Club Night - 8th March Eastham Ferry Hotel Ferry Road Eastham CH62 0AU
Issue No 213
March 2016
W I R R A L A D VA N C E D M O TO R C Y C L I S T S Group Council 2015-2016 Web Site
IAM Group 5115 http://www.w-a-m.co.uk
Chairman
Tim Brown
chairman@w-a-m.co.uk
Vice Chairman
Ken Smith
vicechairman@w-a-m.co.uk
Honorary Treasurer
Tim Holme
treasurer@w-a-m.co.uk
Membership
Nina Jeffries
membership@w-a-m.co.uk
Associate Coordinator
Derek Jeffries
associatecoordinator@w-a-m.co.uk
Chief Observer
Mike Boston
chiefobserver@w-a-m.co.uk
Honorary Secretary
Rob Cooper 0151 648 4503
secretary@w-a-m.co.uk
Events Organiser
Dave Spotswood events@w-a-m.co.uk
Newsletter Editor & WebMeister
Peter Lovatt
newsletter@w-a-m.co.uk
Minute Secretary & Social Media
Steve Lord
socialmedia@w-a-m.co.uk
Group Shop
Martin Titley 0151 632 3570
groupshop@w-a-m.co.uk
Gift Aid Coordinator
Tim Holme
giftaid@w-a-m.co.uk
Ride Out Coordinator
Rob Tutchings
rideouts@w-a-m.co.uk
Other Council members Lindsay Boston Carl Mason Cliff Evans Graeme Thow
MAGAZINE TEAM:
CONTACT WAM
Editor: Peter Lovatt
Rob Cooper Coopers Upholstery The Old Bank Everton Valley Liverpool L5 0RH
Duplication: C3 Imaging, Liverpool Distribution: The Post Office! 2
As I type this the day after the AGM, it doesn’t seem that long since the January club night and the topic of the night was ‘how to become and observer’. It was well attended see the picture right. All well timed, as the first of the Courses kicks off this year on the 12th March. (on the 5th there is an Observer Training day) As for the AGM, there has been a few changes, see the revised list of who does what opposite. Tim did a good presentation of the past year, aided by Rob on the ride out resume. There were also some certificates to hand out on the night, and the first was to George Pearson for Observer of the Year, below:-
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A certificate of Appreciation went to Ken for doing a lot of background work on the FLC course in 2015
Below, Lindsay got a lovely bouquet of flowers and a Certificate of Appreciation for being Treasurer for the last 12 years
And finally, much to my surprise, I was awarded the Gary Clarke Memorial Trophy. You crafty Council members - you kept that one a well guarded secret!!!
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Congratulations to...
Derek Horton
Francis Lawlor
On passing their IAM tests
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WAM Dates Observers Day kicks off the year on Saturday 5th March FLC 1 starting the following week on the 12th March to 23rd April FLC 2 is 4th June to 9th July FLC 3 is 4th September to 15th October Sunday 1st May is a joint WAM and Chester Motorrad ride out (provisional - to be confirmed) Bikesafe dates April 2nd/3rd, May 21st/22nd, June 18th/19th, July 16th/17th, August 20th/21st, September 10th/11th, October 8th/9th
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WIRRAL ADVANCED MOTORCYCLISTS
Diary of Events www.w-a-m.co.uk *************************
March 8th Club Night - Gail Biddulph - NWAM *************************
April 12th Club Night - Mark Lewis IAM Director of Operations *************************
This is the link for the WAM Official Forum, set up for Members of Wirral Advanced Motorcyclists ONLY. It is a forum for Associates, Observers, and members of WAM to discuss Official Group Rides out, riding techniques, FLC matters, and similar topics. To join you MUST give your name and Postcode when you Subscribe. Group name: WAMOfficialForum Group home page: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/WAMOfficialForum Subscribe: to subscribe to the group send a BLANK email to WAMOfficialForum-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk Unsubscribe: to UNsubscribe to the group send a BLANK email to WAMOfficialForum-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk Once your submission has been approved, you can then post emails. 11
South Cheshire Advanced Motorcyclists have passed-on this message about a blood bike service that members may be interested in assisting. Not sure where they are up with this, as I received it a week before this issue went to press at the start of February. Pete
Potential blood bikes service for the Countess of Chester. A quick update for you and to give you an idea of the timeline for a potential service for the Countess of Chester. A meeting was scheduled for January where The Countess of Chester was to give more details on the deliveries they wish BB to make (Where from, where too and what time of day) as part of a trial. Also historical data on the number of deliveries that have been made previously to give us some idea of the workload. I'll put these together and work out an approximate annual budget it will cost the Charity (remember we do this entirely free of charge). This is to ensure we can afford it. To put this in perspective our volunteer fundraisers brought ÂŁ100k into the Charity coffers in 2015. I'd then like to convene a meeting, probably in the Middlewich / Winsford area, sometime in February, to ensure we have enough riders who can commit their time. In case Mark or I didn't mention you've got to be lucky enough to be 30 and over to ride one of the Charities marked bikes or 25 to ride you own (+ IAM Advanced + successful SSBB assessment ride.) If the money and rider situation seems reasonable - this can go in front of the Charity Trustees for their final say in Feb. This could potentially be our 3rd agreement with a Cheshire institution (Leighton Hospital and NW Human Milk Bank in Chester are already on board) and this will have implications on the name of our Charity. If it's a YES - there is a lot to organise! My best wishes to you all, Martin Huxley Trustee and N. Staffs / Cheshire Area Lead thegooddrh@gmail.com Shropshire and Staffordshire Blood Bikes (SSBB) ________________________________________ 12
