After a gap of two years (due to that pesky Covid), our much loved and popular bike show, hosted at the Wakefield Gala at Clarence Park Arena, was held on May Day Bank Holiday Monday (2nd May).
Our advance party arrived at the site at 09:00am to set up our MAG stand, in the same prominent spot as we have used past few years: an elevated slightly sloping plot above the main arena, highly visible from the entire site, and conveniently next to the access road.
We quickly erected our new stand (this was only it's second outing and it's a lot easier to put up than the old one, even with the hazy memories of when it was last used 2 years ago). We populated the stand with lots of MAG promotional material, leaflets, posters, copies of the Road magazine, and a few Wakefield MAG products for sale.
We also set out our fund raising tombola, raffling prizes most of the branch had donated.
So, with our stand all set up, we then waited for the show entrants to start rolling in. The weather forecast was good until the afternoon when rain was forecast (and the forecast rain just turned out to be slight moisture in the air so we got away with it !!!!). We had no idea whether we would get many entrants into the show as post covid, it's very difficult to forecast numbers, but we are pleased to report it was easily as busy as pre-covid days and we had lots of entrants into this years show, lots of coming and goings throughout the day and at one point we counted over 40 bikes in attendance. At the time of the judging we had 20 odd bikes, a couple of motorcycle combinations and a couple of trikes to choose from.
The bike show judging started around 1:45pm and we had 6 show winners and an Overall Best in Show to find. We had a panel of 3 judges plus a guest judge but as always, the judges decisions were difficult (downright impossible !!) as there was some quality machinery on display, but we eventually came up with a consensus. With the winners decided, it was time for the prize giving .... cue drum roll:
Seven well deserved show winners !!! Another excellent show and a most popular attraction at the Wakefield May Day Gala.
The MAG stand did very well and we gave out huge amounts of literature and back copies of the Road magazine, fielded countless queries, sold a few Wakefield MAG products and could have sold a few Rally tickets had we remembered to bring them ... DOH !!!. The tombola was particularly successful pulling in £134.17, all of which goes towards the MAG fighting fund. Seperately, product sales raised a further £7.50. Not bad for a days work.
A huge thanks to everyone who brought along their bikes / trikes / combinations to show, visited us, spent lots of money on the tombola and products, and of course, a huge thanks to all our volunteer marshals who were there early, stayed late, and helped make the show the great success it was - you are all heroes !!!!
And to everyone we spoke to and invited along to our meetings, we meet in the Thatched House on Aberford Road, Stanley, Wakefield, every Tuesday at 8:00pm ... hope to see you all down at a meeting soon.
We will be hosting another show at the Wakefield Gala next year, so hope to see you in 2023.