Westfield Factory Visit
Saturday January 29th 2005

Well things are (very slowly) starting to take shape for the New Year.

The first activity of the year was the Area Organisers trip to the Factory at the end of January.  As requested I asked the area membership for questions to be submitted to Westfield in advance – we had a grand total of one question.  My son Edward & I had arranged to travel up with Tony Sighe (AO for Cheltenham & Gloucester) and his guest Chris White.  We met in Cheltenham & had an uneventful journey up.  I noted how much the new hospital had come on since my last trip to the factory.

It was great to see so many other AO’s and put a face to the names I’d heard of before.  The entire factory was opened to us and there were many friendly and helpful Westfield staff to answer questions and provide good advice.  It was great to see several of the behind the scenes areas such as the welding and seat trimming.  There were a good selection of cars to examine including an XTR4 and the new (old?) Westfield 11 and the Sport 2000S.  There was an interesting question and answer session with the Westfield management which gave a useful insight into the current initiatives and difficulties they face.  The only disappointment was that the questions submitted in advance didn’t get replies. All in all it was a very useful day and a great way to build a good relationship with the club and the factory.