Not allowed to hand out BikersAgainstACCLevies pamphlet at CHCH Biketoberfest

[judgeshock]

Well I would like to say thankyou to Chris and David for putting alot of work into Biketoberfest. I thoroughly enjoyed the day.

It was also very nice to be part of a wonderful motorcycle community that were there on the day to enjoy everything motorcycling.

I for one enjoyed the positives without having the ACC topic hanging over the day. We have had plenty of that and theres plenty to come.

Sometimes it's nice to think purely of the beautiful machines that we love without the crap surrounding it. We still have to remember why we ride and enjoy two wheels.

Sometimes it's better to pick battles wisely rather than jumping into every fight that presents itself.

[lakedaemonian]

Having read the whole thread (dispassionately) it seems to me the whole thing's been blown up out of all proportion, not helped by various KBers chipping in with their 2cents' worth (no longer legal currency, y'know...)

I think Rolling Thunder's response to this has been surprisingly restrained, given that they were slagged off not just by the original poster, but by people who posted without first finding out all the facts. These KBers seem to have aligned themselves with the OP merely because they're anti-ACC, and because they've assumed that Rolling Thunder et alia are in bed with the ACC and are therefore the enemy and not to be trusted.

I think if I'd spent lots of time and effort organising an event like this, and someone turned up out of the blue and started handing out leaflets without giving me the courtesy of talking to me about it first, then getting huffy because they took what I said the wrong way, I'm sure I would feel quite aggrieved. Whose event was it? Was it a KiwiBiker event, or a Rolling Thunder organised event?

A bit of effective communication (perhaps on both sides?) and a bit less emotion and this would be a non-issue. Or perhaps it could have been a cause for celebration instead.

Cheers for the calm, cool, and collected post.

I sincerely hope that the collective national motorcycling industry and community can focus their efforts on effecting change with this issue.

It may not have been a Kiwibiker event, but it was one in which Kiwibikers were specifically invited to come along and help develop, organize, and/or attend alongside their peers in the easier to reach motorcycle clubs.

It's a shame we didn't have more folks involved in the event from KB who could provide their perspective on our meetings between the dealers and clubs.

But the opportunity for some to attend the event debrief next week is again offered.

[lakedaemonian]

Well I would like to say thankyou to Chris and David for putting alot of work into Biketoberfest. I thoroughly enjoyed the day.

It was also very nice to be part of a wonderful motorcycle community that were there on the day to enjoy everything motorcycling.

I for one enjoyed the positives without having the ACC topic hanging over the day. We have had plenty of that and theres plenty to come.

Sometimes it's nice to think purely of the beautiful machines that we love without the crap surrounding it. We still have to remember why we ride and enjoy two wheels.

Sometimes it's better to pick battles wisely rather than jumping into every fight that presents itself.

You are always most welcome and thank you for expressing your opinion probably a good bit better than I on some of my posts in this thread.

[lakedaemonian]

Just a bit pissed I missed the day. Got busy with the family as one does and had to decide between a trip to Manchester Street or a actual ride on the bike …. The bike won.

I think it’s a shame that RT and DG are being slagged off here – I personally agree with them – it was never designed as a protest. There was a run on Saturday for this.

I’m also surprised at the number of scathing responses from members who live nowhere near Christchurch and have never put a foot in Rolling Thunder or any of the other dealers doors. But this is KB.

The bringing together of all the dealers in Manchester Street for this event is IMO, a huge step forward for motorcycling in Christchurch and I’ll make dam sure I’m there next year.

Cheers......yeah we've made a lot of progress this past year in our local motorcyling community......sometimes it's been hard for us to notice when all too often head down and ass up.

I think the push this year is going to be to try and cut through as much of the remaining skepticism as we can.

We have always believed there are significant gains to be made(and we're not just exclusively about commercial/financial) when we are able to unite occasionally as a single community instead of scattered amongst eleventeen two wheeled iwis.....

