Not allowed to hand out BikersAgainstACCLevies pamphlet at CHCH Biketoberfest

[CookMySock]

Unless you are on private property that is closed to the public, you can actually exercise your freedom as a citizen, and with the law, do as you choose.

Take care that you keep your voice down and do everything that is the opposite of 'disorderly behaviour' and simply go about your business. If someone wants to argue with you about what you should or should not be doing, politely decline to discuss it with them.

Steve

[Brian d marge]

Never dealt with Golightly or Rolling Thunder. And never will!

Done

Should be a sticky ,,and advertised

email bomb to rolling thunder

if that is what happened

Stephen

[scumdog]

That's a good enough reason for me to NEVER consider Golightly insurance, or to buy anything from Rolling Thunder.

X2

[Molly]

Before they're roundly condemned it might be worth getting the reason for their not wanting the leaflets handed out on the premises. I don't know the owner particularly well but as well as I can judge he's a decent bloke who's straight-forward to deal with. As such, I'm sure he'd give you a straight answer if you asked him.

[lakedaemonian]

A few of us went to the Biketoberfest in Christchurch this morning. While we were there we thought we would hand out pamphlets for the BikersAgainstACCLevies website and to encourage people to put in a submission.

After about half an hour we were approached by David Golightly from Golightly Insurance Services and another bloke from Rolling Thunder. They asked us to stop handing these out. Their reason was this was not the place for promoting the problems with ACC but to celebrate motorcycling. I did not really understand this.

Anyway, I found out later that ACC was sponsoring the event, even though there was no ACC tent or stand to be seen.

So, I guess the organisers are more worried about getting money from ACC than the fact ACC is currently proposing to tax motorcycles off the road.

G'day,

I'm Chris Elles, the owner of Rolling Thunder Motor Company and an organizer of Biketoberfest here in Christchurch. I'm the "another bloke from Rolling Thunder".

I'm more than happy to front up on this non-issue with my real name as well as face the potential personal and professional consequences if people decide to choose half-cocked and misguided passion over the calm, cool, and collected judgement shared by the large number of industry professionals and motorcycle club representatives that organized Biketoberfest this year and acted on their collective behalf in this specific case.

It's probably worth giving a little bit of background on our event before responding with a far more accurate and far less Jerry Bruckheimer-esque conspiracy melodrama than what Mr chch-zed has poorly attempted to portray.

When I started this Biketoberfest event in my shop in 2005(then called Eric Wood Motorcycles and which I have owned since 2001) it was a corny little event of a few hundred motorcyclists eating sausages having a giggle at the great bunch of girls brave enough to throw on bikinis and wash customer motorbikes next to the Manchester Street footpath on a fresh October day.

Maybe it was the arrogance of thinking we could put on a pint-sized Kiwi version of a Daytona Bike Week, Sturgis, London Brighton Cruize; maybe it was a desire to see every flavour of motorcycle and motorcyclist in one spot without having to leave work; or maybe it was just suffering a brain fart from the nasty concussion I received when riding a bike and hit from behind by a speeding van back in 2003 that made me think it would be pretty cool to develop a corny little(and at first little known) event into something motorcyclists would enjoy as well as provide a great opportunity for the other 99% of Kiwis who don't ride to see us and get to know us.

2009 was the first year we really tried to open up the event. We found in recent years that while we could easily draw a lot of people(1500-1700 last year), no matter how hard we tried to welcome every motorcyclist, we just couldn't extend much beyond the Harley-Davidson community we serve.

Dave Golightly, from Golightly Insurance, is a guy our dealership has partnered with for over a decade in providing motorcycle insurance to our customers and was the first person I approached to partner in our event when it was little more than an old BBQ and a couple freezing bikini girls stopping traffic on Manchester Street.

While Dave and I are now insurance competitors we will always be friends and will continue to organize Biketoberfest together as long as it exists.

Dave and I spoke at length over the years about the ideas I had for trying to open up the event to try and get as much cool shit on two wheels involved as possible. We have a broad selection of motorcycle brands on Manchester Street, but getting a whole bunch of often competing motorcycle dealers to actually work together without secretly plotting to murder or destroy each other is probably just a fraction harder than trying to jump the Tasman in a Nitro fueled Postie Bike.

It was Dave Golightly who was able to build the bridges between the Manchester Street dealerships that led to a meeting, and more meetings, and more meetings, and...I think you get the point.....but we eventually trusted each other enough to proceed down the track without killing each other.....Dave played a BIG role in making this happen.

A couple months back we were able to put the final and most important piece of the puzzle together when we invited every motorcycle club or organization we could reach in Christchurch(specifically including Kiwibiker member representation) to the Vespa Bar to share our idea.....which was to invite them all to join us in taking an ownership stake in this annual event.

