Dear Wakefield MAG member,
Welcome to the Wakefield MAG e-newsletter. If you can't attend our Wednesday meetings regularly, it's the next best thing to keep you up to date with what we are up to.
CONTENTS
1) 2013 MAG Annual General Conference
2) Wakefield Hospice 10K Race Marshalling
3) April Rideout
4) Rally Tickets For Sale
5) Call for Rally Marshals
6) Wakefield MAG Bike Show
7) Go Outdoors Motorcyclists Discount Night
8) Doncaster MAG
9) Pot Hole Campaign
10) Forthcoming Events (for April and beyond)
1) 2013 MAG Annual General Conference
This years MAG Annual General Conference is being held on Saturday 13th April at the Fry Club & Conference Centre, Somerdale, Keynsham, Bristol, BS31 2AU. Registration from 10:00, with the Conference starting promptly at 12:30 and finishing at 17:00. A light lunch will be served from 11:30 until the start of business, on a first come first served basis. Camping is available from 16:00 on the Friday (12th) until 11:00 on the Sunday (14th) within the grounds. Showers & Toilets are available as is food & drink. This venue has full disabled facilities.
Free entry, but bring your MAG membership card to gain entry & vote.
For those who are interested in travelling down the day before, there are two organised rideouts on Friday 12th April (staying overnight at the on-site camping). The first wave will leave at 1pm, the second at 3pm, both from the Southbound M1 Woodall services.
Depending on demand, we may also lay on a subsidised mini-bus from a central point (Rotherham'ish) on Saturday 13th, returning after AGC. The bus WILL need to depart at 7.45am at the very latest. Names in advance are needed before midnight on Thursday the 4th April, if you wish to take up this option (and to gauge possible demand). Please contact me (your Wakefield MAG rep) as soon as possible with your membership number and e-mail. The subsidised cost will be £5, which is much much cheaper than taking your own car/bike and the associated fuel costs.
2) Wakefield Hospice 10K Race Marshalling
The Wakefield Hospice 10K Race is being held on Sunday 14th April and Wakefield MAG are once again (as we have for many consecutive years now), helping the Hospice marshal this prestigious race, which is significant fund raiser for our local charity. The race, as you may know, is held on public roads and sets off from Clarence Park, heads along Horbury road in a linear route, to return the same way back to the finish line, again at Clarence Park.
Our role is as roving marshals for the tail end of the race. A police car will follow the main body of runners and progressively open up the road. This is to minimise the time period when the road is closed, following numerous complaints in previous years. There will however still be a number of runners / walkers doing the course, and the roads will by now be open to normal traffic. The Hospice has an obligation to ensure the safety of these remaining competitors, and that is where we come in. We can ride up and down the route, at normal speeds and observe the remaining runners / walkers. We need to remind them to keep on the pavements and watch out for traffic if they mistakenly think the road is still shut. It's an eyes & ears role. The marshals can either park up at a good point and watch, ride up and down or a combination of both. We need to check that the turnaround point on Horbury Road is covered (and position one bike here if it's not). We'll also need a tail end marker for the very last runner (slow walker !!!!), which will signal the very end of the race.
We have some marshals already but many hands make light work as they say. If you would like to help marshal the race (which is jolly good fun), meet near the lodge in Clarence Park no later than 8:30am. I will have attended the race organisers briefing at 08:00 and can update you with any last minute instructions etc. The race itself starts at 09:00 and we will need to be in position before the race start.
Hope to see you there. Thousands of branch points available to all race marshals !!!!
The Wakefield MAG April Rideout will be to that popular bike mecca, Rivington Barn, in deepest Lancashire (so don't forget your passport !!). Meet 8:30am (leaving at 9:00am) at RedBeck Cafe, Doncaster Road, Wakefield, WF1 4EJ on Sunday 21st April. The rideout will be led by Mick Culpan.
We now have the Wakefield MAG allocation of Yorkshire MAG rally tickets, which are for sale at the weekly branch meetings.
The dates (and prices) of the main Yorkshire MAG events for 2013 are:
The Yorkshire Pudding Rally now has a new home: Estrick Estate, just off the A19 near Selby. Unfortunately, the old YPR venue, Hesley Wood Scout Camp, is no longer available to us as half the site will become an opencast shortly. We also struggled to find a suitable alternative venue in South Yorkshire. However, the Estrick Estate site is a gem of a rally site, and is much bigger (20 acres as opposed to 12½ at Hesley Wood), so you will have plenty of space to spread out.
