft, 16st work colleague riding down the road, on a women's bike, that just somehow makes it all seem to make sense.

So for now I have a collection of 10 bikes, but as the wife always says, if you go looking you will always find another one to save. I think she says this to discourage me and not as some sort of motivation, but she is right, so I will keep searching. Sorry I mean ‘Just looking’.

Back in the world of UKP, we have seen our numbers grow to over 13,000 members!!! Now this number is massive for us on the admin team, as November sees our first year with our current web hosts, Vida Host. When we moved over the number of members was 4,800. This means in 12 short months we have attracted 9,000!!!! Hopefully we will see this trend continue, and see us reach 20,000 members in the near future.

2012 should be another great year for UKP as the admin team have been approached by the organiser of Dubmania, and they have presented us with an offer for UK Passats to join forces and host our 2012 Gathering within their event. This should be a good move for all parties, as we will still be able to have our own show, but within a full VW show. This will inevitably lead to plenty of press coverage, both in the lead up to the event but also afterwards with their reviews. So hopefully we should see our annual 'get together' take a huge leap forward in the numbers of members attending their own UKP Gathering.

Whatever you guys & girls have been up to, or what you have got planned, I hope you have a good one, and hope to see you on the forum soon.

Take care

Matt - Mifkif