Deadlines and Commitments What to Leave In, What to Leave Out

Executive Report by John Reblin

So how many times have you written 2023 so far, this new year? It makes such a mess to do that. You give the heavy sigh and mutter a swear word or two as you take your pen and try to make the 3 into a 4 without making too big of an ink stain on the paper, right?

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas then celebrated the New Year with good intent. I like to take a look back to see what I accomplished, how was I successful, and what I could do to improve. I know, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Looking back, I see we have work to do to get the message out to riders to Ride Your Own Ride. We need all road users to work together, slow down, avoid operating under the influence, and operate within your skill level. While autos, pedestrians and bicyclists’ fatalities are lower than last year motorcycles are higher than last year. That’s disturbing and we need to work hard at lowering the number. We need to partner with other groups to share the message, mentor, and work together to lower crashes.

For the next year, I am looking at how we can improve our messaging here at ABATE of Wisconsin. How can we get more members, get more people involved in the organization, and how can we make sure our voice is loud and heard at Lobby Day? I think we will have some great discussions at Officer’s Training on both of these topics. When we have events are we able to target the nonmembers and have the conversation to convince them to become a member for less than 10 cents a day? That will help us be successful. Can we as a group be able to explain what we are all about and what we do and why? The regions are important in getting the new members and afterwards making sure that they are welcome and an important part of the ABATE family. Krissy Bowe will be helping us with marketing the organization and providing some tools to help us ask for memberships. She has taken over the role of marketing and has really made some marks on social media by sharing some of our informational videos.

Steve Panten, our Legislative Chair, will have some seriously good information on our Legislative Agenda. He will be there to explain the talking points and why what we are talking about is important to us as motorcyclists. He and others will help guide us through the Lobby Day procedure in making appointments and who to inform when and where the meeting is scheduled before we get there. We want to make sure our legislators hear what we want and are willing to help us out. Not good with speaking before groups? No problem. We will have people there that can do the speaking, but it is important that you make the appointment and are in the group, so your representative knows that his constituent is in the group.

I am also looking forward to hearing what the Gilmore brothers have to say to get us fired up. Both “Chopper” and “Slider” are coming in to get us fired up. Officer’s Training is a great learning tool for the new officer in the organization. It is also a place for the older, experienced members to refresh the basics, and help guide the newbie on how things are done.

Other items on the list of things to do? Well, after talking to Steve we want to do another summit or two and get the word out on the issues we see for the future of motorcycling in Wisconsin. And we cannot forget pushing back on the electric vehicle mandates along with other ideas coming out of the NTSB, NHTSA and all the other alphabet government groups out there.

Of course, we have our Lobby Day February 22, 2024, and I hope you all are there. Steve will be discussing this in depth, but it is the most important day of the year for us! Make sure you get your appointments made and be there. Make sure you have your calendar marked to join us in Madison.

Election season is coming up in our government, remember now is the time to build those relationships by helping those out that understand what we are about and are willing to listen and help us. Something easy like handing out information or walking in a parade this summer can go a long way.

To help us get the word out the Wisconsin DOT and the Motorcycle Safety Advisory Council, MoSAC, is putting together a conference at Waukesha’s WCTC June 7-9. There we will be discussing what we are seeing going on as far as crashes and fatalities and how to prevent these. So far planned but not all confirmed is Steve doing the Future of Motorcycling, Gary Klinker doing a session on braking and curves, Vicki Sanfelipo and Accident Scene Management, and a speaker on getting ready to take your bike on an endurance ride plus more. There will also be a lot of time to be able to see what is involved in different training courses and being able to get your bike on the asphalt, how to test your skill level and how you can improve it. Stay tuned for more details.

AND make sure you mark your calendar for October 11-13^th, 2024 to celebrate ABATE of Wisconsin’s 50th anniversary! Spend the day or the weekend with us as we celebrate a milestone! Details are in the newsletter!

Ride Your Own Ride,

John