You can buy your tickets at the weekly branch meetings and if you want some rally tickets reserving, do let me know. These events collectively provide the vast majority of the vital funds MAG needs to fight the political fight. These events help keep Big Brother out of Biking or as we like to call it, Partying with a Purpose.
All the Yorkshire MAG rallies are run by volunteers, who pay for their tickets the same as everyone else. They then freely give up their time, in order to help run those events, in a most professional way. The Yorkshire MAG donations to Central (made from these rally profits and local branch fund raising activity), pay for the wage bill of all the staff at MAG Central. Without this volunteer effort, MAG wouldn't be able to employ lobbying staff, without lobbying staff, lots and lots of anti-bike legislation would be passed unopposed and literally, the end of biking as we know it would be upon us in around 5 years. It really is that simple.
If you have a burning ambition to save the biking lifestyle we all know and love, volunteer for some MAG rally marshalling at this years events (marshals are ALWAYS wanted) .... you could just be the saviour of motorcycling for the future generations (I kid you not !!!). A life on strangled small capacity bikes, with leg protectors, air bags, monitoring and speed control systems, automatic surveillance of riding habits, compulsory day-glo, inability to change anything from the manufacturers original specification etc etc ..... doesn't make for a rosy future at all !!!!
Marshalling is also good fun and, although you are donating your time for free, you do get well compensated with food vouchers and marshals T Shirts. You also get full use of the marshals facilities which includes dedicated camping area, marshals chill out area (with free tea & coffee, soft drinks etc) and showers (at the FYP). But of course, the greatest marshal benefit of all is the enormous sense of well being from knowing you have done your bit to protect the biking lifestyle we all know and love !!!!
ITV marshals are currently required so please contact me for a marshals form.
As mentioned in last month's newsletter, our popular annual Bike Show is returning to it's former home, the Wakefield Gala at Clarence Park, Wakefield, on May Day Bank Holiday Monday, 6th May.
The show is completely Free to enter (although a donation to MAG will be most appreciated). There are multiple show categories up for grabs so come along with your bike / trike / scooter / combination / moped. There are lots of attractions at the gala so you'll have something to do whilst waiting to see if your pride and joy has won. The show / gala is being held in the Clarence Park Arena, Clarence Park, Wakefield. Entry to the show from 9:30am, the show officially starts at 10:00am and the prize giving will be at 3:00pm.
We look forward to welcoming you and your pride and joy on May Day !!!
7) Go Outdoors Motorcyclists Discount Night
Huddersfield MAG in-conjunction with the Pudsey branch of Go Outdoors have arranged a motorcyclists discount night. The event takes place in the Pudsey branch of Go Outdoors on Thursday 18 April, between 5 pm and 8 pm, and the discount is available in-store on production of the discount voucher. Vouchers can be downloaded from the Huddersfield MAG web site (www.huddersfield-mag.co.uk and there will be copies of the discount night flyer (with attached voucher) at the Yorkshire MAG Stand at the event itself.
The discount is a hefty 10% off the already heavily discounted card price (so you will need a Go Outdoors Discount card to take advantage, but these only cost a fiver).
Come and say hello at the MAG stand, and if you are not a MAG member already, speak to the nice people on the stand and they will happily sign you up as members !!!
Doncaster gets it's own MAG Group !!! (or for those of you who have been around Yorkshire MAG a while .... Doncaster re-launches it's MAG Group after a gap of five or so years !!!!).
The inaugural / re-launch meeting is on Wednesday 3rd April, at Marr Lodge, Barnsley Road, Doncaster, DN5 7AX, and starts at 7.30pm.
Welcome back into the fold Doncaster MAG, and this now takes the branch total in God's Own County to 10 !!!
Have you noticed the state of our roads these days ? We certainly have !!! You might be forgiven for thinking the RAF have been testing their runway busting cluster bombs on Yorkshire's trunk roads. Wakefield MAG have run several campaigns in previous years to encourage our members to report dangerous potholes and broken road surfaces, and we had lots of success getting them filled in.
Pot holes aren't just an inconvenience, they can literally be deadly to motorcyclists and other vulnerable road users. We are thus relaunching our pot hole campaign to improve conditions for motorcyclists in Wakefield and the surrounding District, by initiating repairs to the dreadful and dangerous state of some of our areas roads, made far worse of course by the bad winter we have suffered this year. By a small amount of effort, we can achieve real tangible results, and it might just save a biker's life.
