Laverda Club Victoria - Club Deregistration

Laverda Club Victoria - Club De-registration

After managing the club affairs and maintaining the club successfully for many years Woodruff and Carberry looked for new leaders. In 2002 Greg Parish in his 22nd year of membership was approached to be President but declined due to international work commitments and already having been appointed Vice President of The Australian Cinematographers Society. Recent new member Sergio Canale argued that the paperwork involved with being incorporated as a club offered little benefit to the members (sic David Doyle Sept 2020) and he didn't want to be held accountable for matters that may have arisen from the club membership activities or fulfil the  responsibilities of incorporation that involved regularly publishing the minutes of meetings and transparency concerning the financial position of the club, but he wanted to take control of the leadership of the membership list. With no-one available to fill the official position of President of Laverda Club Victoria Inc. the club was officially deregistered on May 16th 2002.

Using the Laverda Club Victoria membership list Canale started a social group calling it Laverda Owners Victoria, named as such to distinguish itself from the former incorporated Laverda Club Victoria and to indicate that it was not an official club but simply a casual social group.  In 2005 Canale became Account Signatory to the bank account of Club Laverda Victoria and assumed control of the Laverda Club Victoria assets. Canale's newsletter referred to the group as Laverda Owners Victoria, but as time went by readers were confused by the appearance of the names Laverda Club Victoria and Club Laverda Victoria used in the newsletter possibly to establish propriety in relation to deposits former members had made to the bank account of Club Laverda Victoria.

Because the Laverda Owners Victoria social group bypassed the Victoria State Government Provisions for Corporate Governance, including financial accountability and other matters relating to the rules and membership of a club, the group was no longer able to stage race meetings or track days and could not facilitate their own Red Plate Classic Registration scheme.The accepted club protocols of all positions becoming vacant for re-election each year and disclosure of the group’s finances were also abandoned. With the former members of Laverda Club Victoria being uninformed or unaware of the changes to original club the subsequent years saw the group continue to foster close friendships and grew to be an independent vibrant group of Victorian riders and their families.

Laverda Parts dealership and service centre D.A.M. Classic Racing Pty Ltd continued to support Laverda enthusiasts with substantial sponsorship of events, contribution for fund raising and raffles for many years. Although DAM Group staff were not directly involved in decisions made by the new social group, as subscribers to Laverda Owners Victoria newsletter and ardent Laverda enthusiasts they recognised that 'Laverda Club Victoria' was a still a common search phrase to promote Laverda Owners Victoria on the internet so a webpage was launched on the the DAM Group website in 2007. Laverda riders searching for the social group now had a worldwide internet point of contact, a regular entertaining email newsletter was produced, the Laverda brand gained attention at Festivals, Race Meetings and Rallies and the subscriber numbers grew.

That same year the owner of DAM Classic Racing Greg Parish A.C.S. working as a Television Lighting Director and Cinematographer, was contracted by a lighting company working for FIM (Federation of International Motorcycling) as Director of Lighting Data Acquisition to work with five times 500ccGP World Champion Mick Doohan to formulate night-time tests to ascertain the feasibility of running MotoGP under lights. Extensive testing was conducted at Australia's Calder Park Raceway from sundown to 2am using road and racebikes with lights fitted as per 24 hour endurance racing that laverda had so dominated in the 1970s, and without lights in the usual daytime MotoGP guise. The tests used various innovative lighting systems optimised for safety in the event of potential impact, the rider's visual acuity at the extreme high speeds of racing and to satisfy the technical requirements of television transmission. The results were promptly and stringently analyzed, and remarkably the first MotoGP under lights was staged the following year at the Qatar Lusail circuit. The winner of the first night race in MotoGP history, the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar in March 2008, was Australian Casey Stoner. In October that year Laverda Owners Victoria subscribers gathered at the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix while Greg and Jesse Parish were filming an international documentary about Casey for German Television DAZN. To the delight of the many motorcycle racing enthusiasts who had gathered to watch the race Stoner achieved another Pole-to-Finish win on home soil in the 2008 Australian MotoGP.

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