VCB Club News
Welcome to the first Vespa Club of Britain newsletter for 2019.
The official newsfeed from the VCB
Although it’s been quiet over Christmas and New Year, things have been happening behind the scenes. We now have a list of signing on events. The first one is at Burton Brewers Custom Show on the 24th of this month. A list of the others is shown on the attached flyer. The Riders Regional Competition starts again on March 1. Full details of this are available in the club magazine Vespa News. Ticket sales for our flagship event, British Vespa Days, in Llangollen, surpassed all expectations, having sold out with eight months to go. Further afield, Vespa Word Days is in Hungary this year and despite the distance, around 150 VCB members are planning on attending.
Most people, whether in the club or not, will probably have seen the famous VCB cog badges. This month, we thought it would be nice to explain a bit more about their history. Thanks to Daron ‘Titch’ Humphreys for the following information.
Cog badges are made to commemorate rallies or events held by the VCB or VVC, or as signs of membership of an individual branch of the VCB. The first rally badge seems to have been the one made for Woburn in 1956 (see photo). This was smaller than the type we are used to and lacked the familiar section at the bottom. Several early, individual branch badges were made in this size. British Vespa cog badges are probably the most desirable items of Vespa memorabilia, and possibly of scootering memorabilia in general, there being no real Lambretta equivalent. Other countries still produce Vespa badges. These were sometimes cog-shaped, but could be in just about any size or material. The Vespa Club of Britain (VCB) and the Veteran Vespa Club (VVC) alone have produced badges of a consistent size and overall design, and in the same material from the 1950s to the present day. The question of rarity is quite an interesting one. The usual situation of ‘the older the rarer’ is reversed where rally badges are concerned. The National Rallies of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s were large affairs, and as a result, hundreds of badges were made to commemorate them. Compare these with ‘70s or early ‘80s VVC rallies, for which only thirty or so badges might have been produced. The rarity of club badges also varies a lot. A large and long-lived club such as Thames Valley would have produced many badges, while a small, barely remembered club might have had as few as ten made. The fact that nobody knows how many have been produced over the years makes collecting them a frustrating task.
The Vespa Club of Britain is open to anyone of any age who has an interest in Vespas. Membership is only £16 a year and includes a bi-monthly magazine, discount at a range of retailers across the UK and access to the club’s events and competitions.
For more information, contact Toni Machin at club-sec@vespaclub.uk or go to the official Vespa Club page on Facebook.