Wyoming yes, but Gillette???

Beemerdons said:

When I mentioned the word beer tent to all of the parties above I just got the old fisheye!

Perhaps itÔÇÖs time that we sacrificed the Sacred Beer Tent Cow in order to select rally sites, like Flagstaff, with outstanding BMW motorcycling riding opportunities in the immediate area. IÔÇÖm as Irish as PaddyÔÇÖs pig, and dearly love my Guinness and Harp after a work day or in the saddle; but riding my Beemers takes precedence over quaffing suds!

Yours truly, Don

www.flagstaff.az.gov www.flagstaffchamber.com www.go-arizona.com/Flagstaff www.flagstaff.cc/Flagstaff_Arizona http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagstaff2%C_Arizona

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Well said. However, if 51% of our members want a beer tent (I dont know that, it's a w.a.g.), then the BMWMOA would not be meeting the needs of what the majority want , would they? It seems a vote on the beer tent vs great local riding roads (which I have found in most every state I have been in) is needed.

Rapid_Roy said:

Well said. However, if 51% of our members want a beer tent (I dont know that, it's a w.a.g.), then the BMWMOA would not be meeting the needs of what the majority want , would they? It seems a vote on the beer tent vs great local riding roads (which I have found in most every state I have been in) is needed.

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That's an artificial choice that skews the discussion. The beer tent has become the lightning rod, but is no more of a deal breaker than some other criteria such as sufficient camping space.

knary said:

Can you find a site there that would work for the MOA? Even if you tweak those requirements?

Please. Make it happen.

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Knary...that's the problem. The current criteria that rates Gillette as acceptable, may rate a location like Estes Park unacceptable for reasons that no longer represent the desires of our club. For many of you, the most important criteria is a beer tent. You should be thinking what location will draw the most participation. Participation will increase revenues far beyond a rally with half the participation with a beer tent.

Just in Colorado, BMWMOA should consider Estes Park, Durango Granby, Breckenridge, Castle Rock, Loveland, Longmont or Boulder, Colorado Springs or even Denver. Most is not all have the facilities to match the county fairgrounds at West Bend.

kenk said:

Knary...that's the problem. The current criteria that rates Gillette as acceptable, may rate a location like Estes Park unacceptable for reasons that no longer represent the desires of our club. For many of you, the most important criteria is a beer tent. You should be thinking what location will draw the most participation. Participation will increase revenues far beyond a rally with half the participation with a beer tent.

Just in Colorado, BMWMOA should consider Estes Park, Durango Granby, Breckenridge, Castle Rock, Loveland, Longmont or Boulder, Colorado Springs or even Denver. Most is not all have the facilities to match the county fairgrounds at West Bend.

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Do you know that or do they just seem like they'd work?

You are misrepresenting what has been said about the beer tent. It is one criteria of many. Most places don't offer enough camping space. But it's more fun to talk about beer.

knary said:

Do you know that or do they just seem like they'd work?

You are misrepresenting what has been said about the beer tent. It is one criteria of many. Most places don't offer enough camping space. But it's more fun to talk about beer.

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If you ask the members whether they would like a beer tent at a rally, I like many others would be in the 51% that answers yes. I love my beer and really enjoyed the beer tent at West Bend.

However, if you ask members if they preferred a beer tent in Gillette over a scenic tourist location with plenty of attraction, I believe the vast majority would vote against a beer tent. All members can BYOB.

I don't think I'm misrepresenting the beer tent issue at all. Recall Rob Nye's comment stating no beer tent - no rally. That implies a beer tent is the most important criteria from a former rally chair.

knary said:

That's an artificial choice that skews the discussion. The beer tent has become the lightning rod, but is no more of a deal breaker than some other criteria such as sufficient camping space.

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Sorry, I didn't want to skew the discussion.
I am one of the "drunken idiots" that enjoys the rally wherever it is.
I like camping at the Nat'l, it's all part of the experience.
I could have lived without the Glockenspiel tho'.

KenK

What SPECIFIC site have you found that meets all our needs or all our needs except beer? Who did you contact? You have my attention, you have an audience, what SPECIFIC site?

