MMA Chairman
Colin MacDiarmid
September 2008

Hi my fellow riders!  What a great month we have just concluded! Between great riding weather (though a little(?) warm in the valley), Too Broke For Sturgis, and some exciting reorganizing in some of our districts, it has been a great time to be a biker, particularly as a member of an MRO. 

Speaking of Too Broke, it was one of the largest gatherings of motorcyclists I have seen in a long time!  There were hundreds of bikers on Saturday when we were there, including many, many who had come up early and camped, in everything from lean-to’s to those fortunate enough to have motor coaches that were set up better than my duplex.  There was a really high turn-out of both MMA members and also ABATE members who were the sponsoring organization.  With the extremely close ties that the High Country District has with our Yavapai Chapter of ABATE (almost everyone up here is a member of both organizations and attend each others meetings regularly), Meg and I had even more friends that we could share some quality time with.  As I stated before, a large number of MMA members were in attendance from many areas of the state.  Hollywood and Vine (do these two actually have a home, or do thy just ride every weekend?),  Bo and Marci and their Verde Valley crew, Dick Davis aka Turtle (manning the first aid tent), folks from Pinon Pines (the meeting place of Yavapai ABATE), and too many others to mention by name were there.  Meg and I couldn’t walk anywhere without running into friends within two or three minutes.  It was also great to talk to Bobbi Hartmann for a few minutes, too.  If you’ve never experienced Too Broke, I highly recommend adding it to your riding calendar for next year.

A very important time for keeping/adding motorcycle rights legislators is just around the corner, and it is not too soon to help those that have been helping us.  As Ray Huston has said at our last Board meeting and at a Westsiders meeting, the upcoming primary election in September is every bit as important, if not more so, than the election in November.

The reason the primaries are so vital to all of our freedoms and safety is that we select who will actually be on the ballot for the general election in November.  If we don’t get our candidates on the ballot, it doesn’t matter who is running in November.

Therefore it is vital that we get to know our legislators and those running against them in the primary elections, so that we know who we should support right now!  If that means meeting them one on one, attending town hall meetings to see/hear all the candidates, or looking up their voting records (all online on the az.gov. site), we need to now where they stand and how strong their knowledge base is of key issues for us.  If you know a candidate who has been open, honest, and in our corner, put a bumper sticker on your cage, put up signs in your front yards and those of your friends and brothers and sisters, or help them meet key people in our local districts so they know better who we are and what our concerns are, as well as we getting to know them better----and giving them the message that we are organized and we vote!

On this note, at a recent Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce social gathering, a candidate for the 1st Congressional District was “campaigning” with brochures and verbiage and approached Mike Ruddell and I asking us what was important to us.  Mike quickly asked him for his stand on the HIIPA legislation and we got this total deer in the headlights look from him, as he didn’t have a clue as to what we were talking about.  This immediately indicated to both Mike and I that he certainly wouldn’t be getting our vote or support in the coming primary.

Finally, a word of congratulations to two districts that have taken giant steps in revitalizing themselves in the past month or so;  Verde Valley has elected Big Bo into the position of Assistant D.M. and he is already firing up lots of folks in that district.  Another district that has been going through some major reorganizing over the past three to four months is the Westsiders District.  With a lot of extra effort by some key people, led by Michelle and Nomad, they are going to be hitting the ground running and really getting things back on track in that district, and I know they will have a lot of success with their efforts.

Well I’m going to sign off for now, so that I can get some bugs in my teeth and mess up my hair in the wind while I still can before my ankle surgery.

May all of you share in the camaraderie that can only exist within an organization such as ours, stay safe, and watch out for those cagers.  

Yours in the wind,
 Colin “Cinders” MacDiarmid
 Chairman, MMA of AZ

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