Ah well, sadly, you'd have read about it anyway in the next Pronto which is due at the printers on Monday and which we're aiming to get posted out over the Easter weekend. So I'll simply cut and paste, word for word, what the Pronto article says...but it's not good
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BMF News One thing that’s put me in a gloomy mood today is that I’ve got to announce the cancellation of the DSC’s participation in this year’s BMF show at the East of England Showground up in Peterborough. As regular club members will know, this has been a bit of a highlight in the calendar, giving ordinary club members a chance to show off their bikes to the public for the weekend, talk about Ducatis all day long, and get around to seeing the rest of the show. It’s always a good craic and the show is worth going to in its own right, since it usually has a good display of interesting bikes from the whole of the biking spectrum as well as, quite literally, shed loads of bling and lots of bargains to be had in the way of boots, lids, leathers and accessories. There’s also an awful lot of tat on display and that’s half the fun, sifting out the heavily discounted top of the range Shoei from the piles of cheap flip-up Chinese lids, or those bargain titanium bolts from amongst the purple anodised aluminium nightmares. All human life is there as well and I don’t think I will ever forget the woman with the bright pink candyfloss beehive hairdo, leather jacket festooned with chains, a leather mini-skirt that was so short that the tops of her fishnet stockings were on show and teetering about on huge black Goth boots with a six inch platform – you don’t normally see pensioners dressed like that! For the last 6-7 years, the DSC members have organised a strong club presence at the show, winning the ‘best club display’ in 2004 (I think) and it’s been a great opportunity for DSC folks to spend a weekend full of beer, barbeques, bikes, banter, beer, beer and kicking back having a couple of beers with your mates as well as chatting to the public about Ducatis. Not to mention the fact that all the DSC helpers get a free weekend pass to the show and the weather is always glorious, except when it rains - which is most years. This year, sadly, it’s not going to happen. Making sure that a good time is had by all takes an awful lot of organisation, I organised it last year along with a lot of help from the usual suspects of the BHCN region. This year a combination of me and several BHCN members struggling with health issues means that it will be more than anybody can do to get it off the ground. Rather than do it badly, the decision is that it’s better to regroup and do it better in 2010. I guess some people will still be going to the show, so I hope to bump into a few familiar faces. Jools ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I take all the responsibility for this. I was in the frame to organise the whole shebang, but Mrs Jools MS has been a bugger to fight these last couple of months and we've been doing the rounds of consultants etc.
By the time I got my head out of my arse and looked up, I realised that I'd done bugger all about the BMF and that it was only 8 weeks away. Last year I started back in January and it was still knackering to get all the organisation done. As most of you will know, several of the usual suspects that put a huge amount of work into the BMF are also struggling with health issues. It's not for me to go into that any further since that's a matter for them to shout out if they want to, and I'm CERTAINLY NOT saying that the show can't happen because they're fighting those battles - they're not to blame, I am.
Sorry guys...I'll do better next time....promise