February Newsletter - ABATE Region 20
Genesee and Shiawasee Counties
Legislative Officers-Marte Merrell and Mark
Berger
A fine “Hello” to all Region
20, friends, family and fellow ABATE Members. We had 3 guests and an ABATE transfer
at this month’s Genesee meeting: James Armstrong, Julie and Tom from Region
7 and State Products as well as transfer, Dee Buzzi from Region 19 to us. No
new members at Shiawasee but two guests: Melody Bilger and Joe Nolton. As for attendance, 41 attendees at Genesee and 39 attendees at Shiawasee--Thanks for giving a shit!!!
Members of the month: For Genesee County: Emie Mitchell our fabulous treasurer!!! Member of the month for Shiawasee County was Cindy Malone!!! Woo Hoo, you go girls!!!
Secretary and Treasurer Reports were read
and accepted.
As for Awareness, Mike Poage was elected
Region 20 and ABATE of MI’s member of the year!!! YOU ROCK, MIKE!!!! Mike was also elected to ABATE of MI’s Board!!
Mike and his team did a tremendous job on teaching last year!!! Mike is
very proud to be teaching awareness. And as usual, Mike, WE THANK YOU FOR GIVING
A SHIT!!! Mike wanted to thank everyone who voted for him at Seminar!! The Awareness Team taught 158 students so far in 2010 with 8 classes.
In your calendar books, don’t forget to mark down Region 20’s Awareness Party, Saturday, April 10, 2010. Tickets are $10 per person which, with good attendance, will pay for our Awareness
Billboard—So PASS the word on this VERY important event!! For tickets,
talk to Holly and Mack McCracken 248-770-2478 (Holly) and 313-590-1001 (Mack). AND
Saturday, April 24, 2010 is our Awareness Ride, which is a FREE Event, that gets bigger and better every year!!! A great project Mike will need some assistance on is his wonderful idea to make big billboards to put in
people’s yards. These billboards need to be in high traffic yards and will be a permanent fixture, so all you have to
do is mow around it. If you are interested in having a billboard let Mike know. There will be a billboard party at Mike’s place, but not till the weather gets
better, so STAY TUNED!!! At Shiawasee’s Meeting, Deb Hart and Rich Alderman
were presented with Awareness Certificates. We
are in need of instructors!!! So get a hold of Mike (Kritter) Poage 810-423-8711,
if you are interested!!!
Chief Road Captain , no report at this meeting.
Chief Area Coordinator for Genesee County,
Gerri Lynne (Mama Bear) gave out two patches to Santa John and CB as they are now Area Coordinators!! --Thanks for Giving a Shit!! Mama Bear was having a meeting
for AC’s after the meeting for Gary Slawter’s party. If you are interested
in helping Mama Bear 810-694-7079 or Zip 989-627-5748, get the word out on events, please contact them.
Legislative Officer for Genesee County, Marte
(810-569-8777) received her patch and hug from Randy. She talked about seminar
and that she LEARNED A LOT!!! House Bill 4747 is the no helmet fee free bill,
HB 4907 attaches $100 fee for the rider and passenger to ride helmet free. HB
4960 is for driver’s education courses, which added motorcycle awareness. HB
4634 is for instant verification of proof of insurance. If you go to legislative days, tell your representative that you will
be there. It is important to find out who is running and get involved in their
campaigns, etc. They want to know what ABATE’s agenda is, like the insurance
issue, etc. Marte found a group, NCOM-National Coalition of Motorcyclists that
wants the freedom of choice too. Don’t forget to write letters to your
representatives Need 6 more to override Jennifer’s veto. How can we fire
you up to write??? A dart board of Jenny??
On the ABATE website there is a forum off the main screen that you can give feedback to!! There was a motion made in Genesee to pay for Marte’s MRF membership, which passed in Genesee
and Shiawassee.
Legislative Officer for Shiawasee County,
Mark-Bus (517-455-1611), bergermark48@yahoo.com, informed us that all current legislative bills are on hold due to the budget
concerns. Reminder, Region 20 members are encouraged to become precinct delegates. Over 30 legislators will be in next year’s election, as well as a new governor. Contact your local legislature and encourage them to support our pending legislature
and vote “yes” for our right to Ride Free. Basically find out who
the people are that support us so we can support them!!
