I have a suggestion – We have a community of bikers here andas a community we are pretty darn good I would say at sharing our resources. I’veseen lots of examples of unselfish sharing.
Are there tools/equipment that we could share within ourcommunity that people need rarely but could use with a small donation a littleto the site charity (LAA or Serv or whatever is the current charity).
For instance, I saw Columbo posting about wanting to borrowa trailer. A couple of months ago that would have been a useful option for metoo. If we had a LB trailer stored somewhere useful (like OMC if they wouldagree) people could borrow it for a small donation – say 10/15 quid. I’d bet itwould get 20/30 uses a year, so that would be good money to the charity. Ifthat was considered sensible I’d be happy to splash out on the trailer in thefirst place.
Obviously this isn’t intended to do LB friendly recoveryfirms (such as triplesteve) out of business, but I think there are some thatwould happily pay for recovery and others that want a DIY type solution.
Maybe if this is tried out and doesn’t cause issues (nodamage to the trailer, the trailer being returned promptly, no hassle for theperson/organisation storing it), this principle could apply to other resourcesto the benefit of our community and the charities we support.
Very good idea and indeed our community is good as i have discovered again today with Steve (rapid bike recovery)… would you be willing to splash out for a ready to go to the track van to hire out instead of a trailer though:Whistling:
If it gets damaged I’d hope (because this is within a community) they would put it right. Sooner or later some muppet will roll it under an articulated lorry, but hopefully by that time it has helped some people out and raised some money…
It’s a really nice idea Simon and probably should make us and the admin team think again about how we can monetise the LB brand, so that we can support members in a more formal way. I know the BMW GS club owns a full set of tools that can be borrowed on a deposit basis. If we were able to raise money more formally through advertising, subscriptions, sponsorship etc we could perhaps get to the point where we could hire some space at the OMC to store useful things that as an organisation we buy, like trailers, tyre warmers for the racers, gazebos for Joby etc! Don’t know if Shane is due to be replaced, but if so, perhaps it could be someone who has good commercial experience and some clear views on how we can make money for the common good.
Apologies if this point has been raised before, I know there has been reluctance at the idea of an annual subscription fee, but surely there must be some value in an organisation with 16,000 members, all with a common interest, many of whom spend a considerable amount of money on pursuing that interest.
Rusty was bringing the news in that 1m post thread… seems like the 1IQ5mentalproblems is sort of deported so even I’m trying to rise some people blood pressure… and in general I’m such a lovely person (sarcasm)
