The Celebration: Our Club's 50th Anniversary in 2022 National Rally - Springfield MO!

adamchandler said:

I get it now! Yep, I'm gonna have to steal your enthusiastic kittens analogy. I do that every day with my software engineering interns. I have about 30 a year I'm in charge of. Very excited but not sure what to do with their natural abilities.

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Bingo. It’s the same dynamic here… to harness that energy and extract cohesive and consistent quality in this fashion takes clarity of leadership. As you get to know people throughout our community I can plainly see how you can create the same impact here at the MOA.

Please go for it. The club depends on it.

Visian said:

I started researching that a few years ago during BMW’s 100 year celebration, which was held at Laguna Seca. There is a massive amount of cool information on-line and in BMW’s archives. Since then I’ve built quite the bookmark list, and at the event, I spoke at length with Fred Jakobs (BMW’s Heritage cheese), and also made a presentation there about the history of Adventure Riding. (I rode to the event on a Honda VFR1200X). Mark Buche {a friend of mine for about 10 years now) is BMW Motorrad NAs Heritage guy.

If it were me, I’d be building a team of volunteers with research, writing, photo/video and social media skills with the goal of creating a series of short heritage videos (#MotorradMinutes ™) and post them across the social sphere, along with links to an MOA micro site that provides more info and an incentive to join.

This would be a fun and engaging membership experience and (assuming we boost the posts so that we don’t just advertise to ourselves) it would serve to increase awareness, interest and positive purchase decision to join our club.

I also think there are excellent opportunities to collaborate with BMW NA for Heritage Events. And ways to tie in our advertising/marketing partners.

Last, please see my post earlier in this thread about developing a membership drive that plays out at our rally.

Ian

Ps-> you know who is also all over this and has great contacts in Germany? Fellow member Will Guyan.

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Maybe we have some Knochlein Award winners around.

kbasa said:

Maybe we have some Knochlein Award winners around.

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the more the merrier. There’s some real talent around these parts!

kbasa said:

Maybe we have some Knochlein Award winners around.

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Yes. I am one. Also Friend of Marque, Ambassador Emeritus, former Ambassador Liaison, Former Board member, and former BMW MOA President. And nowhere near as negative as I am reading at times in the forum today. Things change. Stuff happens.

PGlaves said:

Yes. I am one. Also Friend of Marque, Ambassador Emeritus, former Ambassador Liaison, Former Board member, and former BMW MOA President.

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Wow, with a resumé like that I bet there are a ton of Motorrad heritage subjects you could speak on. Would be cool to capture a few of them for posterity in Motorrad Minutes™

The Knochlein Man.

It's true that, when he walk's into a shop... seized motors lubricate themselves.
Among other fascinating & mysterious occurrences.

Always explained as "things change or stuff happens".
Those in the know prefer... Legend!

gsinnc said:

Just my $.02 but I have attended 11 MOA National Rallies since 2003, which was my first. Honestly I have enjoyed them ALL. Yes some locations better than others but I understand the efforts and work that it takes to pull this off and truly appreciate all the work done to make these happen. Probably my least favorite was Lima, OH and my favorite was West Bend, WI. But that's just me. Some were hotter than others but you can't plan the weather. (I don't camp so heat is not an issue) Heck one of the hottest for me was Essex Junction, VT where we got rooms at St. Micheals College with minimal A/C. But ALL have been a blast. Already planning for Springfield in 2022. Guess you can't please all the people all the time. Thanks to all who put these events together.

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My idea is to conduct an on-line survey for long time attendee's to name their favorite rally sites from the past 48 years, then select 10 of the best (most popular) facilities and rotate through those every 10 years? Keeping in mind the need for different geographical locations. Just a thought.
DP

DennyPink said:

My idea is to conduct an on-line survey for long time attendee's to name their favorite rally sites from the past 48 years, then select 10 of the best (most popular) facilities and rotate through those every 10 years? Keeping in mind the need for different geographical locations. Just a thought.
DP

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Wow I like that idea.