[lakedaemonian]

If I was running an event and received dedicated sponsorship from party A - I wouldn't allow Party B to disparage A at the event.

Outside it is B's business.

Inside it is a breach of the original trust.

Any subsequent agreements would also be unlikely.

Good post.

It's safe to say that with planning going on for many months and getting hit with the ACC announcement not long prior to our event, the word awkward would simply fail to describe the situation.

It was too late to even consider parting ways on the seperate rider safety advertising ACC funded and was broadcast.

And it's definitely safe to say the dealer and club organizers involved had too much personal integrity to even consider throwing ACC under the bus in a cold blooded fashion for this event.

We approached our long planned rider safety relationship with ACC for this event in good faith.

Lessons learned, and what we do( or do not do) next year could see us in a long meeting next week!

[lakedaemonian]

It's impossible to know the number of non-motorcyclists at the event, and of those, how many are unaware of the proposed ACC levy hikes, but I'd wager that the proportion would have been pretty small given the press the issue has had.

I will always be able to afford motorcycling, I spend more on oil in a year than this levy increase amounts to... you're being overly dramatic. Have a gander at what they pay overseas and count yourself lucky.

We are still trying to gauge attendance.

I spent about 30 minutes or so around Noon on the roof with a few of our keen photographers for a better angle to see the whole layout and attendees.

Personally, I think we had a rather large number of non-riders there.....but what's the definition of a "non-rider".

We had heaps of kids based on the prams and toddlers we saw as well as the large number climbing on the tank, bouncy castle, and filling the edge of the trials bike display when on.

Were lots of the kids(including my own)motorcyclist sprogs, surely....but annecdotally we saw a lot of "Mum, Dad, and Pram" that clearly came in the car.

[Laxi]

You dumb fuck, as he said, ACC got involved with them last fall. We've only been "being screwed" by ACC for a couple of weeks.

Good too see the KB kangaroo court is hard at work.

MY BAD! you're quite right! (well not sure about the "dumb fuck" bit but thats a disscusion for later ) I appologise for that post, beer had clouded my thought process, sure ACC was brought into it well before they went all nazi on us, and if the idea of bringing them onboard was to push rider training, then it was a good idea and well worth a try. BUT it still dosn't change the fact that ACC was represented in the grounds, but anti ACC levey activities were restricted to outside

If I was running an event and received dedicated sponsorship from party A - I wouldn't allow Party B to disparage A at the event.

if it was a bar and "party A" was buying the peanuts, and "party B" was buying the whiskeys, what would you do?

[I GS 1]

Maybe not the best example to use there at all, how bout if you went to a political event and some was handing out info on how to vote would you be offended, thats what was being done just information being passed out.

Must say I also liked the analogy of anti abortion pamphlets being handed out at a christening party

I would like to know if the group so highly offended by the Biktoberfest organisers' decision, honestly believe that not being able to hand out pamphlets made any difference at all. (A straight answer to that question would be nice) I can't imagine what makes them think that the people who were actually there, would be unaware of the ACC levy proposal and of the importace of putting in a submission, or if they wanted to, how to - both motorcyclists and those interested enough to come and have a look.

What worries me more is a question I was asked when I got to work today. "Why did so few motorcyclists actually protest, when there seems to be so many motorcyclists in Christchurch" and this was the gist of the question asked by quite a few. They all had heard from the media that there were about 300 on the protest ride, and were under the impression that Timaru had a much bigger turn out. They had also seen "thousands" of bikes buzzing around Christchurch over the weekend, 300 seemed pale in comparason

It is interesting that the protest ride got coverage in the Press and the amazing Biketoberfest none. I think that it was an unfortunate move for local motorcycling at this difficult ACC time, when those concerned decided to try and mix the two. Personally I think that they should have been kept completely separate and not even the same weekend.