Capital Activities: March 2, there will be a Pizza and Pop meeting in Lansing in the Speakers Library. Legislative Days will be held on: March, 17; April 10 or 14??; and May 12.
As for cares and concerns and products: Happy Birthday and Anniversary to everyone in February!!! Everyone is still cheering for Gary Slawter!!! And
in his support, Region 20 is throwing a fundraiser for him on Saturday, March 6th at Kimberly’s pub. Starts at noon with all you can eat spaghetti for $5.
There will be auction items, 50/50, etc. If you would like, please bring a dish to pass. Bruce at Kimberly’s
needs auction items (810-743-7045). 7pm the partying will begin!!! All proceeds
from this event will go Gary Slawter. Let’s all pull together and help
out GARY!!!! Randy says there will be a lot of ABATE members from other regions
attending!! Also, for auction items or doorprizes, ask places for oil change
certificates, etc. When you get donations, get the company information so Aileen
can write thank you letters. Emie and some other ladies will be doing a baked
goods exchange for $5, with the proceeds going to Gary. This means BAKE, BAKE,
BAKE. For more information or to sign up on the Baked Goods List, contact Emi
at 810-410-4348 or justemie@comcast.net.
As for Genesee: Shaggy said hello and thanks for coming to the new people and that he loved Randy’s new glasses!!! Keep Boo Boo in your thoughts, he had gallbladder surgery in 1/10 and will be having
knee replacement surgery on 2/16/10. But happy anniversary to him for one year
of not smoking!! Way to go Boo Boo!!! B-days: Sandy Beals, Cindy Malone, 2Tall and Mac McCracken.
A 25 year anniversary for Dan and Ruth Wright—Holy Cow!!! You two
rock!!!
Last month was Rozz’s B-day so that
is way they were not at Genesee’s meeting, but there was $145 in sales in December.
And as for March’s meeting will have a mystery raffle at both Genesee and Shiawassee meetings. According to Cupcake, new products are available and are going fast, BUT, special orders are being taken!!! So get to it and order!! Woo hoo!!! And both Shaggy/Roz and Cupcake want to know what products you want, so go have a
chat with them.
As for our wonderful Web Master, Stephen,
he says that classifieds are available on the website. Please inform Stephen
of any additions or deletions that are needed. Region 20’s website has
been updated to include events, membership meeting days/times and committee meeting information. If you need to contact our master of webbery (is that even a word??) email Stephen at abate.of.michigan.region20@gmail.com.
Biking for Burns (B4B) had sign up sheets
for those who want to be on the committee. But iyou can still show up to the
1st committee meeting for the 2010, on February 15/10 at 6:30pm at the Side Car Café at Hill and Torrey Roads, Flint. There will be open discussion since this is the 10th annual B4B!!! We will have Alter Ego band there again this year.
Seminar, Seminar, Seminar, like Region 20
didn’t make a presence there!!! From nakedness to drowning Region Secretaries,
we were there. A special thanks to Cindy Malone for the doing the shopping with
the food Region 20 provided as Mac and Holly for the hot dogs, sausage, etc. on Friday night. All
I can say is THANK GOSH for the Big Dogs!!!!! The money that was raised in food
sales covered the costs of the food with some profit. We will work on making
it better next year, but the donation jar went over wonderfully!! I was actually
talking at Seminar about getting our region to participate in the “costume contest” part of seminar and this was
actually brought up at the meeting. I would like to actually take ideas and head
up a small side committee for ideas for 2011 Seminar, so contact me at aileen.m.england@juno.com or 810-919-5078. The Hospitality Room was a
huge success-CB liked it. And as usual, thanks to the most Awesome DJ EVER---Dennis
Mitchell—Good Job!!!! Thanks to Lorenda and the awesome quilt she made
from T-shirts, the Awareness program benefitted from the ticket sales. Thanks
to Margaret for selling tickets!!—hope you got that foot massage. Good
Job Girls!!!! The pool party was fun (well at least for those of you who were
not drowning), but we need more people next year. Lots of classes were held at
Seminar and hopefully a lot of information was gained, I know I learned a lot. Mac
as usual was in the hot tub, but we made sure, no boots or cell phones went into the water.