Social Media After the AGM, I will be taking on the newly created role of looking after our Social Media which includes Facebook and Twitter plus any other media we plan to move into! Having a 21 year old son, I know there are other Medias used as well such as Instagram and You Tube, etc but Facebook and Twitter are still the most popular currently. For our Group and the IAM to survive in the future, we have to find ways of attracting younger people to be members. Social Media is seen as one of the ways to attract the under 30’s to sign up, pass a Skill for Life course and then become a regular member and hopefully, a Local Observer. IAM have been very keen to promote Social Media and have asked Groups at last year’s National Conference to use Facebook and Twitter to promote their activities which will hopefully recruit younger members in the process. So since late November, I have been looking at ways to expand our Twitter coverage to begin with. The first thing was to expand the number of people and organisations that we follow and post more Tweets, so that other users will start to follow us. When a Follower re-tweet’s your Tweet, it means that they like what you have said or the image posted and then, your Tweet is seen by all those people who follow the person or organisation. So in the case of the IAM for example, they have over 10,000 followers! So my first task was to look at tweeting when we attended Motorcycle Live in late November. I tweeted images of us on the way down and on the manufacturer’s stands during the day (see our Twitter page). When it was a manufacturer, I also included their Twitter name in the text, so they would receive it as well. The image of Ken on the Ducati stand below was re-tweeted by Ducati to their 21,500 UK followers. Our total re-tweets for the day were seen by 62,900 followers across the UK! At our January monthly meeting, we presented Fran Lawlor his certificate for passing his test. Fran is our youngest ever pass and joined us via Bike Safe. With IAM re-Tweeting and others as well, this Tweet was seen by over 17,000 Twitter users! So going forward, I will be looking to use software which can co-ordinate and
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schedule our Facebook and Twitter posts automatically. Our latest posts are to attract new Associates for our first FLC 1 which going forward are to be called SfL (Skill for Life), so the marketing fits especially as new Associates have signed up for a Skill for Life course and we very often have to explain what a Fixed Length Course is. If you are not on Twitter or Facebook already why not sign up and create an account? On Twitter, you can start following @WirralAMC and then, the people and organisations we follow as well and you will see there is an active biking community out there! If you are not interested in having an account, you can still see our Twitter feed live by just searching for our Twitter page @WirralAMC on the internet and you will be able to see all our posts and re-tweets to date, including the photos from Motorcycle Live. Steve Lord.
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Half-price Skill for Life course. If you are 30 and under and thinking about an advanced riding course, then see our half-price offer. Funded by Wirral Advanced Motorcyclists in conjunction with Wirral Council and Merseyside Road Safety Partnership, we have negotiated a special offer with the IAM. The offer: • Book an IAM Skill for Life course at £149 with Wirral Advanced Motorcyclists during 2016 and receive a 50% rebate on successful completion of the course • All you need is a full licence, a road legal bike and the desire to learn new skills More: http://www.w-a-m.co.uk/joining.html or contact Derek Jeffries, associatecordinator@w-a-m.co.uk 07957 341692. WAM has A5 leaflets and A3/A4 posters available for distribution - if you know somewhere these may be displayed please contact Derek. 14
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DISCLAIMER:-
The articles published herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Advanced Motorists Ltd, or the Wirral Group of Advanced Motorcyclists. They are the opinions of individual contributors and are published with the view that free expression promotes discussion and interests. So you have been warned. Interested in doing the Advanced Car Test? Wirral Advanced Motorists are the people to see. Go to www.wirraliam.co.uk