DennyPink said:

My idea is to conduct an on-line survey for long time attendee's to name their favorite rally sites from the past 48 years, then select 10 of the best (most popular) facilities and rotate through those every 10 years? Keeping in mind the need for different geographical locations. Just a thought.
DP

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I think it would be nice to find four locations that meet the requirements. One location for each region.
They could have eight locations if they want four of the locations to be located in the southern parts of the four regions but they would need a spring or fall date for the southern spots.

It took forever to move the rally date ahead a few weeks. Most of us will be dead by the time they agree to move the rally date a few months

Lee said:

I think it would be nice to find four locations that meet the requirements. One location for each region.
They could have eight locations if they want four of the locations to be located in the southern parts of the four regions but they would need a spring or fall date for the southern spots.

It took forever to move the rally date ahead a few weeks. Most of us will be dead by the time they agree to move the rally date a few months

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The cited complication is of course kids in school. Maybe they can do Zoom class on the TFT.

PGlaves said:

The cited complication is of course kids in school. Maybe they can do Zoom class on the TFT.

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Lee said:

I think it would be nice to find four locations that meet the requirements. One location for each region.
They could have eight locations if they want four of the locations to be located in the southern parts of the four regions but they would need a spring or fall date for the southern spots.

It took forever to move the rally date ahead a few weeks. Most of us will be dead by the time they agree to move the rally date a few months

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I know I am in the minority of those who preferred the July date but will make any date work. The issues with spring and fall are weather i.e. possible cold and snow. I have attended Americade for 30 years the first week in June in the Adirondocks and have seen temps from high 30's to upper 90's and always some rain. You just can't plan the weather.

I also like the BMW Rally being in a different location thereby providing new riding opportunities, but maybe a set location or 2 in each region would make planning for the Rally chairs easier.

DennyPink said:

My idea is to conduct an on-line survey for long time attendee's to name their favorite rally sites from the past 48 years, then select 10 of the best (most popular) facilities and rotate through those every 10 years? Keeping in mind the need for different geographical locations. Just a thought.
DP

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I had mentioned the same idea in the past and it fell on deaf ears. Maybe with this change from July to June it could become a reality sometime.
The best example of a successful rally is the TOR in Paonia CO.
It is one of the best smaller rallies I ever attended, even when I had no motorcycle and showed up with my MTB one year.
And yes there are great MTB trails near the town too....

As with most of my opinions, they've long ago discussions that were resolved so I'm likely repeating past ideas that, for one reason or many others, were shot down but my opinion is the host city should set the calendar date based on weather. You can host a rally in Florida in March. Issues is, us northerners can't get to it without trailering because I can't ride my motorcycle in March or at least plan on it because I'm likely getting snowed on the entire time so I'd be forced to trailer it. Southern rallies can happen on the book-end months. So the June versus July can easily be decided based on where the rally is occurring.

I'm sure a con is that some people plan on a certain week every year for the national and plan that date in advance for time off/travel/etc.

The reality is, you can't control the weather anyway so historical averages are good to know but won't be the reality once you're there.

gsinnc said:

I know I am in the minority of those who preferred the July date but will make any date work. The issues with spring and fall are weather i.e. possible cold and snow. I have attended Americade for 30 years the first week in June in the Adirondocks and have seen temps from high 30's to upper 90's and always some rain. You just can't plan the weather.

I also like the BMW Rally being in a different location thereby providing new riding opportunities, but maybe a set location or 2 in each region would make planning for the Rally chairs easier.

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The fall or spring dates would be for southern locations at lower elevations.

adamchandler said:

As with most of my opinions, they've long ago discussions that were resolved so I'm likely repeating past ideas that, for one reason or many others, were shot down…

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Whatever you do, DON’T stop with your opinions.

