House Swapping

redbloke1956

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Non-VOC Member
Hi to all,
My wife and I were just chatting about the brilliant house swap we did with a couple from The Lake District in Sept 09, we had joined a web site that puts potential swappers in touch with each other and had not had a great deal of success for the first several weeks,(house swapping BTW involves leaving everything in your house, and in MOST cases a motor vehicle, behind while the other couple/single/family does exactly the same) we were getting a little despondent when my wife noticed a couple were wanting to swap and mentioned that they also were going to leave a car AND bike behind.
As we had almost identical bikes (Beemers) for our everyday mounts we decided to contact them and the deal was done.
We spent an amazing month in the UK with a car and a bike (and bicycles), the total cost was our airfares and normal day to day living expenses (fuel, food, Guinness) cheapest (and best) overseas holiday I have ever experienced (did I mention the Guinness).
I was wondering therefore if the VOC should have a register of people that would be interested in house swapping, stating the likes of prefered locations, dates, availability of vehicles etc........what do you think?
I know that most people in the UK would not like Queensland because it can get terribly cold down here, some nights as low as 65 Deg F......BRRRRRR!!!! :cool::cool::cool:
I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Regards to all
Kevin
 

TouringGodet

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VOC Forum Administrator
VOC Forum Moderator
I most certainly can't speak for the VOC, but I would guess that the volunteers that are already offering enough of their spare time taking care of their club duties don't need more responsibilities.

For any organization to be involved in coordinating the swaps, I can just imagine blame/pressure/legal action directed toward them when one party returns to their home and they feel the place has been left in poor condition or the car now makes a funny noise or some hard to get Vincent part is missing from the garage.

Just my opinion, but I would be very surprised if the VOC wanted to be a part of that.

Hospitality between Vin owners is legendary, and I have been both fortunate enough to be invited to stay at a fellow owners house, and also offer accommodation to others, mostly the parties involved knew each other fairly well, sometimes not.

You've made your willingness to swap known here, MPH would be a good place to do that as well. That should be a good start, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it has happened already in the past, or that it starts to happen more often.

The club does not need to officially start a new service to help their members be hospitable, just by merely existing, the VOC promotes hospitality. Leave it informal, and let the members work it out on their own.
 

Albervin

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Steve is right about the work load and legal ramifications. He is also spot on regards the hospitality. I have no qualms in allowing a couple of overseas VOC members have the use of my house, including the keys. At various times I have had 6 of the free loaders in the place. They were all amazingly well house trained and no trouble at all. Of course I have used the reciprocal arrangement in other countries and while it would be a bit rude to stay for too long, I know of some people who have crossed whole continents using the VOC B & B scheme.....
 

vibrac

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Good idea VOC swapping
especially with the dreaded Oily limpics coming up I cant stop them wasting my money on the damm event but I would be pleased to get as far away as possible-Do you know that back in the first years of the revived greek event in the 1900- era when it was still sport and not big business motorcycle sport actually was allowed an event or two on board tracks?
 

redbloke1956

Well Known and Active Forum User
Non-VOC Member
I most certainly can't speak for the VOC, but I would guess that the volunteers that are already offering enough of their spare time taking care of their club duties don't need more responsibilities.

For any organization to be involved in coordinating the swaps, I can just imagine blame/pressure/legal action directed toward them when one party returns to their home and they feel the place has been left in poor condition or the car now makes a funny noise or some hard to get Vincent part is missing from the garage.

Just my opinion, but I would be very surprised if the VOC wanted to be a part of that.


Hospitality between Vin owners is legendary, and I have been both fortunate enough to be invited to stay at a fellow owners house, and also offer accommodation to others, mostly the parties involved knew each other fairly well, sometimes not.

You've made your willingness to swap known here, MPH would be a good place to do that as well. That should be a good start, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it has happened already in the past, or that it starts to happen more often.

The club does not need to officially start a new service to help their members be hospitable, just by merely existing, the VOC promotes hospitality. Leave it informal, and let the members work it out on their own.

I am not asking the VOC to take any legal/ethical responsibility for the aforementioned, and they wouldn't need to, it could simply be a tick in an extra column in the club membership booklet, or some such thing, for those members interested.
As far as leaving a house/car in poor condition or stealing parts from another members garage....I am only a new member of this bike club, but I get the feeling that they are a fairly honourable lot.
Thanks for your response.
 

TouringGodet

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VOC Forum Administrator
VOC Forum Moderator
I don't know about the British legal system, but the way things are nowadays in the US, even just providing a tick box would be argued in court as indicating implicit responsibility. Even for the suggestion of using MPH, the information would likely need to appear in MPH with a disclaimer, something along the lines of saying the statements or viewpoints made are solely those of the submitter.

Yes, overall the members are great, but as we've seen recently, and usually among groups of a sufficient number of members, there will be some bad apples.
 

Alan J

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
I did a "house swap" years ago in Germany-it worked well! Borrowing someone else's vehicle is a minefield of insurance hassles, however!
 

Tracey Tilley

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Kevin,

It sounds great but.....

You didn't hear about the guy lying injured on the IOM TT course. Somebody nicked his 5 inch speedo. It was a VOC event.
 

nobby

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
That was not the only bike with missing parts...
My Comet and sidecar were in big lumps on the Douglas Boulevard. Like this...
We know for sure (at least at one occasion) a VOC member took what was not his.
In all the years of riding and playing with Vincents this happened never before, even not in the race paddocks. (With the exception of unasked and unwanted swapping of parts during maintenance by a professional.)
At the other hand: we were helped by countless members, during many days. And we made lots of new friends, in and out the VOC. I would give any known visiting member the keys of the garage to do work on his own bike and use my tools and so...
 

ET43

Well Known and Active Forum User
Non-VOC Member
I went with my wife to a Portsmouth section meeting in the middle seventies, and when I came out of the meeting, some toe rag had had my footrest assemblies away. It was bloody difficult riding home! ET43 Oh Argh, I was a new member in those days, perhaps the thief thought that made it ok.
 
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