Richmond BMW Riders 2/17/2013 Meeting Minutes

There is a big void by the bar where Charles always sat…

The meeting was called to order by President Steve Johnson at 0945.  The attendance was approximately 45 people, including guest Scott Furash, who rides an R1200C, and old friends Chris Cavenaugh and Mike Slate.

Steve asked for a moment of silence to remember Charles Peters, who passed away on January 29.  A sympathy card for the family was passed around and signed by all.  It was announced that the club board made the decision to make a $200 memorial donation to FRIENDS Association For Children in remembrance of Charles.

Rick Higgins described the sign on procedure for the new web site and detailed how to get a new password if it is your first time signing on.  Charlie Manson reminded us the new web site works much better if one goes to the correct URL instead of the beta site.  The correct site is rbmwr.com.  In addition to the web site, the mylist e-mail group is still in use for club communications.

David Mitchell gave a Sherando Rally report.  Everything is in place with the exception of getting the trailer to the rally site.  Mike Stevens reminded everyone that since we did not have the rally last year, we need to get the word out about this year.  Everyone please make the effort to make the rally information available to other clubs or motorcycle forums you are members of.  Steve will get with Rick to get a rally banner on the new website so any visitors will be aware of the rally.  Charlie urged people who want to go the rally to preregister since there are only 75 meal slots available this year.  David said that even though we had talked about moving the rally to a new location, that was problematic, and the rally will stay at Sherando Lake for the foreseeable future.

Steve described a motorcycle awareness program the Twin Valley Riders in the Roanoke area are participating in.  TVR and some sponsors have gotten together with a local trucking company and made one of their trucks a rolling motorcycle awareness billboard.  Steve wanted to know if RBMWR is interested in doing something similar in the central Virginia area.  Treasurer Richard Hinman said we need to look at the financial implications before we commit to doing anything.  David Mitchell said we would need to be very careful using the BMW roundel and BMW letters in anything like this.  If anyone remembers the recent mess with the club logo, they would agree.

Richard gave the treasurer’s report.  We have money, taxes have been filed with no taxes owed, and we are in good financial shape for this year.  We should not have any tax liability for several years as we expense the purchase of the rally trailer.  Richard also mentioned that at this point, we do not have any ad revenue coming in from the newsletter, and that program needs to be reviewed going forward.

Some upcoming events were mentioned including the Richmond Riders Motorcycle Club Poker Run on the first Sunday in April, the Georgia Mountain Rally the first weekend in May, and the Virginia Ride For Kids the first Sunday in June.  Steve reminded us that all club members that are using the club web site can post events to the calendar.

This month’s club dinner will be on Tuesday February 26 at the Thai Diner on Broad Street near Parham.  Come on out and join your fellow club members for dinner.

Thanks were extended to Rick Higgins for his hard and patient work on the new club web site.  Please make use of the web site to all of our benefit.

There was no club ride due to the cold weather and relative lack of motorcycles ridden to the meeting.  However, there were some hardy folks that did ride to the meeting, just not very many.

Vice president Rick Price gave an update on ride leaders for the rest of the year.  We are covered for March, April, May, June and October.  July, August, September and November are open.  Please consider leading ride a ride one of those months.  Also consider being a backup ride leader in the event that one of our scheduled ride leaders cannot fulfill their commitment.

Gaylen, whose last name is escaping me right now, asked if any other members had failures of BMW ABS braking systems, especially on R1200RTs.  Please contact him if you know of any of these high dollar problems.

The meeting was adjourned at 1024.