Chris Talbot
Died 18th July 2011
Died 18th July 2011
In 1993 Chris bought a Matchless 650cc twin from Northants Classic Motorcycles. The proprietor Ernie Merryweather, also at that time running the club’s spares scheme, talked Chris into joining the club. Ernie subsequently persuaded Chris to volunteer to become the club’s treasurer in the late summer of 2002, and Chris ultimately went on to become a director of both the club and its spares company.
He brought to the job of treasurer a degree of professionalism that the club had never seen before, both in the way he took up the books and also in the way that he communicated financial matters to both the club’s committee and its membership.
Leadership is essentially intuitive, and Chris was one of the leaders. He instinctively grasped what needed to be done, saw how it could be done, believed it could be done, and simply said “let’s do it”. On occasions, he missed out some of those intermediate steps and he just did it on the spot – because it was the right thing to do.
Such was his presence and confident manner that very few ever challenged him – and why would they? I can’t say that he was never wrong – but I can say that he was nearly always right and very quickly his fellow committee members came to accept his word and his judgement on practically every matter that he became involved with.
But leadership wasn’t the only quality that he possessed. He was an extremely effective team worker. He was able to pick up other people’s initiatives and flesh out all the details necessary to take a task to completion. He negotiated with the club’s insurers, he drew up the leases for the club’s tenants, he took a leading role in the updating of the club’s rule book and its articles of association, and so much more. He was there in the detail of every plan, every programme, in fact everything that the club has ever done during the last nine years. And as an ambassador for the club, he was simply inspirational.
Surprisingly, I’ve recently come to understand that Chris was also regarded locally as an accomplished butcher and pyromaniac. The local section dined more than once on a butterfly leg of lamb expertly prepared and barbequed by him, and at a recent rally he even talked the local butcher into lending his best set of knives so that the required filleting could be expertly performed.
His apparent pyromania was diagnosed by section members who noted that in cooler months Chris would always seek out a pub with a large open fire during a run out on the bikes. Regardless of the state of the embers when he arrived, the flames would be half way up the chimney by the time he left.
To his friends and colleagues he was both an inspiration and a great mate. When I asked a member of his local section what role he played, there was a pause, and then, “Well, hard to say really – he just told us what we were going to do and we did it”.
When I asked one of his committee colleagues what he was like to work with, there was an even longer pause, and then, “He was like an old fashioned schoolmaster – not the horrid kind you understand, but the warm, friendly, enthusiastic and encouraging type”.
On a personal basis I’ve lost the best devil’s advocate that I’ve ever known and worked with. I’ll miss his beaming face and sharp wit around the club’s committee table as well as his wise counsel.
We loved him and will also miss him in whatever we do and wherever we go from here.
Chris Read
He brought to the job of treasurer a degree of professionalism that the club had never seen before, both in the way he took up the books and also in the way that he communicated financial matters to both the club’s committee and its membership.
Leadership is essentially intuitive, and Chris was one of the leaders. He instinctively grasped what needed to be done, saw how it could be done, believed it could be done, and simply said “let’s do it”. On occasions, he missed out some of those intermediate steps and he just did it on the spot – because it was the right thing to do.
Such was his presence and confident manner that very few ever challenged him – and why would they? I can’t say that he was never wrong – but I can say that he was nearly always right and very quickly his fellow committee members came to accept his word and his judgement on practically every matter that he became involved with.
But leadership wasn’t the only quality that he possessed. He was an extremely effective team worker. He was able to pick up other people’s initiatives and flesh out all the details necessary to take a task to completion. He negotiated with the club’s insurers, he drew up the leases for the club’s tenants, he took a leading role in the updating of the club’s rule book and its articles of association, and so much more. He was there in the detail of every plan, every programme, in fact everything that the club has ever done during the last nine years. And as an ambassador for the club, he was simply inspirational.
Surprisingly, I’ve recently come to understand that Chris was also regarded locally as an accomplished butcher and pyromaniac. The local section dined more than once on a butterfly leg of lamb expertly prepared and barbequed by him, and at a recent rally he even talked the local butcher into lending his best set of knives so that the required filleting could be expertly performed.
His apparent pyromania was diagnosed by section members who noted that in cooler months Chris would always seek out a pub with a large open fire during a run out on the bikes. Regardless of the state of the embers when he arrived, the flames would be half way up the chimney by the time he left.
To his friends and colleagues he was both an inspiration and a great mate. When I asked a member of his local section what role he played, there was a pause, and then, “Well, hard to say really – he just told us what we were going to do and we did it”.
When I asked one of his committee colleagues what he was like to work with, there was an even longer pause, and then, “He was like an old fashioned schoolmaster – not the horrid kind you understand, but the warm, friendly, enthusiastic and encouraging type”.
On a personal basis I’ve lost the best devil’s advocate that I’ve ever known and worked with. I’ll miss his beaming face and sharp wit around the club’s committee table as well as his wise counsel.
We loved him and will also miss him in whatever we do and wherever we go from here.
Chris Read