This club-based legal quagmire has been dragging on for some time now. Amid the confusion, Stu Owen steps forward to unravel the details.
Recently a new club was formed to cater for Lambretta owners and enthusiasts. However, it has since been at the centre of deep controversy. Scootering explains why…
In 2017 a new Lambretta club was formed and came to the public’s attention by way of Facebook. These days it’s not uncommon for a club or business to start this way and Facebook is the accepted platform for it. The club was named the British Lambretta Owners Association (BLOA) and sports a blue shield logo. To some Lambretta owners it was seen as something totally new, but to a lot of existing riders it was something they had seen before. Why? Well, BLOA existed many years ago and though it hasn’t been commercially present in general scootering circles for a long time, it is steeped in history. It also has a long-standing association with Lambretta Club Great Britain and this is where the problems started.
What the new club stands for
Formed in 2017 by Gavin Frankland, the new version of BLOA is a members’ club for Lambretta owners and enthusiasts and is open for anyone to join. Membership costs £10 per year and includes a membership card, newsletter/magazine, dating letter service, several rallies each year, and club merchandise is also available. The idea of the rallies would be to hold them at places where original BLOA rallies were held during the 1950/60s. They would follow the same format as back then, effectively reliving the old times. The club’s motto is: “A Lambretta club holding the values of the golden age in Scootering”. The club, though Lambretta-based, is open to people with any make of scooter and boasts several Vespa members. Originally, the only one involved in running the club was Gavin himself but since that time a committee has been formed. In 2018 two members’ rallies have been held in the UK and future ones are planned, including one in Europe.
Gavin was asked why he decided to resurrect an old name rather than create something new and his reply was: “BLOA was lost, gone in the mists of time. People, especially the original riders, have fond memories of BLOA, I felt that I owed it for the heritage of UK scootering to keep it alive.”
The history of BLOA
In 1951 Lambretta Concessionaires, then run by James and Peter Agg, imported Lambretta scooters into the UK and tens of thousands of machines were sold nationwide every year. As the popularity of the Lambretta grew, so did local independent scooter clubs that sprung up across the entire country. It quickly became apparent that a single national Lambretta club could bring all the smaller local clubs together. Soon enough one was formed in 1953 by a group of enthusiasts in consultation with Lambretta Concessionaires, and originally run by secretary Francis Gwynn. It was to be called The Club Lambretta of Great Britain. Not a name that rolled off the tongue, but one nevertheless that worked. It worked very well in fact and as membership increased rapidly it become hugely popular. Meanwhile, Lambretta Concessionaires themselves and certainly Peter Agg, realised they were missing out on a big opportunity and so decided to organise an officially-run national club, even though it would initially be farmed out for another company to do all the paperwork administration. The club took over from The Club Lambretta of Great Britain and was to be named The British Lambretta Owners Association (BLOA) with the headquarters eventually situated in Shaftsbury Avenue in London. Anyone buying a new Lambretta would be given free membership and with the amount
being sold numbers would rise significantly each month. Though Mike Karslake had been involved helping to run The Club Lambretta of Great Britain, he would get more involved with BLOA. Working alongside Tony Anthony, who was now the club’s secretary, this would be by way of organising rallies, but more importantly the designing of the club badge that was given to members when they joined. It was a blue shield-type shape with the name of the club written on it. This would become widely used as the club’s logo and was and always has been instantly recognisable as what BLOA stands for.
As the club expanded it was moved in-house to Lambretta Concessionaires Headquarters at Beverly works in 1957. Now under the management of Derek Guy, a company employee, the club went from strength to strength offering many advantages to members such as mass discounts on parts and accessories, as well as a very successful insurance scheme. BLOA now ran alongside the Lambretta sales section of the company and had become an integral part of the business. It moved location several times before finally settling at the Trojan Works, Purley Way in Croydon. By the early 1960s its membership was almost 100,000 and that was the way it would continue for several years. Rallies were a major part of the club’s structure and would be attended by thousands of Lambretta owners. To a certain extent, they were a rather sedate affair, but even so, they were hugely popular.
Things started to change radically for BLOA in 1963 when a new person took charge. Bob Wilkinson had worked for Smee’s, the company responsible for creating the sales leaflets and slogans for Lambretta Concessionaires. Bob himself was responsible for many of these and Peter Agg knew it would be good to have him on board. With an offer he couldn’t refuse, Bob joined Lambretta Concessionaires and one of his many tasks was to take over as secretary of BLOA.
By this time the scooter industry in general was going through a transformation and Bob felt that BLOA needed to move with the times. He had looked at the Lambretta Club d’Italia and how modern they were compared to the British equivalent. In his own words: “I took advice and help from Guido Cadello, who ran LCI.” Almost immediately he dropped the BLOA name and from then on it would be called Lambretta Club Great Britain or LCGB for short. Though some were unhappy with the name change, Mike Karslake being one of them, they soon realised Bob’s future vision for the club would work. Peter Agg had given Bob a free hand to run the club as he liked and as Bob said: “I’m in charge now gone are the days of egg and spoon races at rallies.”
