Polk County Wings
News Letter
February
Greetings everyone. We have finally managed to get another newsletter out. It has been far too long. I want to welcome Sherrill Ress as our new newsletter editor and thank her for her willingness to take on this job. She is very excited to do this and she has some great ideas. It will be nice to see a new spin put on the newsletter. Hopefully she can keep me in line to do my part or to just go on without my part. I think her spirit in this will make the newsletter fun and enjoyable to read again. I am looking forward to seeing it in the future.
Without further ado, I bring you the first newsletter of 2010.
I am the new newsletter person for Chapter I. If you have anything you want put in please let know. For a couple months it will be trial and error so please bear with me. I will do my best to get out a good newsletter and will try and have it out by the 1st of the month. You can contact me at nanaress@aol.com
Sherrill
Director Notes:
Welcome to 2010 Everyone!! Man, the first decade of the 21st century is gone. Time just seems to be flying by faster and faster all the time.
I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years
season. It has been that long since I have sat down and tried to bang out my part for a newsletter. I hope you all got to spend lots of time with family and friends. Hopefully with the time flying by as previously mentioned, the riding season will be here. I know in my case, there will have to be a lot of snow melting before I can get the bike out.
This is the start of my third term as your chapter director. My thanks to everyone who has given me their support over the last two years as director. I hope that support can continue and I hope those who are not so happy with my work can work towards some middle ground with me. I mentioned to someone "for better or worse". Hopefully for the better. We have had our share of growing pains in the last year. That is bound to happen in any close knit organization. In many ways, this is more like a family than a social group. Either way, in both groups there is always some friction and discord amongst people from time to time.
My hope is that, this year, we can smooth out some of those differences. We are not all always going to agree on everything that this group does. We need to agree to disagree. I implore everyone to be open to the ideas of everyone in the group. It is through the sharing of ideas from everyone that this group is able to keep things interesting. I don't want to fall into the trap of doing things just for the sake of doing things and becoming stagnant. To keep things interesting and fun, we need new ideas from everyone in the group. I especially want those newer to the chapter to suggest ideas. They are less likely to be in a rut than those of u s who have been in for awhile. New fresh ideas are always welcomed.
That said, you must understand that not every idea can be acted upon. You must realize that the chapter as a whole will decide what they do and do not want to do. The more involved you become, the more impact you will have and the more likely your ideas will happen. If you never show up or have any input then you will just have to live with what the group has decided it wants to do. If you become more involved you will see that you will begin to have more fun. You can be as involved as you want to be or as uninvolved as you want to be but the more involved you are, you will see how much more fun you can have.
If you have problems with the groups direction, or my role as chapter director, then bring those concerns to light. I implore you to not sit back and allow those ill wills to be a detriment to the group. Nothing can be resolved by sitting back and letting something that is bothering you to fester. Bring it up so it can be dealt with. You can always contact me by a number of ways and we can discuss the problem. You can always bring up your concerns to the group as a whole at any get together we have. If you are uncomfortable with bringing up some topic
for discussion, then I can do it for you. If I am what you see as a problem and you can't talk to me or the group, then find someone to talk to about it who can bring it up. Harry is a very good listener and provides great insight. Contact him and talk with him about any problems if you cannot talk to me about it. I have heard from one member that they thought there was a lot of animosity amongst the group. While I don't really agree with this, I can see where that opinion could come from. There are differences of opinions from time to time, again, that is going to happen in any group. We just need to all be willing to listen to the other opinions and work through it.
Another hope this year is to get people more involved. I need your help with that. I need ideas from the membership as to what will make this organization more fun for you and will make you want to participate more. We have a core group of couples that tend to come up with most of the ideas but I'd like to see everyone have some input. This is your group, this is your chapter. Get involved and help guide this chapter towards the future. We have quite a few members who participate on a limited basis. While it is your choice to be as involved as you wish, I think you will find the more involved you become, the more fun you will
have. To keep this chapter going, we need to keep people interested so that they want to come out and have a good time. We need the experience of the older members but we also need to get ideas from the younger members. We need to be able t o get younger people in this group to keep it and GWTA in general alive. We can use people in various positions in the chapter. Some positions we have people in but it doesn't hurt to have a back up in case someone can't make it to a meeting or a ride. Other positions we have no one in. If you'd like to help out, let me know and we can figure out a way in which you can help the group and
become more involved.