We managed to get substantial buy-in from the motorcycling community and simply wouldn't have been able to pull off the event without their ideas, hard work, leadership, and common sense.

It was at a Biketoberfest meeting in the pub behind the LoneStar on Manchester Street last week where the many dealer and club event organizers collectively decided how we would all respond if we were faced with an issue regarding the ACC levies(more on that later).

While the 2009 Biketoberfest event was far from perfect, it was considerably bigger; it had FAR more to offer both motorcyclists and the non-riding public than the last 4 years combined; and most importantly, especially in light of recent events, provided a very substantial and very positive image of motorcyclists to the large number of non-riders who attended the event to help win the hearts and minds of the 99% of Kiwis who don't actually ride motorcycles.

Sorry for the long-winded diatribe.......I've written half a novel without even responding yet.......but I felt it was important to put some perspective on my response.

My next post(s) will include all kinds of gory details including:

ACC and it's role in Biketoberfest

What REALLY transpired between chch_zed and Dave Golightly as well as what transpired between chch_zed and myself. All of which was witnessed by a respected motorcyclist from a respected local club.

Stay Tuned!

Cheers,

Chris Elles

[Mully]

Thanks for fronting up, Chris.

Look forward to reading the sequel.

[CookMySock]

That was way too much background, and not anywhere near enough fronting up.

Also there was a massive resounding thud as your newbie persuasion techniques fell over.

Unless you really ARE interested in the some professional consequences, I strongly suggest you delete your post and get it redone by a professional communication organisation.

Steve

[Mully]

My next post(s) will include all kinds of gory details including:

ACC and it's role in Biketoberfest

What REALLY transpired between chch_zed and Dave Golightly as well as what transpired between chch_zed and myself. All of which was witnessed by a respected motorcyclist from a respected local club.

Stay Tuned!

That was way too much background, and not anywhere near enough fronting up.

Give him a chance to front up before you damn him, DB.

I agree that he didn't say much but, some background story for context doesn't hurt.

[Laxi]

Give him a chance to front up before you damn him, DB.

I agree that he didn't say much but, some background story for context doesn't hurt.

agreed... but it better be good

[CookMySock]

Give him a chance to front up before you damn him, DB.

I agree that he didn't say much but, some background story for context doesn't hurt.

Heres what he is trying to do. The plan starts out with distracting the reader with lots of detail, then he proceeds with confusing the reader by combining multiple unrelated issues, and then moves on to garnering support from lots of other agencies, THEN he waits until someone like yourself posts in the thread, and then an argument ensues between two factions of members, one who responds to his persuasion techniques (laughter dies down) and those who see through it, and riiiiight at the end he hints that that is not what reeeeeely happened anyway. Next he will move onto ridiculing members (like me) on the basis that half the forum disagrees with me..

Do you get the idea yet? So don't be a sheep.

Steve

[200BUSA]

Yeah he should front up now or shut up.

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

good on ya lakedaemonian for coming on and attempting to explain what we are being asked to belive is you discouraging motorcyclists from protesting the actions of ACC and the National Party.
I'm happy to be convinced this wasnt the case.

[Mully]

Do you get the idea yet? So don't be a sheep.

Wow. Paranoid much?

I'm not being sucked into anything. I like to listen to both sides of any disagreement. We have heard from the OP (which on first reading is pretty damning of the two organisations/people involved) and I'd like to hear back from Chris what his version of events is.

Typically, there are three versions of the story; one from each side and the truth, which usually lies somewhere in the middle.

Chris has chosen to make himself known on this thread and, last I checked, was writing another reply to it, hopefully with the "fronting up" that has been demanded.

EDIT: OK, he's offline now. I'm officially giving him 24 hours to answer the allegations and then I'll believe the OP completely.

This place has a nasty habit of tearing into small businesses without hearing both sides of the story. I'm happy to not use either organisation mentioned if his fronting up is not good enough.

The issue here, as I see it, is the OP was stopped from handing out flyers. If Chris doesn't explain that issue, I'll happily join you in asking for more information.

[Molly]

Bit shit that the bloke's rounding-off a successful day that must've taken a lot of planning (and God knows, f'k all interesting ever happens in Christchurch) by fending-off an uninformed witch hunt. Hope he decides to say: "F'k it. It'll keep. I'm going for a beer".

[325rocket]

Heres what he is trying to do. The plan starts out with distracting the reader with lots of detail, then he proceeds with confusing the reader by combining multiple unrelated issues,

some of us are not so easily confused. I'm happy to hear the guy out before passing judgment. I will however speculate. If ACC only jumped on a week ago, my bet is they (ACC) are trying to get back on the good side of bikers by aligning themselves to this event.