Not allowed to hand out BikersAgainstACCLevies pamphlet at CHCH Biketoberfest

[Elysium]

Legal crap aside and after reading all the posts so far, in my opinion these guys in charge of Biketoberfest come across as complete tossers.



...oh yes, praise be to our "Benefactors"

[cowboyz]

I took part in yesterday's protest. I've written to the entire Cabinet. And I'm as pissed off with the increases as anybody (three bike family).

I just think badgering the owner of a dealership like this is unnecessary. He can't win. For every response he posts there'll be a dozen people waiting in the wings to take a shot. Chris is a decent bloke who doesn't deserve this shit but that won't bother the legions of barrack-room lawyers from offering their 2c on an incident they didn't witness. What a shit way to round-off a great, free bike event day.

I dont think there is badgering of any kind. Chris may well be a decent bloke.. He has every right to make decisions he sees fit in anyway he wishes to conduct any event he is organising or any business he is operating.

Would still like to know, from the horses mouth, the relationship between ACC and biketoberfest. Then I can make an informed decision on who I support with my hard earned cash in the future.

[caseye]

I took part in yesterday's protest. I've written to the entire Cabinet. And I'm as pissed off with the increases as anybody (three bike family).

I just think badgering the owner of a dealership like this is unnecessary. He can't win. For every response he posts there'll be a dozen people waiting in the wings to take a shot. Chris is a decent bloke who doesn't deserve this shit but that won't bother the legions of barrack-room lawyers from offering their 2c on an incident they didn't witness. What a shit way to round-off a great, free bike event day.

I fully agree with your sentiment. I'd be very happy to hear that there is either no connection with ACC or that whatever connection there was, was not dependant on the organisers actually denying bikers the ability to peacefully hand out fact sheets to the general public at the biketoberfest.
lakedaemonian, so theres no question of my hiding anywhere I'll be pming my real contact details directly.

[vstrom]

2250 points.

i dont care im rich, yeah right

[lakedaemonian]

Disclosure of ACC involvement in Biketoberfest

We had a lot of businesses, clubs, and organizations involved in Biketoberfest over the past year.

We ran it like we run our dealership, with transparency.

Most of the entities involved offered "sweat equity" for participation.

For example, the band "Fossil" was free...and very good....they received great exposure and I'd be happy to pay for them to play an event for us again.

Another example, the coffee and food vendors were asked to make a charitable contribution to the Salvation Army, our charitable partner for the event.

The ACC contribution included some radio advertising that was rider safety focused as a marketing campaign to complement our far larger Rock FM marketing campaign wholly paid for by the organizers.

ACC involvement in Biketoberfest got underway last fall.

We had, and still have, an alignment of interests......if riders stay upright(regardless of who's at fault in accidents), riders keep happily riding, motorcycle retailers keep retailing, motorcycle distributors keep distributing, motorcycle insurers keep insuring, and ACC keeps ACC'ing.

We approached the relationship in that manner.

We did not approach ACC with the goal of trying to sweet talk them into giving us a big fat check to line our pockets.

You're not going to find a presented cheque from ACC cashed by Biketoberfest organizers.

For the past year, and the first time we had all the Manchester Street dealers working together was with the Rider Safety Training at Ruapuna Race Course that was conceived and managed by Dave Golightly. Dave came up with the idea, provided the framwork, and leveraged the experienced riders in our collective dealerships to provide rider safety training under the watchful eye of Mainland Driving School.

After a couple of these events the opportunity to have ACC partnering with us in some capacity for Biketoberfest grew, probably due to the commitment everyone was tangibly making towards keeping their customers upright.

We just had another 50-ish through on Friday as part of this weekend's activities.

We strongly lobbied ACC to have a physical presence at our event. We told them it's VERY important to engage with the motorcycling community.

Handing out a leaflet, a sticker, or an email doesn't cut it...you need to MEET and ENGAGE face to face. That's what we thought, that's what we think.

