About Kennet Valley
Meeting Point: The Angel, Woolhampton
1st Wednesday of the Month from 19:00 onwards.
The Kennet Valley TR Group was originally founded and known as the Butt Inn TR Group (due to where they met in the village of Aldermaston) on the 4th November 1970, by Ian Avery, Bill Tognarelli and John Whicher. Other well-known names who were involved at this time, attending meetings and helping out to develop the Group visiting from the already formed Thames Valley and London Groups were, John Davies, Paul Good, Pete Buckles, Ian Evans & Ian Cornish. The Butt Inn TR Group was created in the same year that the TR Register (January 1970) was founded, therefore making the KVG one of the oldest Groups in the Register. Mike Gush, Toney Dines and Martin Bridges were some of the founder members; Mike and Toney are still members, but unfortunately Martin is no longer with us.
Two years later in March 1972, the name was changed to the Kennet Valley TR Group rather than being named after a pub. This proved a sensible move as in December 1974, due to a restaurant expansion at the Butt Inn, the Group had to quickly move to a new location, the Coach & Horses, Midgham, Berkshire. One of the key benefits mentioned in the notice to the KVG members about this move was that the quality of the Wethereds beer was as excellent as the Butt Inn, and the landlord was a friendly chap… it is good to see some things do not change.
From the KVG members, other local Groups developed such as Devizes Group (now Glavon) Chiltern Group, and the Windsor Forest Group. During these many years, there have been seven Group Leaders: Ian Avery, Richard Owen, Stuart Sellwood, Mike Dorrill, Norman Derby, Richard Roberts and currently Phil Horsley. These GLs helped to keep the KVG going with an active and enthusiastic membership over these long years. We probably also hold the record for longest serving Group Leader: Richard Roberts held the mantle for 21 years, standing down in 2010, Richard is still a member of the Group. Phil Horsley then became Group Leader in 2010 and the club continued to go from strength to strength, Phil stood down at the KVG Annual Members Meeting in March 2022, Phil also has other roles within the TR Register, he was the South Central Area Director until April 2022, he still is the Registrar for the Grinnall marque of TR's and is now the Operations Manager for the club based in the Didcot Office.
The KVG has always been known as a very active Group and has a loyal membership following. Today there are circa 120 members who own virtually every TR marque between them - we only miss a TR8 and TR3B although we used to have a TR3B which now resides in Greece. Around 30% of the members regularly attend events; this again shows that the enthusiasm for TRs and the Group are still strong. We attend many events, national and local; we have a won many awards both as a Group and via individual members, which we take great pride in, as well as travelling into France, Belgium, and Greece etc..., and you will always find us attending the IWE although maybe we are not quite as noisy as we used to be.
We hold our meetings the first Wednesday of the month (virtually every Thursday during lock down), nowadays at the Angel, Woolhampton Berkshire and we also hold a mid-monthly event somewhere in our Berkshire area to enable those members with longer distances to travel to get to a meeting.
We also now meet at the Cottage Upper Bucklebury every last Saturday of the month between 11:30 & 14:30 for a natter and a lunch.
Whether you are a TR Register member or not, you are always very welcome to come along and visit us, it would be great to see you!
Stewart Highnett - Group Leader