Lots of events are on the horizon already. February Thaw 2010 is now
history and was a HUGE success. .
Illinois is having an event March 20.Wisconsin is also having events as well as other chapters here in Iowa. We got several fliers at the Region meeting we attended in January and those will be coming out soon. I am going to get them to Harry to put on the website as well so please keep an eye out for these things and think about attending some of these. It is a great way to meet new people and to see other parts of the country. Don't forget the Region C Rally in Spearfish S.D. this year. They are working on setting up a great time. The area to ride will be fantastic. It would be great if we could get a huge attendance this year. The rally is in June 11-13. Mark you calendar and lets go over and show them how
much fun we can bring from Iowa. This is only a small sampling of the events that will be going on. Hopefully soon, I can get a more detailed list made up and you all can make plans to get to as many of them as you can.
I would really like ideas from the membership on what to do for activities. This could be evenings, weekend day or the whole weekend, anything! One person made a comment that everything we do is around food and would love to see some other activities. I have thought about a Miniature Golf Marathon, would love to have input on this and other activities. Drop me an email with any ideas you have. You can plan the event completely, or just share your idea and we can go from there.
Please check out our website at www.gwtapolkcountywings.com from time
to time. Harry does a good job of keeping lots of information on there about many different events of interest to our members. From here you can check out the state website (also handled by Harry ) and you can check out other chapters newsletters and events and what not. If you have pictures of events or of you out doing something, get a copy to Harry for him to put on the website. This is a great way for people to check out what others have done and maybe give them ideas of things they'd like to go do or see. Stories or items of interest can be passed on to
him as well. Lets help him keep the website fun and exciting for anyone who visits. He also likes pictures of your personal trips if you don't mind sharing them.
Also please check out our blog at www.polkcountywings.blogspot.com. I have been lax at updating it but I hope to get back to it soon. I could use some help here with pictures as well. If you go to the site and see an event I have re corded and you have pictures of this event, please send them to me. I would like to have a few pictures for each event I post. If you have pictures of an event I don't have on there, get them to me as well and then I will be reminded to go in and add them to the blog as well. I'd also like to again ask for your help in posting to the blog. So far, this blog has been from my perspective. I'd like to have it more well rounded by having submissions from other members as well. I can grant you access to go ahead and put your story on the blog or you can send it to me and I can add it. Please help me out in making this more interesting for everyone by submitting your stories. It could pretty much be about anything you want. It doesn't necessarily be about motorcycling. If it's of interest to you, then it more than likely will be interesting to others. I know some of you have been on some trips both on and off the motorcycle that all of us would like to hear about. I can't report on it because I wasn't there. Give me that information so others can share the experience.
Thanks
Until next time
Dennis and Donna
Concerns and well wishes:
Tonya's Step father has been in the hospital, was quite ill for a couple of weeks. He is home now and is on dialysis 3 times a week. He has to go to Des Moines for that.
Rich Konen's Brother has been in the hospital, and now is at home doing much better.
Glenn Guenther had a fatty tumor removed from his leg.
Rich McCullough had a cyst removed.
Pam Guenther is dealing with cancer issues again. Continued prayers for her. She did get news that the treatment is working well.
Paula Fleischman (she and her husband are the Region Education Directors) from Nebraska is going through cancer treatment as well.
Please keep all these people and their families in your
thoughts and prayers.
Anniversaries:
Could you please give Donna your anniversaries so I can put them in the newsletter. Either email her at dmccuLL63@aol.com or call 979-4248. Thank you.
