AGM 2026 Round-up

The meeting was chaired by Garry Ingram, Club Chairman who introduced the meeting with highlights and challenges of 2025. Highlights included a boost in membership and racing numbers in 2025 with membership growing from 225 last year to 228 this year with a few months left in the membership year. Lets Go Karting is a great recruitment initiative along with the club assisting in buying/selling karts for new starts. Signficant increase in marketing and publicity has helped raise awareness of the club and members are encouraged to act as ambassadors amongst their friends, families and colleagues.

 

The refurbished fleet of rental karts purchased at the start of year proved to be more challenging than hoped. A number of teething issues caused reliabilitiy gremlins but the team are getting to the bottom of it and hope for a smoother 2026. This raised the issue of a lack of bodies supporting the rental karts – particularly in pre-event maintenance and preperation. If you can support please make yourself known – the rental karts are the biggest source of income for the club. They are what allow the club to offer members very affordable membership and racing fees whilst continuing to invest and improve the facility.

 

Garry thanked Dorothy Wyness and Karen Edwards for their long service on the GKC Committee.

 

Martin Towler took the meeting through the numbers for 2025 – if you’re a member and would like oversight of these please contact chairman@grampiankartclub.com.

 

The club reviewed the club’s constitution and agreed some changes to better align with the requirements of today. This will be uploaded to the Membership section of the website in due course. 

 

The 2026 Committee was then elected and is as follows:

• Chairman – Garry Ingram
• Vice Chair – Martin Towler
• Competition Secretary – Micheal Hawcutt (pre-event) Timekeepers (event duties)
• Membership Secretary – Graeme Alexander
• Timekeepers – Samantha Duthie, Gemma Morrison, Emma Towler, Susan Quinn and Logan Dibben
• Social – Jonathan Edwards and John Forrest
• Maintenance – Finaly Brock
• Hire Kart Events – Emma Towler
• Hire Kart Maintenance – Adrian Brodie, Billy Campbell and Gary Clark
• Lets Go Karting – Fraser Edwards, Micheal Hawcutt and Graeme Alexander
• Marshalls – Dave Stephen 
• Trophies – Dave Stephen 
• Press – Alan Wyness
• ASKC Rep – Dorothy Wyness and Micheal Hawcutt
• Under 21s – Cameron Hobson, Erin McDonald
• Marketing – Keiran Smart
• Insurance – Fraser Edwards, Garry Ingram and Chris Hobson
• ARKS – Martin Towler
• Safeguarding Officers – Wendy Strachan, Emma Towler and Susan Quinn
• Event Catering – Samantha Duthie

 

Club Directors

• Garry Ingram, Martin Towler, Graeme Alexander, Tom Forbes and Micheal Hawcutt.

The meeting moved onto look at the top-line 2026 issues and what members wanted out of it. This included proposals from the floor. The following was discussed:

• 2 Motorsport UK events (Scottish Super Series and Scottish Championship)
• 6 Open race meeting (potentially a GP Plate and 5 round BDOC)
• Hold membership fees at £150 / £170 for the year with the likely addition of VAT being charged on top of this
• Hold race fees at £50 for members with the likely addition of VAT being charged on top of that
• GKC Family Members get 50% discount on second family member entry under 16
• Looking at feesibility of live streaming larger events off the success of the pilot in October
• Voted to extend the 3 lap practice on Sunday morning into a longer practice session. Committee to look at timetable for feesibility.
• Numbers 1-10 can’t be used at BDOC events unless earned through a seeded championship.