I would take this opportunity to introduce myself after confirmed as the new Events Officer at the AGM last weekend.

As some of you will know I run Routemaster4Hire up here in North Wales where we offer for hire RM765 and RM548; I call this my hobby business as my main day to-day focus is running an events production company called BusinessAV Ltd.

At BusinessAV we organise and run conferences and awards dinners for clients all over the UK and Europe; we own, and operate the audio-visual equipment at these events as well as offering our clients video production and web streaming. I have run this business since 2002 and so have a good few years’ events experience under my belt.

So how do I see my role within the association?

My main focus will be Routemaster 60 which is planned for summer 2014, I don’t have much information on this yet as there is no date or venue confirmed, but the aim is to make it bigger and better than Routemaster 50 which you may remember was held in 2004 at Finsbury Park and attracted around 100 Routemasters.

Putting Routemaster 60 aside, one of my key objectives is supporting RM owners who take their vehicles to local events or rallies. Naturally the core membership is London based, but Routemasters nowadays are not limited to the Capital, they are owned and operated all over the UK, so I would love to hear from you if you are taking your bus to a local event anywhere in the country? We can publicise it on the Association website and Facebook/twitter pages and maybe get some other RM owners along?

The way I see it is quite simple - the more we get our buses seen the more interest we generate from the public and the greater chance we have in attracting the younger generation to our hobby, so please drop me an email with any information on events you are attending.

As well as event information I also welcome your comments and suggestions on how I can help you in my new roll.

I look forward to hearing from you.

David

My bus number (if any): RM765 & RM548

Hi David ,
Good luck with your position as events officer . You have a mammoth task in organising RM60 , both RM40 and RM50 were big events and will be hard acts to follow . In advance ,I will hopefully bring RML2391 !

Mark

My bus number (if any): RML2391

Hi David,

Firstly i am 23, but if that is not young enough, 7 of my friend will be driving with me in my routemaster around the country and far from our shores, in my routemaster, as a project with the Scouts where the youngest person of my team is 17.

In doing this project and starting to move into the stages were we are beginning to go to events and talk about our bus with younger scouts, i have noticed there are loads that have never even heard of or seen a Routemaster.
But saying this once they have, they love them and want to know more about them, and we has started to decicate some of our time to getting people interested in the buses and their history, and not just our project - which for us the bus was just a vehicle when we first started planning but has grown to be our centre piece of our project.

Saying that i would be more then happy to help you with any social media side of promoting, should it be the basics or the ins and outs of using #hashtags and times of day, and we will try to come to as many events as possible of the next few years and of course we will promote any event we go to with our followers of our project.

What are we doing? We are driving the routemaster to the 23rd world scout jamboree, which is being hosted in Japan 2015, in doing this we are also raising money for the disaster releif chairty Shelterbox, promoting scouting, and now Promoting the heritage of Routemasters.

My bus number (if any): RMF2771 (also known as RCN701)

Matt, a word of friendly warning, if you're taking your RMF to Europe, you will need to fit a tachograph and use it. The section 19 permit is only valid in the UK. Unless you have psv entitlement you will not legally be able to drive in Europe with passengers on. Email me for more details.

love this bit, hehe

section 19 don't apply to us anyway only got it because i like paperwork for a strange reason, but even if it did it wouldn't matter because we already have a licensed bus driver, and by the time we leave the uk we will have two - so thats the EU covered!

Tacho, already got one fitted! although am going to get it changed to a digital one for convenience! even once we leave the EU we will continue to use as it will keep record for statistics from our trip so can quote facts about it later on, how many miles, hours, average speeds etc!

Although would love to hear of any other rules you think might be a issue so i can make sure all bases are covered

i've still got to work out germany but at the moment we are driving around them!

My bus number (if any): RMF 2771 (also known as RCN 701)