With the recently completed Gypsy Tour to Sydney and back its time to reflect on success of that and future events in the IIRA, these things only happen by dogged determination of a small number of people in your association that do all the “grunt” work for such memorable times together. So what keeps the fibre of the association together, one is the events that are offered which can be a simple monthly run or the quarterly rallies for others it may only be the meetings at the Pascoe Vale Hotel but another is the monthly electronic magazine Smouldering Embers and the quarterly Smoke Signals, this is an important link for members that are not fortunate to live in the metro area so it means so much, we have been lucky with individuals such as Chris Horner & Guy Allen as editors in the past but now the baton has to pass onto somebody else as Guy’s commitments are heavy and he has to reluctantly step down from the role as editor, at this point I would like to offer him a sound grateful thank you from not only myself but everyone in this Association for the effort he has put into both medias in the last 5 or 6 years but life has moved on. Replacing such a person is not easy and I suggest it’s a twin role rather than one person as in the past doing both magazines, so beside a Red Plate administrator we now need an Editor for Smoke Signals and another for the Smouldering Embers don’t be shy and put your hand up to do something back for your Association we need action now to keep the enthusiasm up, we can give you a hand and supply material for help.
Meanwhile the Gypsy Tour and big hand from everybody to Chris Horner for putting on such an event and it was fantastic, the camaraderie of a group traveling on Indian’s over a long distance whether new or old is a feeling that cannot be described unless you have done it before, a typical picture above fixing Sandy’s bike on a remote road when out of the blue a guy “Chook” who has ridden with us on the Crazy Horse Rallies pulls up to help talk about a “fluke” of timing. The weather held out most of the time except the last day when I was waylaid with food poisoning and it “bucketed down” for a short period was acceptable, last week one of the participants wanted to pay his deposit for the next one in two years, talk about getting in early but shows how successful it all was. There will be another few new rallies coming up later this year and they will be limited to certain numbers when the Expression of Interest comes out don”t hesitate and yes we still need a editor to print such newsworthy items, think about it.