Trivia:
St. Paddy's Day
Answers:
1. Ireland
2. Wales
3. 4
4. End of the rainbow
5. The Blarney Stone
6. Leprechauns
Calendar of Events:
March
1 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Meeting 6:30 PM Pizza Ranch, Waukee
6 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting 8:30 AM at Ryan’s Steakhouse
13 BMW Dinner Meeting 6:30 PM tba
13 GWRRA Missouri District Spring Fling, Pirates of the Ozarks
14 Daylight Savings Time Begins, spring ahead
15 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Gathering 6:30 PM TBA
16 HRCA (Garvis group)Dinner Meeting 6:30 pm TBA
19 Movie Night at Big Barn Harley, 7 PM Popcorn and pop provided, Beyond the Law
20 GWTA Illinois Spring Break Out, Springfield, Illinois
29 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Gathering 6:30 PM tba
April
3 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting 8:30 AM Ryan’s Steakhouse
5 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Meeting 6:30 pm tba
6 HRCA Dinner Ride, meet at 6:30
10 BMW Dinner Meeting 6:30 TBA
12 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Impromptu Dinner Ride, meet 6:30 pm
13 GWRRA Dinner Ride, leave Shoppers Supply 6:30 PM
17 GWTA Weston Bend Ride, Weston, MO
17 GWRRA New Chapter Kick Off in Cherokee, Iowa
19 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Impromptu Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
20 HRCA Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
24 GWRRA Maintenance Day/Ride
26 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Impromptu Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
27 GWRRA Dinner Ride leave Shoppers Supply 6:30
30 Motorcycle Safety Forum, Ames, Iowa
May
1 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting 8:30 AM Ryan’s Steakhouse
1 Hawgstock Ride for Pink “Bikers for Burgers” for Cancer Awareness
3 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
4 HRCA Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
7-9 BMW Rally in Hermann, Missouri
7-9 GWRRA Iowa District Safety Weekend, DMACC Ankeny, Iowa
8 GWTA Kansas Ch B Fun Run,
9 Mothers Day
10 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
11 GWRRA Dinner Ride, Leave Shoppers Supply 6:30 to Family Table, Osceola, IA
13-16 Hog Wild Rodeo, Conesville, Iowa
14-16 BMW GRRR, Wisconsin (Great River Road Run)
17 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
18 HRCA Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
24 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
25 GWRRA Dinner Ride, leave Shoppers Supply 6:30 to Stella’s
27-31 BMW Chicken Rally, Georgia
28-31 GWRRA NW Iowa Memorial Weekend Ride
31 GWTA Iowa Chapte r I Memorial Day Dinner Ride TBA
June
1 HRCA Dinner Ride, meet 6:30
4-6 BMW Hiawatha Rally
4-6 GWTA Region E Rally, Eureka Springs, AR, Kettle Campground
4-12 Randy and Deb Heath’s trip to Smokey Mountains (contact them at rjheath2@yahoo.com)
5 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting Ryan’s Steakhouse 8:30 AM
6 GWTA IA Chapter L and NE Chapter B Fun Run, Lake Manawa
7 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride 6:30
8 GWRRA Dinner Ride, leave Shoppers Supply 6:30 to Rudy’s in Lacona, IA
10-13 BMW 34th Annual Iowa Rally
10-13 GWTA Region C Rally Spearfish, SD
14 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride, 6:30
15 HRCA Dinner Ride, 6:30
18-20 GWRRA 2nd trip of 4 corners of Iowa, NE Iowa
20 Fathers Day
21 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride 6:30
22 GWRRA Dinner Ride leave Shopper s Supply 6:30
25-27 BMW Bohemian Rally, Nebraska
28 GWTA Iowa Chapter I Dinner Ride 6:30
