The Austin Healey Club Southern Counties Centre

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History The first Healey Club was formed as The Healey Drivers Club in 1955 for owners of Warwick Healeys - Silverstones, Tickfords, Abbotts, Elliotts etc. This was followed by the first club for Sprites formed in 1959 at the instigation of Raymond Baxter, Doug Worgan and Derek ‘Willey’ Williams and was named the ‘The Southern Counties Sprite Club’. This was quickly joined by others including the Eastern and Northern Sprite Clubs. The first Austin-Healey Club Limited was formed by BMC in 1961 as the proprietor of all the UK clubs and overseas clubs who were starting up. The Healey Drivers Club became Midland Centre and Southern Counties Sprite Club became South Counties Centre with Northern and Eastern Sprite clubs becoming Northern and Eastern centres. In 1969 BMC ceased to support the Club and the limited company was wound up and control passed back to the Healey family until it became too large for them to operate under the current system. Centres were given control of their own finances and administration, provided that they agreed to set up an overall control body known as the National Executive Committee (NEC). It was not until 1979 that the Austin-Healey Club Limited was reborn in its current form, with 7 regional centres running events in their own areas and later HDI being formed to run the competition side nationally, all overseen by the NEC. The first NEC meeting was chaired by Doug Worgan from Southern Counties Centre. During the 1970’s and 1980’s under the direction of the NEC all the Centres experienced rapid growth in numbers and finances. The club has continued successfully into the 21st century running numerous events around the UK including an International Healey Weekend in (generally) alternate years with a National Healey day in other years. Adapted from an original article by Joyce Pearce