But in this instance, you’re right… we have gnoshed over this stuff for years. The short story is that our national rally is the product of 50 years of refinement as to “what works” (in the pragmatic sense), but there is still a ton of room for further creative refinement.

As people become more and more familiar with the logistics of our rally, they find that the way we do it is about as effective as it gets, assuming we don’t spend a butt-load of money to hire a professional events firm. And even then, I don’t think such an outfit could replicate our all-volunteer vibe.

At the risk of sounding negative my view is that we are killing our own vibe, for a number of reasons, none of which I am going to describe here.

Hopefully your ideas, and those of other younger people in our leadership, will not be met with “here’s why that won’t work” answers and instead receive “here’s how we can make that work” types of responses. We positively *must* attract more people like yourself to come to our events or we are going to die.

For the record here, I think it would really benefit us to engage in multi-year contracts with 3-5 known-good venues over a 10-year period, screw the beer revenue and find ways to keep commercial concessionaires from screwing our vibe. You would not believe how many good venues I’ve spotted (and others have, too) that weren’t considered because “we need to sell the beer.” Really glad to hear that we’ve gotten past that.

Changing the dates of our rally would be exceptionally difficult to the point that it makes sense to simply rule out areas in the SE and SW that are too hot. That said, a few years ago I found a *killer* place for a rally in Savannah, GA where everyone could camp in air conditioned comfort, you could buy a meal ticket for the weekend, race a track, ride off road, stay in a hotel, visit the tourist attractions, golf, fish, swim at the beach…

Ian

Lee said:

I think it would be nice to find four locations that meet the requirements. One location for each region.
They could have eight locations if they want four of the locations to be located in the southern parts of the four regions but they would need a spring or fall date for the southern spots.

It took forever to move the rally date ahead a few weeks. Most of us will be dead by the time they agree to move the rally date a few months

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Lee, hasn't the MOA settled on just 3 regions these days? If so, the MOA would only have to find three sites to rotate. That said, as one who's hosted many, many national rallies, I've found that going back to the same location -- even after a 10-year absence -- saw a significant drop-off of repeat attendees that second (or third) year, even at locations that received only praise the first time around. Another thing I found, things change, even going back to the "same" locations. Facilities change, local contacts change, hotels come and go (and deteriorate!), food service vendors disappear, sometimes not being replaced, roads change (not always for the better), areas become more congested (and less fun to ride!), and the list goes on and on.

I know it's a lot of work to find acceptable sites each year, but I personally like attending rallies in different sites. I can't hit every rally -- too many other interests -- but I really do like to visit different parts of the country. After this year's rally, I can now say that I've visited all 48 of the continental US, and have now either bicycled or motorcycled in all 48 states! Maybe someday I'll be able to add Alaska & Hawaii to this list.

jgoertz said:

Lee, hasn't the MOA settled on just 3 regions these days?t.

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Maybe I started to consider Fargo as the 4th region

jgoertz said:

I know it's a lot of work to find acceptable sites each year, but I personally like attending rallies in different sites. I can't hit every rally -- too many other interests -- but I really do like to visit different parts of the country.

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How about this… ? I can give you three different excellent routes to any of 3-5 destinations over 10 years.

It’s difficult to express how much it helps with logistics to work with the same venue 2-3 times.

Visian said:

Hopefully your ideas, and those of other younger people in our leadership, will not be met with “here’s why that won’t work” answers and instead receive “here’s how we can make that work” types of responses. We positively *must* attract more people like yourself to come to our events or we are going to die.

For the record here, I think it would really benefit us to engage in multi-year contracts with 3-5 known-good venues over a 10-year period, screw the beer revenue and find ways to keep commercial concessionaires from screwing our vibe. You would not believe how many good venues I’ve spotted (and others have, too) that weren’t considered because “we need to sell the beer.” Really glad to hear that we’ve gotten past that.

Ian

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Very valid points.