The beer tent seems to be a HUGE deal in the rally selection.

With discounted beer, does the MOA make a boatload of profit?

As far as not having people get juiced and then ride their bikes, we are all adults who have to live with the decisions we take...make the registration form have a disclaimer absolving the MOA for any criminal acts you indulge in.

Why not select a site that has camping, hotels, vendor locales but something close to some 'watering holes' that would give us a proper discount, ie; show your wrist band and get discounted booze and food? Most watering holes would absolutely enjoy having several thousand potential customers, even with discounts they would rake in the cash. Have a site where the watering holes are within close walking distance and no one gets pinched for impaired driving.

Find a watering hole(s) that have entertainment each night and you have a solution.

Just my spin on this..
Dale

wanderer said:

What SPECIFIC site have you found that meets all our needs or all our needs except beer? Who did you contact? You have my attention, you have an audience, what SPECIFIC site?

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I didn't contact anyone in Estes Park. I didn't need to. It's a fact Estes Park had a successful WingDing in Estes Park, with LARGER attendance, with plenty of camping space (have you seen their extra large trailers), with plenty of vendor and seminar space. Go ask GWWRRA how they did it. They obviously can think outside the box. Like our motorcycles manufacturer, our members tend to anal-retentive. We must follow the checklist! Change isn't always bad.

kenk said:

If you ask the members whether they would like a beer tent at a rally, I like many others would be in the 51% that answers yes. I love my beer and really enjoyed the beer tent at West Bend.

However, if you ask members if they preferred a beer tent in Gillette over a scenic tourist location with plenty of attraction, I believe the vast majority would vote against a beer tent. All members can BYOB.

I don't think I'm misrepresenting the beer tent issue at all. Recall Rob Nye's comment stating no beer tent - no rally. That implies a beer tent is the most important criteria from a former rally chair.

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It actually implies you will grab straws to support your arguement and that at the end of the day you have no clue.

KenK

"Didn't contact anyone, Didn't need to"

As I expected.

I can suggest a simple solution for you, join the "Wingdingers."

I don't need to contact the Wingdingers, I have no issues with the site selection committee and the job they are doing.

Anyone else have a qualified site??

kenk said:

I didn't contact anyone in Estes Park. I didn't need to. It's a fact Estes Park had a successful WingDing in Estes Park, with LARGER attendance, with plenty of camping space (have you seen their extra large trailers), with plenty of vendor and seminar space. Go ask GWWRRA how they did it. They obviously can think outside the box. Like our motorcycles manufacturer, our members tend to anal-retentive. We must follow the checklist! Change isn't always bad.

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The GWRRA is a hotel rally, so all they need are hotels. We need a space to build a secure, fairly self contained village. If there's a spot in Estes Park or anywhere in CO that will meet what are immutable physical requirements, I want to go there.

Like I've said a half dozen times already, take the rally site selection form and visit the site or call them, if you think it will work. Like I've also said a half dozen times already, we want to know about viable sites.

We want to know about new spots, and we want to know about great spots, but the majority of our attendees are going to camp. The GWRRA does not camp.

I'm all for change. If you look at what the board has accomplished and the way this organization has changed in the last few years, you'll see that change is being wholeheartedly embraced by the organization.

But change has to result in a "product" that's better than the current offering. Eliminating beer or camping from a rally is not a better result than what we have now for the majority of our attendees.

Jeez. I've really got to stop responding to these threads. They hear, but they choose not to listen.

Amongst the barbs here...

...there is some good discussion.

I'm addressing this to those that think the criteria used to select Gillette may not have provided the best site for a BMW MOA National Rally:

- Which current criteria needs updating? For example, as others have stated, this thread has made the beer tent somewhat of a lightning rod. OK, fine, so, in your opinion then, should the beer tent become a "nice to have" as opposed to a "must have"? BYOB would work for most, but are there sites out there that really want no alcohol on their premises at all?

- Another major requirement is a large amount of camping space. I don't mean to skew this discussion, and I'll give the disclaimer that it's been a long time since I reviewed the actual site criteria, BUT...could the criteria for the required number of camping spaces be lowered a bit? I have read some posts where it seems that more and more, people are hoteling it, maybe because of the age of the membership. If this number is lowered, would that open some doors?