Month's later and only a few weeks from our event.....BLAM! right between the eyes.

ACC had no physical presence at our event as they had planned and we had areed. It is our understanding that several ACC staff were allegedly assaulted since the announcement of proposed increases. As a result, ACC staff would not be participating at Biketoberfest or any other motorcycling event.

If the decision had been up to us about ACC participation in person, I'm left wondering how our community would have responded.....Would it have gotten feral and ugly and displayed our community in a negative light for the rest of the public? Would it have been a storm in a teacup? Would it have seen the best in our community rise to the challenge on the day?

In the weeks since the announcement, we've had folks visit us, some quite militantly and disruptively telling us what to do in regards to the ACC levy rise.

We've listened politely to all, and intently to some who do not represent militant outliers in our community...of which there are some who I completely disagree with their choice of opposition.

There is no conspiracy....there is no contractual, moral, or ethical dilemma I as an individual motorcyclist, dealership principal, and Biketoberfest founder & fellow organizer have that prevents me from sharing my opinion on ACC levies.

I(and "we" organizers) think there is a time, place, and means for sharing it.

I'd be happy to share mine here, or in another thread where appropriate.

I"m happy to continue on with this thread, there's clearly a fair bit of interest in it now, but I want to make sure everyone's getting out of it what we all want.

I don't mind being dog-piled and trying to clarify any concerns folks have about our event, the organizers views on the weekend, or even my personal views on this ACC issue.

But there needs to be a bit of a quid pro quo on the inappropriate disparagement.

I have fronted up, and will continue to front up, will chch_zed on his comments and lack of full candor on the conversation that occurred?

Sorry for the delays in posting...it's been a long week and while I am giving this high priority(mere hours after the alleged conversation took place) I do have other responsibilities....I will be here for a bit longer...time to read the 86 posts since my last one.

[lakedaemonian]

A lot of people are talking about the relationship between ACC and Biketoberfest... this is just a guess here (as I just enjoyed a bloody good day of motorcycling)... but Ride Forever (www.rideforever.co.nz), which is one of the sponsors is "Powered by ACC"... So Ride Forever gets it's funds from ACC (or is ACC in a cool disguise), and in turn supports this bloody good event.

Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong... and despite all this thread, I really do appreciate the good work by the organisers, running events like this is nothing short of legendary.

NRC.

Yep...rideforever.co.nz is a platform for the ACC to promote rider safety.

Sorry for not putting that in my last post...been a LOOOOOG week putting this event on.

[NONONO]

Did you think I was badgering Molly? Sorry if it came across like that.
Look, your pals seemed to have right royally fucked up. They made a business decision which looks like it back fired, no one elses fault.
Maybe have a word with your buddies, tell them that in the real world the people that buy the bikes, ride the bikes. And the people that ride the bikes buy the bikes. ACC are not, as far as I know, a particularly large purchaser of motorcycles.
As the man said, "just tryin to keep the customer satisfied".

[Laxi]

Disclosure of ACC involvement in Biketoberfest

BLABLABLA
The ACC contribution included some radio advertising that was rider safety focused as a marketing campaign to complement our far larger Rock FM marketing campaign wholly paid for by the organizers.

BLABLABLA.

translation= you took ACC sponsorship for an event aimed at motorcyclists who are being screwed by said sponsor? shows loyalty I guess huh?

[caseye]

As my dear old mum Used to say, theres always two sides to a story.
Chris, my apoligies for casting aspursitions, around here things usually happen pretty quickly, your non return prompted many to think, as I did that there was more to the story.
I'm glad I waited to see your next post, it spells out exactly where you and the other organisers of the biktoberfest have come from and under the circumstances I'm offering my apologies for being too quck to jump.
I hope that when the time is right you may be able to convey what happened at your biktoberfest and here in these forums to the ACC people you know, so that they may get a very Real(I'm sure it will be) sense of how seriously each and every one of us bikers is pissed off with them collectively.