If that is not incentive enough, we are awarding branch points for every pot hole repaired, as a result of a pot hole report submitted by a Wakefield MAG member. Simply submit the report reference number (given when you report the pot hole) to us (by email, phone or in person at the Wednesday meetings) and we will add all these up over the course of the year, and the member with the most points will win a prize at our AGM in January 2014.
As Del Boy Trotter says, 'He Who Dares, Wins' !!!
You can report pot holes directly to Wakefield Council by using the link on this web site (Local MAG Page > Report a Pot Hole).
10) Forthcoming Events (for April and beyond)
Wednesday 3rd April - Doncaster MAG meeting
See Above. The inaugural meeting is on Wednesday 3rd April, at Marr Lodge, Barnsley Road, Doncaster, DN5 7AX, and starts at 7.30pm.
Saturday 13th April - MAG Annual Group Conference 2013
See Above. Registration from 10:00, with the Conference starting promptly at 12:30 and finishing at 17:00. A light lunch will be served from 11:30 until the start of business, on a first come first served basis. Camping is available from 16:00 on the Friday (12th) until 11:00 on the Sunday (14th) within the grounds. Showers & Toilets are available as is food & drink. This venue has full disabled facilities. Location: Fry Club & Conference Centre, Somerdale, Keynsham, Bristol, BS31 2AU.
Free entry, but bring your MAG membership card to gain entry & vote. Please let me know asap if you are interested in the subsidised bus.
Sunday 14th April - Wakefield Hospice 10K Race (Wakefield MAG providing Mobile Race Marshals)
See Above. Starting from Thornes Park. Time: 09:00 (race starts at 09:30). Marshals required, so if you would like to help our good friends at the Hospice, in a non-monetary, yet vital way, do let me know. Marshals required, so if you would like to help our good friends at the Hospice, in a non-monetary, yet vital way, do let me know.
Wednesday 17th April - Leeds MAG Easter Egg Run (rearranged from Wednesday 27th March)
Meeting at Cardigan Fields car park (behind McDonalds on Kirkstall Road) from 6pm, leaving at 6.30pm to ride to Lineham Farm Childrens Centre. Don't forget to bring an egg or two!
Sunday 21st April - Wakefield MAG Monthly Rideout to Rivington Barn, Horwich
Meet 8:30am (leaving at 9:00am) at RedBeck Cafe, Doncaster Road, Wakefield, WF1 4EJ
Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th May - Into The Valley Rally 2013
Dalton Estate, South Dalton, East Yorkshire. Ticket Price £20 Pre-Book; £25 OTG. Tickets available at branch meetings (see above)
Monday 6th May - Wakefield MAG Bike Show
See Above. Our popular annual Bike Show is returning to it's former home, the Wakefield Gala at Clarence Park, Wakefield, on May Day Bank Holiday Monday, 6th May.
Tuesday 14th May - Wakefield MAG Evening Rideout (Destination: Hollingsworth Lake)
Meet 18:30 (leaving at 19:00) at Redbeck Cafe, 339 Doncaster Road, Crofton, Wakefield, WF4 1RT
Saturday 25th May - Leeds MAG '40 Years of Action 1973-2013' Demo Run
The demo run starts at Squires Cafe, Newthorpe, LS25 5LX. Assemble at Squires from 12 noon to leave at 1pm prompt for the police escorted ride through Leeds City Centre, returning to West Leeds Sports and Social Club, where the day will continue at full pace, with a 'show us what you ride' bike show with a prize for the peoples favourite. From 7pm the evening entertainment starts with a rock disco and then the excellent Suicide Blonde. There will be the usual raffles, club price beer and food available. The cost for the evening party is £5 (tickets available at Leeds MAG meetings or on the door)
Wakefield MAG will meet at our usual location (Redbeck Cafe, 339 Doncaster Road, Crofton, Wakefield, WF4 1RT) at 11am, leaving at 11:30 for the ride over to the demo start point.
That's all for this month, and I hope to see you all soon.
Ride Safe .. Ride Free
Steve Travis
Chairman
Wakefield MAG
0772 078 4734
Wakefield MAG meet at the Grey Horse, Kirkgate, Wakefield at 8:30pm every Wednesday. New (and Old) faces are always welcome.