A brief chat with... Patrick Bramman

Of the many reasons to join the VMCC, wanting to race isn’t perhaps the most common one – and once you’re in...

- TIM BRITTON

The move up the scale from enthusiastic member of a club to someone with a responsibility for the direction the club has to go in as the modern world throws all sorts of things in the way, is not always a conscious decision or one due to a desire to be in charge.

“I’d joined the VMCC when I was at the Classic TT and a friend had said we could do the Jurby track day, but we’d to join the VMCC to do it. Naturally, once in I gravitated towards the older motorcycles for road riding, the sorts of machines I cut my motorcycling teeth on, so to speak and from there I became a member of my local section.”

The catalyst for more involvement was an innocuous advert in the VMCC magazine, requesting help from anyone in the VMCC with marketing experience. “After starting at Raleigh Cycles, in Nottingham, as a junior graphic designer, I became involved in the production of sales literature and ultimately the marketing and media side of things. My last job shipped me off to the Far East for a few years,” he says, adding, “In actual fact, I spent a lot of time in and out of bike shops in Japan, when I wasn’t at work.”

With this experience he was well qualified to answer the call for advice from the club. “I thought I was just going to make some suggestions and leave it at that, but they said ‘well, you’d best get on board and carry these ideas out…’