[Maki]

Thanks for providing "the facts" from both sides. My tip to you, lakedaemonian, is to come 100% clean from the getgo and save self righteous spouting about what a hard working saint you are. On the other hand you have a business to run and that should be respected.

Your customers and potential customers also have a right to decide WHO they do business with.

[lakedaemonian]

I completely agree with this, "KB is full of love and disrespect..." (you know who you are...).
Facts that I am still not happy about are the following...
- ACC sponsorship, when their books don't balance - and we are apparently to blame.
- R/T and Golightly not just cutting to the point of why they didn't want the pamphlets given out. And still haven't......
- R/T and Golightly not just saying "IT WAS AN ACC EVENT, so we cant condone such acts".

I am sure the crew at R/T and Golightly are super nice people - but they are a bit naive if they just think that we needed a background story. When it comes to politics (of any kind), the last thing you do is smoke and mirrors.
Honesty can sometimes be a 1000 words without the cover story.
-Stew

Hi Stew,

My decision to post, and post at length, is to try and share where we were, and are, coming from with this.

In a thread where guilt was immediately assumed by many and an occasional poster chch_zed was assumed to be 100% forthcoming in regards to the conversation, I chose to provide some backstory on our event.

If you feel that was wrong, inappropriate, misleading, or an attempt to manipulate all I can do is keep posting to see where it leads and live with the consequences.

I didn't think responding to a very misleading and melodramatic post with a mere sentence or two would get the job done.

I'm hoping my response to Big Dave in regards to ACC might clarify things? If not, feel free to PM or post.

[Big Dave]

if it was a bar and "party A" was buying the peanuts, and "party B" was buying the whiskeys, what would you do?

[lakedaemonian]

And read Ixions post earlier in this thread the message need to go out to the general public as well as the motorcycle community. Being told to go and sit in the corner to hand out flyers is pushing this issue to the side. Again I believe this is not a good look and one I don't support.

So folks the choice is always yours where you spend your money and mine won't go to rolling thunder, or golightly or his supporting brands.

Now tell me to pull my head in but what was offensive in handing out material.

But he wasn't told to sit in the corner.

We asked him to stop where he was, we asked him to move to the entry/exit point where every motorcyclist funneled through and go for gold.

I mean no offense by this, but surely it doesn't take a rocket scientist to think that a response rate in terms of people who will actually accept a call to action will be far higher within our own community than non-riding mom, dad, and the kids.

I've got some experience in political lobbying....both the cold-call skin thickening political cause fund raising and call to action; as well as directly lobbying elected legislators.

At that moment, while one of the many folks trying to keep things from blowing apart at the seams, keeping an eye on my dealership, talking to customers, and spending a quick second with my kids I felt it was a wasted and ineffective effort and a bit pissed nobody even bothered to have a quick chat with any of the organizers.

Shoot from the hip? Certainly, but based on a "what should we do if?" we decided on early that morning.

Opinions and results may vary......

[lakedaemonian]

BUT it still dosn't change the fact that ACC was represented in the grounds, but anti ACC levey activities were restricted to outside

To clarify, ACC was not present or represented at the event, ACC pulled the pin approx. a week prior before we as a group had a chance to consider how we would handle it as it was our choice ultimately.

[peasea]

[lakedaemonian]

Thanks for providing "the facts" from both sides. My tip to you, lakedaemonian, is to come 100% clean from the getgo and save self righteous spouting about what a hard working saint you are. On the other hand you have a business to run and that should be respected.

Your customers and potential customers also have a right to decide WHO they do business with.

As stated, I've tried to do my best here and am continuing to post.

As far as coming 100% clean, the offer to host a few KBers at our event debrief has been made a number of times.

I don't recall the self rightous spouting, but will have a good read over and over when all said and done and take it onboard.

Usually I try to take the piss out of myself to lighten the mood and hopefully there will be an opportunity for that yet, if I haven't already done so in an unintended way


I take your post onboard, and I don't take the potential consequences lightly.