- And, I'll take a shot at this one, is there a need to add a site selection criteria that would say something like: "Good riding roads within an hour of the rally site" or somesuch. By the way, who determines what a good riding road is? Is it a mountain twisty? Long, easy sweepers that have a historic site every 8-10 miles? A donut shop every 15 minutes? I've seen a lot of discussion about how Gillette doesn't have good riding within close proximity to the site, but what's the definition of "good riding", and how many motorcycle riders would agree on that definition?

By the way, even though I'm no kid, and a long time rider, I've only been to one national rally. For me personally, I really liked the West Bend site. It seemed to work very well.

I've spent a few minutes lookin at/for rally sites in the past. Suggested a few, always recieved a response which was nice.
Found one today in brighton, co nice looking fairgrounds, close to denver, BUT beer concessions handled by others.

I would have paid more for that spot for beer and the rally

wanderer said:

What SPECIFIC site have you found that meets all our needs or all our needs except beer? Who did you contact? You have my attention, you have an audience, what SPECIFIC site?

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Budweiser Events Center/The Ranch. That's the Larimer County Fairgrounds in Loveland. Qualifies on all but the beer sales- and even in that, beer is available on-site, but we would not "own" the distribution rights. And I was told in this forum that it was the beer sales issue that put the cancellation on that site.

bikerfish1100 said:

Budweiser Events Center/The Ranch. That's the Larimer County Fairgrounds in Loveland. Qualifies on all but the beer sales- and even in that, beer is available on-site, but we would not "own" the distribution rights. And I was told in this forum that it was the beer sales issue that put the cancellation on that site.

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Please forward it to Visian. I'm sure he'd like to talk with them.

Thanks.

And thank you, lest I be rude.

The Great White North

I still think we should consider Canada for maybe 2010. Wouldn't it be fun, not to mention cooler, to hook up with the Canadian BMW club? Don't want to divert from the current discussion but just but a bug in your heads for the future.

Regards,


Randy Kasal

Canada, eh?

Hi Randy

We went to Trenton, Ontario in 2002. Those of us who went had a perfectly MARVELOUS time. Spending time with those Scots in the Beer Garden after they did a rousing Bag Pipe performance was without any doubt one of my all-time favorite rally memories.

But the issues with crossing the border and the hassles for our regular vendors was a problem. Despite the wonderful rally and beautiful location, we had a fairly small member turnout. There were a number of behind-the-scenes issues that made planning that Rally a true challenge.

Hats off to Don Faichney (the Kiltmeister) and the BMW MOA staff work jumping through all of those hoops to make it the great party that it was!

On the other hand, I am not sure that the BMW MOA would try it again.

There was a BMWMOA international rally in Trenton, Ontario in 2002.
We went and had a good time but overall I think that attendance was down.
As I remember there was a problem with what vendors could attend and what they could bring with them and tax and customs problems.

There is some benefit to anything that generates discussion, (although even with this "hot" topic only a very small % of members are involved). Through the rhetoric and blustering the overall impression I get is that our rallies have been by and large a great success. There doesn't seem to be something that requires a massive fix because it isn't broken, but could probably stand a bit of "tweaking". I like the idea of using particularly successful venues on a rotating basis (and would be very happy at returning to Essex Junction). I do not believe that our elected representatives have done anything but been open about the process when questions have been asked, encouraged ideas, and they have not presented their views in a way that makes me fell they are not open to new ideas. Perhaps a vote tied in with elections about choosing the repeating venues. A committee could be formed to pick a few choices from each region that we could vote on (assuming that is the way we go). As for the regions that were mentioned that we are still looking for places we can see how a rally goes in that area and then decide if it is a place that we want to rotate to. Even with a rotation system I think it would be possible to explore a new venue on occasion. My bottom line our rallies seem to be working well, can you get a rally that doesn't appeal to you, absolutely, but that doesn't mean a major fix is needed. More likely it is the odds catching up with you that this one isn't your cup of tea. No biggy, next year will offer something different.