NW Report February-March 2016

12^th February: – Board Meeting, MAG Central

Attended the Board Meeting minutes available at www.mag-uk.org.

13^th February: - NC Meeting, Wren Hall, Wroxhall

Attended the MAG NC meeting at Wroxhall, minutes available at www.mag-uk.org

14^th February: - Fred Hill Run

This was our 12^th North West Fred Hill Run but the first one from a new location, The Petre Arms, home of Red Rose MAG. Weather was great and good turnout.

20^th February: - Red Rose Rock Night

It was a very successful first event for Red Rose MAG making around £250 profit for MAG. The pub which hosted the event, The Judge Walmsley at Whalley was very supportive and bodes well for future events.

28^th February: - NW AGM

The NW MAG AGM was held at the Petre Arms, home of Red Rose MAG. Many thanks to Oliver Rose for being the NC observer. There were around 30 attendees and some lively debate ensued. No real changes in the Regional Officer positions with me still at the helm.

1-3^rd April: - Manchester Event City Bike Show

This was the 5^th year this show has run and gong from strength to strength. I did a contra-deal with the organisers this year and for assistance with the advertisement of this event we got a premium position in Hall 1 FOC. It certainly paid off as we had record memberships taken sold substantial amount of badges and patches, over £50 of donations and £500 worth of event tickets. Lembit was in attendance on Saturday helping out at the stall and negotiating with our sponsors. I managed to secure some stage time on the Saturday afternoon and we did an impromptu “What has MAG ever done for us” It all went down well and we got applauded off the stage. Attendance figures were up on both days which I pointed out to Andrew Greenwood, the show organiser, could well have been due to swapping his advertisements from Morton’s Media to The Road! We also distributed thousands of leaflets in the NW through the local MAG groups and the Alliance.

We all got to know the girls on the Principal Insurance Stand which was just across from the MAG Stand. The promotional girls were happy to pose on the stand with the bikes and staff and this also attracted the crowds. Principal will be sponsors at the Farmyard, Into the Valley, Yorkshire Pudding and Stormin the Castle rallies. They are also going to be at the NABD rally so looking forward to meeting up with them all again there.

Once again one of the bikes on our stand won an award and considering that there were over 1000 bikes at the show and maybe 20 awards given out, it is quite impressive that we have won two years on the trot now. The bikes are supplied by Paul Gervin, a local MAG member, and this year he lent us the V8 Chopper that won best custom last year with the 6.5Ltr small block Chevy Engine, and also a 1955 Pan Head Harley Davidson that won best Chrome at this year’s show.

National IT Matters

The new database is now running with live information and Leslie is working closely with Julie at the office to iron out any bugs. Phase 1 complete. I am continuing to maintain the main website until the new one is ready for launch. I am finding it difficult at the moment as we have had a crackdown at work on being able to get through the firewall to ftp do other servers and so all having to be done from home.

Local Group news activities

All NW groups functioning well although not had chance to get about for a while. Salford MAG have moved venues to the Bird in Hand, Eccles.

Best Regards,

Tony Cox, NW Regional Rep.