For the seventh consecutive year, Wakefield MAG hosted the Yorkshire MAG stand at the hugely popular West Yorkshire VJMC Japanese Bike Show, held on Sunday 29th July at Lotherton Hall.
As we have also done for a good number of years now, we provided marshals to help our good friends in the VJMC run their show, manning the entrance, exit and show gates, which frees up the VJMC guys to get on with the non-trivial task of running what is actually a large bike show / event.
In addition to marshalling the gates, we also manned our own stand, packed with MAG leaflets & literature, posters, flyers, copies of The Road magazine, information, products and a few freebies. Lots of people visited the MAG stand, showed a lot of interest in MAG & took lots of literature away with them. We renewed a MAG member on the day (the same chap who renews with us every year at this show, and he also always rounds his membership up to 30 quid, thereby giving a fiver voluntary donation to MAG in addition to his membership fee .... Top Man !!!). It is always worthwhile having a MAG presence at this well attended show, and the VJMC always reward us with a prime spot right next to their control tent, and smack in front of where the show awards are given. In short, it's really hard to miss us, especially with a bright yellow stand, although Leeds MAG's Panos had managed to, when we met him at the exit gate (ah, bless !!!).
The autojumble was larger this year and a good number of people came along to the show just for the autojumble itself, searching for that most elusive rare to find part.
This year around 330 Japanese bikes entered the show, so the judges job is pretty much impossible. However, they eventually came up with a shortlist of around 15 stunning bikes, with the prizes being awarded just before 3pm.
Once finished, the showground cleared out pretty quickly, and our exit gate marshals were kept busy right until 5pm.
All in all, it was great show. This show enjoys a similar reputation to that of the Yorkshire Pudding Rally, in that despite what the weather forecast is, and despite what it has been like leading up to the show, it always seems to remain dry and sunny. This year was no exception (we will ignore the brief 5 minute shower as that doesn't really count).
The MAG stand was busy all day and it was good to help out our good friends in the West Yorkshire Branch of the VJMC. We will find out later what the show made, but all indications are that it will have been very profitable (and all those proceeds are donated to five local charities).
Finally, a huge thank you to all our volunteer marshals, who gave absolutely stirling service over the course of the day, as indeed, they always do !!!!!! Hip Hip .......