Region 11 January 2008 Meeting Minutes

Meetings called to order. Guests welcomed. Pledge of allegiance conducted at all meetings. RC Russ unable to attend either meeting due to work schedule. Co RC Tiny conducted meeting in Mt Clemens and Co RC Rich conducted the meeting in Almont.

Treasury Report: Given by Al.

Legistlative: Report given by Terry. Helmet bill, HB 4749 has not been given to Granholm yet. Working on obtaining enough votes to over ride a veto. For an override, 74 are needed in the house and 25 in the senate. If an override attempt takes place, we could lose a couple of our supporters due to inner party politics. Contact your legislators to confirm their support if an override takes place. Senate bill 104 passed the senate in December 2007. Due to the change in language of the bill, the bill has a 50/50 support/oppose audience. Bill was originally introduced to stiffen penalties for a driver causing injuring or death to a motorcyclist. It has now taken on a life of its own where anyone causing harm, death ect to anyone on the road is in violation of several factors. Read the language for yourself and decide to support or not on your own. On 2-9, there is a state legislative meeting in Howell, on 2-13 is the legislative day at the Lansing capitol and then on 2-27 is the annual meet and greet, pizza and pop luncheon at the Lansing capitol. If you're only able to attend one, go to the capitol on the 27th. All legislators are invited to the luncheon where you can discuss issues in a causal atmosphere with them. If you've never been to Lansing and are unsure of what to do, don't worry, there are plenty of abate members who will help you through the process and introduce you to lobbying 101. HB 4675 introduced a year ago which would open and audit the catastrophic funds is starting to get a bit of attention. Contact your house reps to support this bill. Every region is being asked to call Granholm's office on different days through out February. Our days to call are 2-12 through 2-14. Call one or all 3 days and ask her to sign HB 4749 into law when it reaches her desk. Information on these various legislative items are on the region memo on the table.

Seminar: Tiny discussed the workshops provided. Chris discussed the guest speaker that was there, Bill Salier a pig farmer from Iowa. Chris stated that his presentation was very inspiring and told of a story regarding the star spangled banner and how it originated. Through this story, many people now have a complete different outlook and admiration for the national anthem. Abe mentioned that the dinner was lousy again this year at the banquet. Tiny also came home with new state raffle tickets for abate. They are raffling off a new motorcycle and 3 other cash prizes. Tickets are $10 each, see Tiny to sign out a book or purchase a ticket.

Upcoming Events: February 17th is our annual bowling benefit. New location this year is continental lanes. Adults and kids both are welcome. See Tiny to reserve a lane. Also already set in place is a blood drive which is held in conjunction with a few other groups on April 19th. Al discussed the need for a few volunteers to help with making blood packs, serving juice and cookies and also asked that everyone call him to make an appointment to donate blood. See Al to volunteer or if you have any questions.

A region officer meeting was just held and they went over all our region events for the year. Discussed was the broomstick pool tournament in which Tammy volunteered to chair. Was looking at a date in March to hold but was found to be unavailable. Other dates are getting to close to ours and others events to consider. Nuggett suggests we hold off till fall. Will let members know what comes of this event. Horseshoe tournament will be April 27th at Jiggers in Fairhaven. Tammy volunteered to chair the event; Tiny, Bruce and Max also volunteered to be on the committee. Our poker run will be July 6th. Al is the chair and Wedge and Abe are on the committee. October 11th is our bikes in the park. Russ is the chair and Tiny, Debbie, Abe, Shelia, Bruce, Sherry and Terry are on the committee. A couple other events are still to be discussed and if details are worked out will be added to the calendar for this year. The region officers decided to drop the Halloween party this year due to the last 3 showing a loss. Committee that has worked on it has done everything possible to make it affordable but with the slow economy and time of year held has not proven to be beneficial fore the region. However, it was suggested that if another group is having sometime of event around that time of the year that we get a group together to attend it instead of our Halloween party. Is that agreeable with everyone? No one objected. Region officers also voted to eliminate the attendance drawing as it has not proven to be beneficial in getting more attendance at the meetings. We'll still do the membership contest the same as before. Everyone ok with this? No one objected.

Terry discussed the upcoming swapmeet. New owner and new location now at Novi center which falls in region 19. Went over various details. Region 19 is now the host region and will pool volunteers from other regions to help. It is further to drive now. Anyone who is still interested in helping still on behalf of our region is welcomed to. Contact Rich for more info, he'll pass along any volunteer names to Vince in 19 and Brian in 15.

There was no new business from the membership. Meetings adjourned by motion and support.