Summer Hummer Report

by Betty Roberge

The word of the month is VENDORS. If you haven’t already heard, we now have a committee of three as co-coordinators for Hummer vendors. Lauri Shakal, Betsy Jennings, and Kay Graettinger. Vendor invitations and applications went out in October to 100+ vendors in anticipation of next year’s event, with vendor commitments and deposits expected back to us in January. If you know of a vendor that you think would be a good “fit” or has asked how they could be part of our event, forward the info to Lauri at: laurishakal@yahoo.com, Remember that the vendor coordinators can only bring the vendors to the event. It is our responsibility to make sure they are successful there and want to come back. That’s part of our philosophy to make the event bigger and better. If the vendors are happy, we’ll be successful.

And talking about being successful…. our Pavilion fund continues to grow and according to “Worm,” construction should start when frost leaves the ground in the spring. “If we build it, they will come.” Hopefully, the bids will be in by the time this newsletter is published and they will be favorable enough to fit in our master plan. That would allow us to have some final numbers for discussion at the November board meeting.

Sponsorship requests also went out in the mail in October. If you are a regional rep, please get your region involved in soliciting $500 in sponsorships. You could bring in one $500 sponsor, or (5) $100 sponsors. The more sponsors we have for the event, the more options we will have to offer our members at the Hummer itself. If every region succeeds in achieving this goal, we will be well on our way to making 2022 a huge and successful event.

The committee is still waiting on a few contracts from musical entertainment acts. When those are in, we will announce who you can look forward to listening to next June. We expect the headliner bands on both Friday and Saturday nights to provide us with some excellent music.

Again, and I cannot express this often enough…the Hummer is our time to let our hair down and have some fun. We all work very hard during the year to make this organization one of the premium SMRO’s in the country – so we deserve this time to relax. BUT – this is also our biggest state fundraiser of the year. In order to continue to do the work that we do in Madison and Washington, DC, we need the numbers, and that comes from good attendance. Regional Reps – talk about the Summer Hummer at EVERY meeting. Let’s get our membership involved enough to want to camp and participate. This year we are bringing back “Regional Themes.” Do you remember the Water Buffalos? Or the Pirates ARGHHH? Maybe it was the 7 Bees! Judging will take place on Saturday. Whose region will come out on top? I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that the judges are already all fired up.

Let’s have 1,000 attendees in 2022. We can do it if we try. Why do we want to? Because – Motorcycling Matters!

As always, forward any and all Hummer ideas to: robert.grasse59@gmail.com or news30letter@outlook.com