Region 11 April 2008 Meeting Minutes

Meetings called to order. Guests welcomed. Pledge of allegiance conducted at all meetings.

Treasury Report: Given by Al.

Legistlative: Alice went over a list of various bills introduced and status of where they reside. Previous gang bills that were introduced are sitting in committee and the chair has stated that he will not bring them up for a vote; therefore, they should be considered dead bills at this point. Helmet bill is still in need of a few senate votes for a possible override. The bill may or may not be given to Granholm by our freedom rally in June. Depends on if they get the senate override votes they are short. Terry reminded everyone that soon the campaign elections will be starting up and people will be receiving such propaganda in the mail. Please save this info and give to Alice at a meeting. We'll have a lot of work to do this year on determining who we should endorse due to term limits and the amount leaving office. If you have the time to contact the person running yourself, ask them questions such as; do they support helmet choice, do they support rider funding education, do they support funding for awareness etc. Get those answers to Alice. That would save her some time. Members in Macomb County will be voting May 6th on a county executive. Whether you support it or not, please vote one way or the other. Every vote counts. May 13th is the filing deadline for anyone interested in running as a precinct delegate. If you do run, please let Russ know. Al was able to get us an advertisement for MCA in the St Clair Republican Lincoln Dinner program. Thanks Al. Our MRF sustaining membership renewal is due at a cost of $100.00. Joann motions we renew the region's MRF membership. Supported by Chris. Motion carried.

MCA: Our 14 highway billboards will be up soon. The highway message boards should also display a message. Press releases were sent out so hopefully they will be contacting Alice and we might get an article or two in the papers. Contact your favorite radio station and ask that they plug awareness. Yard signs are available at $5.00 each. Abate state level is working on a specialty awareness license plate. Trying to work the money details out on it for where the funds will go. Secretary of Sate will be kicking off the awareness campaign on 5-5 behind the capitol in Lansing at 10 AM. Alice might have a lead on a new school for awareness instructors but we need a couple of new people to volunteer to help in order to take it on. See Alice if you want to see a class demonstration, have suggestions for improvements or complaints that you think should be addressed. Always open to new ideas that seek to improve our program. Al has agreed to take the lead on getting our 4x8 signs put up. Anyone interested in helping, see Al after the meeting.

Past Events: Al reported on our blood drive. There was 98 pints collected. Out of those 16 were rejected. Although we along with the other groups involved didn't top last year's record, we all did a great job supporting a worthy cause. Thank you to everyone who donated and helped at the event.

Tammy reported on the past horseshoe tournament. Although a little smaller turnout than last year, we still had a great profit for awareness. Thank you to everyone who helped, donated prizes and participated in the event.

Upcoming Events: June 4th is the state Freedom Rally at the Lansing capitol. Chris has Clem's Pour House on Vandyke North of 696 on the West side as our meet up spot for the group ride. Leave time from Clem's is 9:00 AM. Group will head to Fowlerville where a lot of regions meet to then head to Lansing all together.

June 13-15 is the abate state fieldmeet. Tickets available at an advanced price of $30 until May 30th. For Thursday, the 12th entry cost is $45.00.

July 6th is our observation run. Sign up 11-1. Starts at Jiggers in Fairhaven. They have a breakfast buffet from 8-12 available at a cost @ $6.00 or so. Cost for the run is $10 each or $15 with passenger.

Fliers along with the memo listing various events on the handouts table. Terry is working on getting a free booth for Harley Fest. Date is 6-14 which is the same weekend as the fieldmeet. Alice has agreed to head it up. A couple more volunteers are needed to help. See Alice if you can help. Terry will know by next meeting if we have a booth or not.

New Business: Tiny has abate bike raffle tickets available at $10.00 each. Chris wants to do a few fun rides so he is open to suggestions and ideas of places to go. Let him know if you have some ideas. Our region website host went out of business. Tina worked hard at getting things straightened around and we're back up and running. New address is miabateregion11.info. Thanks Tina.

Capers will have new owners in the next month or so. We first heard that our meeting room would not be available. Now it might, not sure, but we already arranged for a new spot starting May 28th. The meeting will be held at Salt River banquet center on 23 mile road in New Baltimore. Still the last Wednesday at 7:30 PM. If we find that Caper's room will still be available after they have remodeled, we'll discuss which location is preferred. Until that happens and is even a possibility, all our last Wednesday of the month meetings will now be at Salt River.

First phase of our membership contest is completed. Winner of this phase is Tiny who wins a free fieldmeet ticket. Now begins the second phase which runs till the end of August.

With no further business, meetings adjourned by motion and support.