This is where in the past people have become confused – BLOA changed the name to the LCGB – it wasn’t the forming of a new club, just a change of name. In fact from time to time, even when rallies were being held under the LCGB banner, the BLOA logo occasionally appeared. When asked why, Bob replied: “Simple, it’s the same club so why not?” Perhaps in a way this reminded people where it all started. As time moved on, Bob left the company in 1969 and so he left the running of the club. With sales of scooters in general decline by the early 1970s, including the Lambretta, the club would still continue but it was obvious the membership would start to reduce in numbers. Things would take a drastic turn in 1971 with the announcement that the Lambretta scooter was to cease production. Though LCGB would continue as best it could, with several key figures keeping it going by 1974, a committee couldn’t be formed and the decision was made to put it to trusteeship.
This is the way it would stay with all the club’s assets held in trust until the day came that a new committee could be formed and the club would continue. This didn’t actually take that long, in fact only three years, and in 1977 the Widnes Saints Scooter Club, with Kevin Walsh at the helm, approached Mike Karslake, one of the three appointed trustees, to form a new committee and take it out of trusteeship. After discussions, it was agreed this could happen, but originally on a probationary level to see if it would work and become financially stable.
Though it took a while to do so, the club eventually became stronger, both in numbers as well as financially. It has continued to grow ever since and today the LCGB boasts more than 5000 members. So, from forming back in 1953 up to the present day, one way or another what started out as BLOA still exists as the same club today, albeit with a different name and it is now in its 65th year.
The dispute
In 2017 Gavin Frankland started using (and registered at the IPO) the club name British Lambretta Owners Association (BLOA), as well as the logo that Mike Karslake designed. It was then that the LCGB acted and so the dispute started.
The argument is pretty straightforward as far as the LCGB are concerned. From their position BLOA is still going and has been doing so since 1953, even though it has changed name to the LCGB. The logo was the property of the late Mike Karslake and, following the successful probationary period in the late 1970s, the LCGB was granted exclusive permission from Mike to use it. It was agreed that it still belonged to him, but the club had permission to use it. It was also stated that anyone else wanting to use it could not do so without prior approval from both Mike and the club.
Specifics
The dispute is over two things, firstly the use of the name and secondly the use of the logo. Regarding the use of the name, Gavin Frankland registered it as a trademark with the Intellectual Property Office in December 2016. To file an opposition you must have a genuine reason, so you can’t oppose it just because you don’t like it. The LCGB did file an opposition in March 2017. Since that time the trademark has remained in an opposed state. The decision on whether it is approved or rejected is decided by the IPO. The opposition side, in this case the LCGB, has to put a legitimate case forward why it should be rejected, and upon taking professional legal advice, that’s what they did.
Gavin Frankland has been open with why he thinks he has a case for it to be approved. He has stated that BLOA was gone after the name change to LCGB and totally ceased to exist in 1974 when the club closed down completely. Also stating that it didn’t go into trusteeship and therefore the resurrected club started by Widnes Saints in 1978 is a new entity and not the original. What must be a worry to all concerned is that those who make the decision have no prior interest in or knowledge on the subject. They only consider legal evidence put before them and make their decision purely based on that. In my view, whatever the outcome, 65 years of Lambretta history shouldn’t be decided by people not even remotely associated with its heritage… but the law is the law.
The logo
The use of the logo is a much more difficult situation to assess. No one is disputing the fact that Mike Karslake designed it way back in the 1950s. He granted the LCGB exclusive permission to use it, along with other designs belonging to him and the LCGB have published proof of this in New Jetset magazine recently. The problem is, who legally owns the actual work now? Sadly, Mike passed away in 1990, so he is not here to argue the fact. The LCGB have rights to use it and one must think the right to defend its use, as that was agreed by the LCGB and Mike. Again it comes down to the fact that if this was contested in court then a legal professional will be making the decision.
It never rains, it just pours…
The LCGB is a constitution, therefore any operational decisions must be decided by a members’ vote. That’s why there’s an AGM and proposals put forward to be voted on. The question of backing the committee on whether to proceed with action and use of club funds was voted on and passed. There have been some comments from members asking why club money was spent first and voted on later, and why it should even be spent on this… especially after a huge amount of funds was spent in a previously failed attempt to prevent the use of the Lambretta name years ago. The answer from the LCGB on that is simple, the AGM is there for members to discuss and vote on proposals and if you didn’t agree with this one you should’ve been there to vote against it. Though it has to be said, a much fairer method would be to allow all members who sign on at LCGB rallies (thus showing they are active members and not armchair members) to vote by postal form, which could easily be sent out with JetSet. The LCGB has attracted a lot of criticism in this area, many people suggesting the committee is elitist and cliquey, and effectively runs the club unchallenged via an awkward once-yearly ‘attendance-only’ vote, where they maintain strong inward support. Though that’s a separate issue, it seems to have been a big sticking point among many who have debated the larger BLOA/LCGB issue itself. Can the committee truly claim they have 100% support in this action, when only 6-7% of total club members are available to make the trip to an AGM? Since the 2018 AGM there has been a lot of ‘heavy