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Well who’d have thought it eh? Open House issue 50! At a rough estimate, since the magazine started, that’s about 5,400 photographs and 1,225,000 words (and a whole ruck of punctuation).
Who would have imagined back in 1991 that small group of raggy-arsed disabled bikers would, just 14 years later, be the worlds leading disabled riders group, with over 4,500 members. Who would have imagined that we would be responsible for helping other similar groups to set up in France, Norway, and Japan? Who would have imagined that we would become the official assessment body for disabled riders?
But most of all who would have imagined that we would be directly involved in helping over five thousand disabled people to enjoy the freedom and independence of motorcycling (not to mention countless more who have been inspired by the work of the NABD).
I estimate that over the years I have personally written over 115,000 words for Open House, you would have thought that by now I would have more than one finger that can type, but alas the other digits all seem happy to be passive observers.
Right, that’s enough waffle, let’s get down to the business of the moment.......
New NABD Office:
After a very traumatic move we have now settled into our new office premises. Shirley has once again been chained to the desk (this time due to health and safety regulations we have had to leave the chain long enough for her to reach the toilet). The new premises are warm, dry and relatively quiet, which could never have been said of the cold, damp, noisy wooden shed we have moved out of (which has now been demolished leaving a much more picturesque pile of rubble). We will have a postal re-direct from the old address for the next twelve months until everybody is aware of the move. The office is open 10.00am - 4.00pm Monday to Friday and there is an answerphone and e-mail for enqiries outside of openning hours. (Contact details on page 2 and page 28).
You’ve Been Nabbed 14:
The NABD national rally 2005 is fast approaching (13th - 15th of May). By huge popular demand we will be keeping the site we used last year at Astle Park, near Chelford in Cheshire. All who attended seemed quite smitten with the site and the general layout of the event and we are firm believers in the old adage ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’. This doesn’t mean there won’t be some noticeable changes. This year we will be presenting ten excellent live bands covering a range of musical tastes. Both marquees will have discos and live bands as last year. The comedy club will be returning to its original afternoon spot. We will even have an amazing magic show. 100% Biker magazine will be sponsoring and running the Bike/Trike Show with some stunning trophies on offer. There will be new activities for the kids including kids quad racing (as always your kids get free entry if they are 14 or under, but they will not be allowed in the main marquee). As always there will be a great range of trade stand, cheap beer, wines, and spirits, and good food. It is going to be a fantastic weekend and the real beauty of it is, it raises funds for the work of the NABD.
Last year the NABD national rally raised over £11,000.00 for NABD funds, this year we hope to do even better. If you’ve been to a You’ve Been Nabbed rally before then you know how good they are, if you haven’t been before you are definitely missing out on one hell of a party.
NABD Draw 2005:
This year we will be raffling off a gorgeous 1100cc Kawasaki Trike, which was donated by NABD member Tim Bohr. We had considered selling the trike for around £5,000.00 (if I’d have had the money I would have bought it myself, it’s a real stunner). But following the success of the previous national draw (the Beach Bastard Trike raised almost £10,000.00) we have decided to use it as the first prize in the 2005 draw. The draw will be launched at the Leeds Lions rally at Easter and tickets will be on sale from NABD stalls at events throughout the year. We will also be including a few books of tickets in the mail out of the next issue of Open House. So you will not only get a chance to win it yourself but you can also sell some tickets to your mates and help make this fund-raising draw as successful as the last. The second and third prizes will be detailed in the next Open House.
Lottery Grant:
The grant we were awarded from the national lottery ‘Community Fund’ has recently reached the end of its first year. The grant enabled us to employ Shirley as our full time office administrator.
At the end of each of the three years of the grant we have to submit a set of monitoring forms and a report on the progress of the project. I am happy to tell you that the lottery people were very pleased with the impact it has made on the administration of the NABD and they were extremely impressed with the work of the NABD in general.
I think all of you would agree that having the office staffed on a full time basis has been a major factor in the recent vast improvements within the NABD.
However I must remind you that Shirley is the only paid employee of the NABD and much credit also goes to the dedicated volunteers such as the national committee and local representatives who have all pulled together to make this association the world leader in the field of motorcycling for disabled people.
New Representatives:
Carrying on from an initiative started by Gaz McCabe, Gary Seddon (Rep’s Liaison) has almost doubled the number of NABD Rep’s.
The Rep’s list on page 28 is far from complete (due to a technical hitch) but there will be a full list of Rep’s details in the next issue. In the meantime the list should be on the NABD web site www.nabd.org.uk. I welcome all of the fine folk who have stepped up to join the ranks, and I hope to meet them all personally at You’ve Been Nabbed 14 if not before.
Adaption Information:
Several people have asked for a regular section in Open House giving basic details of the adaption kits available, so Billy (adaptions co-ordinator) and myself have put together a concise article on page 31 which will be a regular feature in this magazine. Of course this only gives basic information of the most common adaptions. To give full details on all of the available options would take up half a dozen pages or more, so the more in-depth adaption articles have been mounted on the NABD web site.
Carole Nash Comes Up Trumps:
As I reported in the last issue of Open House we have been unable to get free stall space at the NEC bike show for the past two years, and we don’t have the budget to pay for stall space there (it is the only show that asks for payment from the NABD). The problem has now been solved by the good graces of Carole Nash Insurance Services 0800 298 5500 who have agreed to sponsor stall space for the NABD at future NEC shows.
NABD Web Forum:
That clever man Jim Meredith (NABD Webmaster) has now set-up a forum via the NABD web site. If you go to www.nabd.org.uk then click on the Forum link. It is fairly straight-forward to register on the forum then you can get into some very odd discussions with some extremely odd people, but it can be a lot of fun and it can even prove useful for getting information about life, the universe, and everything. (Not that it will necessarily be the correct information).
Open House:
After the last issue of Open House being delayed by a couple of weeks by the office move, it was then delayed a further three weeks by the printers for no good reason. Not being the forgiving type of person I have now found a new printing company called Kelvin in Stalybridge who have guaranteed a five day turnaround (and they are a bit cheaper). We still have the benefit of the final repro being done by Steve Smith and his crew at News International free of charge so the standard of the magazine should remain as high as ever.
F@€&£ng Computers!
I’m sure there are several other things I should cover in this bit but you’ll have to forgive my lack of concentration. I gave up smoking on January 2nd and I was handling it pretty well until today when my e-mail and internet access both disappeared. This was followed by my having to listen to twenty five minutes of dreadfully inane music while waiting to get through to a completely useless technical support monkey whose expertise is limited to an ability to mispronounce almost every word he says while attempting to sound even more fed-up than me! Now I think I could cheerfully kill anybody who is daft enough to speak to me!
I trust that you are having a better day than I. ..................that’s it, I’m off to the pub for a couple of days until this damn PC learns who’s boss!
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