Marte and Bob went to every class, I think, with the amount of information she brought back. Randy was in pink striped underwear, OK, I missed that!!! Overall,
Region 20 had quite a showing—Way to go Region 20!!! Thanks for Giving
a Shit!!
Region 20 received a Rocker for PAC contributions
of $1,349.00 and State Donations. Region 20 originally was recognized for state
donations of $6,135, however, Randy noticed that we actually gave another $2,000 for the Billboard, bringing our total to
$8,135. Region 20 doesn’t go to the state for anything.
REMINDER to Region 20 members, if you have
any family in the armed forces Randy and Cindy are working on care packages to send them overseas. We need names and addresses of your family members who are in the armed forces in order to get the care
packages to them (contact Randy or Cindy). If you have any hand sanitizer, hot
sauce, energy drinks, socks, shells and cheese, paper, pens, envelopes, magazines, hand held games, flavored water stuff,
baby wipes, toiletries, movies, cigars, B4B or Region 20 items (see Shaggy and Roz or Cupcake to purchase items), books, etc.,
please get those items to Randy or Cindy. Or Mike said he will work with you
to pick up these things. We need to get this wrapped up by Feb. 14th--But
if we need to postpone the delivery for a week, no problem, per Randy, we just want to take care of our special people. Thanks
for Giving a Shit!!!
JoMamma with Membership thanked everyone
on our increase in membership--a 6% increase in membership in 2009 for our region!!! Good Job Everyone!!! Remember to keep ABATE brochures in your saddle bags, in your car, etc.
State Field Meet at Oil City, looks like
we have a new Chairperson, Randy Wilson. That event takes place in June and we
are looking to everyone for ideas, improvements, etc. remember we cannot control
the weather, but if there is lots of rain again, like the last 2 years, please make sure to water ski behind a gasoline powered
golf cart, lol. Mike Poage will be on the committee as well, so feel free to
contact either one of them regarding this event. Phone numbers for both are in
this newsletter.
State Raffle Tickets for the 2010 ElectraGlide
motorcycle raffle are available and will be given away at the Sturgis Toy Run on September 11, 2010 (Holly’s B-day). See Bus or Mac and Holly for tickets. The
person who sells the most tickets will receive a gift from Mac and Holly. Money
will be collected in August by the Ticketmaster-Holly. It is the biggest fundraiser
for ABATE and proceeds go to ABATE of MI.
Eric Wallace of the Awareness Team, thanked
Region 20 for the benefit that was held in 2009 for his daughter. She successfully
had her surgery and received her prosthesis. Just think our money helped Eric
with half the cost of the prosthesis!!! Way to go Region, Eric sure thanks everyone
for giving a shit!!!
One thing that was brought up, when the pledge
is being said, STAND UP, this should be done out of respect for the flag, our country, etc.
Bus brought it up that Cupcake and JoMamma
were on the Public Service Channel at a “Hard Times, Hard Choices” seminar.
JoMamma, you rock, since she kept turning her back to the
It was brought up from our guests about our
parties. Region 20 holds 2 free parties for our region, to give back to our membership. One is our end of the year party, held at Randy and Georgia’s and only costs
us about $100. The second is our Christmas/Holiday party and that only costs
us about $100 as well. We are family, oh, no, don’t get me singing that
Sister Sledge song, I digress……………
50/50 this month at Genesee was won by Dennis
Mitchell and Emie donated back the winnings. And at Shiawasee Rich Hart won and
donated it back. Thanks for giving a shit!!
And Mac apologized if he was an asshole at
Seminar. –No worries, Mac.
Any questions about Region 20, contact Randy
Wilson at randy6984@aol.com or 810-533-6456. Check out our Region’s
website at www.abatemichregion20.com (thanks for giving a shit, Stephen).
And here is something new in my newsletter
a little segment called: Sassy’s Second!!
This is just where I will put some words of wisdom (of course, somebody else’s words, lol), something to remember,
something to think about, etc. So here goes, this month’s Sassy’s
Second is that Region 20 Rocks, I am proud to be a part of it, lots of great people, lots of fun, good parties, safety awareness
and memories!!! Thanks.
--Aileen//Sassy!!
