In early 2003, Craig Wash was desperately trying to get his Mini Cooper on a club stand at a local show. Now if you think this sounds like a reasonably easy thing to do, especially being a member of two national clubs, think again. Although the national clubs do a fantastic job, large membership numbers make it very difficult to get a place in the shows and understandably these clubs want to display the best cars they can. What he needed was a local club that covered as many shows as possible. There's a Mini club in just about every major town around Rugby, the closest being Coventry, but he found the idea of joining a well established club a bit daunting.

Christmas 2003, he started messing around with a name and logo design for an imaginary club, and by March had a design and small leaflets to post on car windows, to which the response was dissapointingly slow. An advert in the local paper saw a small increase, but with only five confirmed responses a re-think needed.

In my desperation at getting onto a show stand I had based the club around the shows and had omitted monthly meetings. Time to listen to my members!

In April new letters were sent out to all that had contacted me and another appeal went in the paper. The new version of the club was a big success with more and more people contacting me and even turning up on my doorstep. Membership figures shot up and by the time of our first meeting in May we had 23 fully signed up members. After the meeting we were just over the 30 mark. Show stands followed...

Many members have said they toyed with the idea of setting up a club themselves and this is evident by the amount of help and ideas these members are putting in.

The original concept of the club was informal, with no committee, no leader and no membership fee. Craig acted as a spokes person for the club, all members are equal and everybody's opinions count. All cars are eligible for club stands whatever condition, and due to past experience, this matter is of paramount importance.

This format worked for almost two years, but in early 2006, and the ever increasing need for Public liability insurance to display at shows, the need for a membership fee was becomming more apparent.

The club underwent a reformation period where some of the primary club members departed, and new members have come in. This has seen a few changes in the club, one being an annual membership fee of £10, and an informal committee to manage the clubs activities. But, and most importantly, the ethos that Craig originally put together remains, ALL members have a say, All classic mini varients are welcome and the object of the club is to have FUN.