Membership Report

By Dave “Twit” Linberg

WooHoo!  Summer Hummer!

Do you have your advance tickets for the Summer Hummer yet? Are you signed up to work a shift or two? We can do this!

For all of you who plan on attending the Freedom Rally in Iowa or other SMRO’s big summer parties start looking for your membership card now. If you can’t find it (you will need it for the discounted price at their gates—and some states won’t let you in at all if you are not an SMRO member). If you can’t find your membership card you can renew early and get a new one that way… or contact the state office and we can send you a duplicate card. Do not wait until the last minute. Allow at least a week for the card to be printed and mailed out to you. Don’t rely on the email-fix. In past years some of the states would not accept an emailed copy of the card.

More important than the other states, remember to support your own state. Buy an advance Hummer ticket for yourself, talk your buddies into traveling with you. Buy ABATE of Wisconsin State Raffle tickets—if you can’t use the $5,000 I will invest it for you (for a reasonable fee, of course.)

If you bought a new membership during the period when we were sending out the $10 Summer Hummer discount coupons, you can redeem it at the gate or you can send it in with the advance ticket order form contained in this newsetter.

Bring non-members to the Hummer and help them start their ABATE careers with a bang. Memberships will be available at the gate and they’ll get the $10 discount when they buy their membership and weekend ticket! Stimulate the economy through the coffers of ABATE of Wisconsin and the vendors who support us by setting up on site.

Sign up to volunteer to work a shift or two in one of the work stations (see page 20 for the volunteer coordinators.) Working a shift or two will give you that warm feeling of being part of the team that comes from preventing someone else from having to work three, four, five, or more shifts because too many people couldn’t be bothered.

Even if you don’t work a “formal” shift or two, help us all out by doing your part to keep the grounds clean. Use the garbage cans that are everywhere. When you use the restroom/shower building, treat it like it’s at your grandma’s house and she’s going to kick your butt if you make a mess.

To encourage proper mingling, I will be promoting and dropping hints to the answers for  “Twit’s Mingle Hunt”. This year, the forms will be “free” at the gate. Pick up a list of questions at the main gate and go out and mingle to find out the answers. Bring your completed Mingle Hunt back to me at the bar on Saturday from 3-5pm. Turn it in with a $5 donation and you will receive a complementary beverage chip and be entered in a drawing for $100 in ABATE memberships or products or state raffle tickets (must be redeemed by 6pm that day.) The only “equipment” you will need is a willingness to visit with your brothers and sisters and an ink pen or pencil. I’m looking forward to this and I hope you will too. Of course any profits from the endeavor will go to ABATE of Wisconsin to protect your motorcycle rights and safety. It’s a win-win game.

ABATE Acres and the Summer Hummer belong to you, the members. Help us make them both all that they can be.  See you there!