29 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
29-July 3 WING DING Downtown Des Moines
July
1-3 ABATE Freedom Rally, Algona, Iowa
1-3 Independence Day Blowout, Conesville, Iowa
3 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting Ryan’s Steakhouse 8:30 AM
5 GWTA IA Chapter I Dinner Ride 6:30
6 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
10 McCullough/Ramey Wedding
10 BMW Dinner Meeting
11 GWTA IA Ch P Fun Run
12 GWTA IA Ch A Dinner Ride 6:30
13 GWRRA Dinner Ride, leave Shoppers Supply 6:30 to Country House in Colo, Iowa
15-18 BMWMOA National, Redmond, OR
18-22 GWTA GOLD RUSH Billings, Montana
19 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
20 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
26 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
27 GWRRA Dinner Ride, leave shoppers supply 6:30
29-Aug 1 BMWRALLY Green Mountain Energy Park, Pownal, VT
30-August 1 GWTA Wisconsin Meet and Greet Bancroft, WI
31 McCullough Wedding Reception
August
2 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
3 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
6-8 GWTA Iowa Extravaganza, Winterset, Iowa
7 RA Breakfast Meeting, Ryan’s Steakhouse 8:30
9 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
10 GWRRA Dinner Ride leave shoppers Supply 6:30
13-15 GWTA NE Chapter Z Weekend Trip
13-22 Randy and Deb Heath’s trip to fireworks and Lake Michigan(contact them at rjheath2@yahoo.com
16 GWTA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
17 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
20-22 Hawgstock, Winterset, Iowa
21 GWTA IA Chapter J Fun Run, Clarinda, Iowa
23 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
24 GWRRA dinner ride leave Shoppers Supply 6:30
27-29 GWTA NE Friendship Campout
30 GWTA Iowa Ch I Dinner ride 6:30
31 HRCA dinner ride 6:30
September
1-5 Thunder in the Sand, Conesville, Iowa
3-5 GWRRRA Region E Rally, Back to the Fifty’s, Quad Cities
4 GWRRA Breakfast meeting at Ryan’s 8:30 and ride to GWRRA Region E Rally and SE Iowa
6 GWTA IA Ch I Labor Day dinner ride
7 HRCA Dinner ride 6:30
10-12 Davis Rally, New Hampton, Iowa
13 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
14 GWRRA Dinner Ride leave Shoppers Supply 6:30
17-19 GWRRA ride to SW Iowa
17-19 State Line Rally, Keosaqua, Iowa
20 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
21 HRCA Dinner ride leave Shoppers Supply
27 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner Ride 6:30
28 GWRRA Dinner Ride leave Shoppers Supply 6:30
October
2 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting 8:30 at Ryan’s Steakhouse
4 GWTA IA Ch I Impromptu Dinner Ride 6:30
5 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
8-10 BMW Falling Leaf Rally, Potosi, MO
8-10 GWTA Colorama Rally, Harrison, AR
11 GWTA IA Ch I Impromptu Dinner Ride 6:30
12 GWRRA dinner ride leave Shoppers Supply 6:30 to Roadhouse, Martinsdale, IA
18 GWTA IA Ch I Impromptu Dinner Ride 6:30
19 HRCA Dinner Ride 6:30
25 GWTA IA Ch I Impromptu Dinner Ride 6:30
26 GWRRA Dinner Ride leave Shoppers Supply 6:30
November
1 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner/Meeting 6:30
6 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting Ryan’s steakhouse 8:30 AM
7 Daylight Savings Time Ends
12-14 GWTA NE Fall Follies, Grand Island, NE
16 HRCA Dinner/Meeting 6:30
25 THANKSGIVING DAY
December
4 GWRRA Breakfast Meeting Ryan’s Steakhouse 8:30
6 GWTA IA Ch I Dinner/Meeting 6:30
21 HRCA Dinner Meeting 6:30
25 CHRISTMAS DAY
31 NEW YEARS EVE
Until next time. Stay safe.
Sherrill
March Birthdays:
John Wicks 16
Lance Bendixen 21
Chris Palmer 27