[kave]

translation= you took ACC sponsorship for an event aimed at motorcyclists who are being screwed by said sponsor? shows loyalty I guess huh?

Not only screwed us, but now lack the testicular fortitude to front up to the people they are screwing. Bureaucrats are cowards, and the majority of businesses will shaft anyone for a dollar. I have failed to learn anything new from this thread, but it has reinforced previous experiences.

[lakedaemonian]

translation= you took ACC sponsorship for an event aimed at motorcyclists who are being screwed by said sponsor? shows loyalty I guess huh?

As I stated I'm happy to continue with the dog pile if we are going to get somewhere with it.

It's worth noting that the ACC levy announcement was made a couple weeks ago.

We started down this track many months ago.

Getting our hands dirty over the past year with a good number of rider safety training events at Ruapuna that happens to be using rideforever.co.nz literature is doing more for keeping our fellow riders upright than what most are doing.

Where most have been talking, we have been doing.

Not being arrogant.......as I stated before it was a strong alignment of interests for all parties.

Rider safety training was, and is, the right thing for us to do.

[Laxi]

As I stated I'm happy to continue with the dog pile if we are going to get somewhere with it.

It's worth noting that the ACC levy announcement was made a couple weeks ago.

We started down this track many months ago.

Getting our hands dirty over the past year with a good number of rider safety training events at Ruapuna that happens to be using rideforever.co.nz literature is doing more for keeping our fellow riders upright than what most are doing.

Where most have been talking, we have been doing.

Not being arrogant.......as I stated before it was a strong alignment of interests for all parties.

Rider safety training was, and is, the right thing for us to do.

I completely agree that rider training is the way to go! now convince ACC that. The fact remains this event was aimed at riders! you dont expect nuns to rock up to the exotica expo do you? the interests of the punters should at the very least match those of the sponsor dont you think

[caseye]

As I stated I'm happy to continue with the dog pile if we are going to get somewhere with it.

It's worth noting that the ACC levy announcement was made a couple weeks ago.

We started down this track many months ago.

Getting our hands dirty over the past year with a good number of rider safety training events at Ruapuna that happens to be using rideforever.co.nz literature is doing more for keeping our fellow riders upright than what most are doing.

Where most have been talking, we have been doing.

Not being arrogant.......as I stated before it was a strong alignment of interests for all parties.

Rider safety training was, and is, the right thing for us to do.

I can't fault that, can anyone else?

[Winston001]

Well......I've read through all of the angry posturing above and can scarcely believe motorcyclists are being so petty.

I know nothing about Biketoberquest but imagine it's not organised and paid for by Christchurch City Council. Instead it only occurs because bike shops led by Rolling Thunder put it on. If the organisers decide not to allow pamphleteering they are perfectly entitled to do so.

No big deal and furthermore it seems a spot was offered to distribute from.

[lakedaemonian]

As my dear old mum Used to say, theres always two sides to a story.
Chris, my apoligies for casting aspursitions, around here things usually happen pretty quickly, your non return prompted many to think, as I did that there was more to the story.
I'm glad I waited to see your next post, it spells out exactly where you and the other organisers of the biktoberfest have come from and under the circumstances I'm offering my apologies for being too quck to jump.
I hope that when the time is right you may be able to convey what happened at your biktoberfest and here in these forums to the ACC people you know, so that they may get a very Real(I'm sure it will be) sense of how seriously each and every one of us bikers is pissed off with them collectively.

No worries Caseye!

You have to have thick skin both literally and figuratively in this industry and community.

And on this topic.....both the minor AND big picture bits I can see people getting their backs up until it's resolved.

I plan on sticking with this one as best I can.

I'm thinking of this as an extended conversation rather than just a place to post a vetted press release or three.

While I haven't been an active participant in this forum, I do spend a considerable amount of time reading it weekly.