Yay, we’re cooking with (98 Octane) gas again! An enthusiastic crowd rocked in to the AGM on Sunday, had a great breakkie and good chatting all round, and then we decided “stuff”. We now have the following eager beaver committee (see
http://www.hunterdog.org.au/AboutUs.htm for pics & contact details):
President: Brett Roberts
Vice President: Scott Priestley
Secretary: Glenn Lewis
Treasurer, MCC Delegate, Public Officer & Webmaster: Vince Sunter
Events / Publicity / Social Coordinator: Cheryl Cairns
Yes, Scottie’s back! He has really been putting in the effort of late to get over the issues that have besieged him and is having a red hot go at making something of his life now. For the newcomers that don’t know Scott’s story is summarised here:
http://www.hunterdog.org.au/FRIENDS.htm with a link near the bottom to the longer version. Anyway Scott has decided that he really does miss being involved in the club so he will take on whatever jobs he can do, and will do a tail-end Charlie job and carry gear on club rides / trips. He is pretty serious about “losing” the wheel chair, but not quite there yet – GOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Scottie! (you can see he is chuffed
http://hunterdog.org.au/DiscussionBoard/index.php?topic=760)
Brett also is back, and loving it! As you may know Brett has recently taken to racing and has set up a Duke (see above committee link for pic) to live out his fantasy. He was actually at Eastern Ck waiting for the fog to lift while the rest of us were enjoying our toasty warm AGM breakfasts, but was very keen to get involved again. Brett of course thanked our departing prez Frances for her boundless enthusiasm and wished her well as she rides off on her new Honda cruiser to pursue other activities. I expect she will be along on any weekends away ‘though so you will get a chance to explain how, with just a little tweaking, a Ducati Diavel really would have made a cool cruiser!
Cheryl has a boatload (um Ducload) of enthusiasm to get some real rides and events happening, so we look forward to big things there. The first major event will be a trip to Phillip Island for the 16/10/11 MotoGP. Alan, Rob and myself have never actually been and Glenn is keen too – plus Cheryl and Vince2 so we’ve already got a group to go and you should put that one in your diaries to get away for a break from the hum drum. Cheryl is going to see what she can sort out by way of accommodation but it may be a bit late for this year and those present were OK if we do pubs each way and camp at the venue, stay tuned for a plan! I would be guessing we leave Thursday morning and get back Monday night, or add an extra day if we feel like it, there are some very cool roads down that way and it wouldn’t be hard to talk ourselves into trying a few extra ones out if the weather’s good.
The committee will meet regularly and see what we can cook up. Your job is to participate! Nice if you want to join the club too but we aren’t going to be in a rush to pressure anyone. If you are not a current member well it is only $20 for three years to renew so just do it, everyone at the AGM did. If you are renewing just put your name and any details that have changed on the form
(
www.hunterdog.org.au/GeneralInfo/HunterDOGsMembershipForm.pdf) and give it to a committee member at a ride / breakfast or send it in.
We talked a fair bit about ride structure and social activities and concluded we are very happy with the 1st Sunday of the month breakfasts 9am at the 16 footers as they are usually well attended since it is an easy excuse for a pleasant morning out and you know exactly what you are in for. If the weather is a bit iffy and the numbers are down it doesn’t matter as anyone going still has a good time. However routinely we are dragging at least three tables together and using another as a gear stash so we think these events work just fine as they are, if you haven’t been joining in on this you should, so get there!
Re the monthly rides, attendance is all over the place and, apart from weather, there is no clear reasons for this. We think mixing up the starts to suit the direction has been a good thing and will continue doing that. But we figure something else has to change and mixing it up more for longer and shorter events we suspect is one of them. So we are going to re-arrange the schedule so that every second one is a “short” one and people can expect to be home for lunch – and we can spend the arvo doing other stuff. Check
http://hunterdog.org.au/Calendar/month.php for the current schedule. Actually, I just did and we have Chichester Dam next (Sun week) which is a shortish one and I will change the August one to another short one to have morning tea at the Cockfighter Creek tavern in Bulga (
http://hunterdog.org.au/DiscussionBoard/index.php?topic=189) since the September one is the Concourse in Sydney which is typically 2:30pm home and then Oct is Phillip Island which will either be “the big trip” or a lap of Pt Macquarie as per last year which was rather a good day out!
One thing we figured is it doesn’t work to expect one person to run them all so we are going to trial a volunteer ride leader roster, so please consider “taking on” a ride or two. Who’s up for Chichester Dam? Or Bulga? Etc? Or just let me know how many you want to do and we’ll slot you in, remembering that wet / iffy weather always knocks off typically two each year so who knows… Also, not to say that the person nominated to lead the ride actually has to lead it, just that they need to be there and know the route and be able to communicate it with others to hopefully head off any whoopsies. Waiting on turns does work really well, as long as people do it! Although we did find Short St at Teralba is a problem when we lost a couple of riders there one day….
As a for instance of how you can be “the leader” and not have to lead is the leg from Wollombi pub to Broke where we always stop at the General Store / servo in Broke. If people know that, once the Wollombi turn is made it is irrelevant who leads to the store, so there is no need to be bothered about it! I am just pointing this out as “leading” is a bit daunting for most people, and I am just trying to encourage you to volunteer to do exactly that without feeling you have to go outside your comfort zone.
OK, I promised an update on the RTA meeting I went to the day before, it was really encouraging. Lots of very collaborative “give a stuff” approach and a real preparedness to take on motorcyclists’ views. We looked at what needed to happen under three basic headings, “Safer People”, “Safer Vehicles”, and “Safer Roads” and the RTA insist on taking an “evidence based” view of the various elements, which is fair enough with the qualification that a lot of the evidence has issues – which they were aware of. These were very robust and useful discussions which were aimed at determining real actions that could AND WOULD be funded. Nothing happens quickly but there is a real sense that useful stuff will happen and that there will be a good quality consultative dialogue in working out the details. As many will know there is a long history of atrocious attitudes and behaviour towards motorcyclists within the RTA so it will be no mean feat to turn this around, but the prospects are good. Streuth the RTA were even suggesting different speed limits for motorcyclists were a possibility, yeah I didn’t believe my ears either and don’t see how that could happen anyway.
One thing I expect will flow from the RTA work, over time, is to separate motorcycle licences from car licences and require people to put in a bit more effort to keep them. This is because they see the 0.5M licences with only 1/3 actually owning bikes means there is a fair bit of latent skill deficiency “out there”. The “extra effort” is likely to come in the form of refresher training courses, and the broad view of motorcyclists in the room is that this would be generally accepted by most, and was a good thing. However we know scooter riders don’t particularly like the idea. From my perspective I would rather be sorting out stuff like this than say GPS tracking of motorcycles for speed enforcement, which I know is another idea being toyed with by bureaucrats around the world. If we are shown to be proactive and actually do get the road trauma rates down (their only true goal) then draconian measures such as this are less likely to be foisted on us.
Kind regards,
Vince Sunter
