im also still proud to wear my gear out anywhere and i cant even afford a Ducati anymore even to keep beside my bed for cold nights when i need a cuddle something warm or to wet my floors down for some doughnuts on it or if worse stays the worst not that it could get much worse apart from either dieing or having to ride any type of jap bike both of which would have the same outcome with me wanting to kill myself for lowering my standards to allowing myself to want to throw my leg over one let alone starting it to ride one and if i could choose a new model Vince designed of wheelchair for me it would still be a ducati or even a Ferrari instead of a Mitsubishi its the same type of poor choice to be made so if you can afford to start out where you should and if you cant keep saving until you can!!!

I would like to have a "DOG" patch on my leathers and jacket. What's available?

exactly right and well said Vince and im glad that i said what i said without offending you and you're right the club needs participation from its members before it becomes a good place to hang out with your like minded mates, so please come on guys and get into supporting this awesome club with its great members on awesome rides and help me and Vince bring joy back to this club so please write on the forum even to tell me off ive still got a strong shoulders and i can take it on the chin too just participate please somehow anyhow!! 

I started a topic here http://hunterdog.org.au/DiscussionBoard/index.php?topic=983.msg2753#msg2753 to discuss ride route options, and made some comments about club direction. They are as follows and, as mentioned at the end, if there is a discussion to be had let's have it and I would separate out the topic. Scottie then made some perfectly valid points so this is why he made them, which now needs to be read first in order for his to make any sense.

What I said first:

The effectiveness or otherwise of social riding groups is driven by lots of things, that most of us don't care for the subtleties of as we just wanna do it - when and how it suits us. My personal belief is that the days for brand specific clubs are long over, and what matters more is experience types. So people that want to go on major rides or just Sunday morning latte sipping are probably going to band together and intermingle as they like.

Back when this club was formed there was a fair bit of debate whether it should be brand specific or something else. We have gone with "brand-preference and all others welcome" - which has been a subtlety that made no difference! I have been thinking we need a rename to Hunter MUGs for Hunter Motorcycle Users Group. But that is a separate discussion (which if anyone wants to have go for it and I will split it off to a separate topic!).

I'm going to the dogs breakfast tomorrow even if the rest of our clubs not going to participate in what we have worked so hard in making a friendly group of like minded Ducati riding and owning club if his club folds up shop i can add it to my things ive lost and loved which will make me cry myself to sleep until i die which if it does i hope will be soon   so please ladies and gents pull together and help me continue what i started with my friends 

I like and generally agree with what Brett has said here and think this is an excellent opportunity to get a little perspective on what's really going on. Hopefully then inspiring some other kind of action, like for instance saying "I'm IN!" - and having a body that will actually go with that good intention.

Let's start with the simple fact that I have been saying since day 1 that I don't want to ever own or run a bike (or any) club as such but will be an excellent participator and support person. Yet now, in effect, I find myself in that precise position and it is a classic case of "not happy Jan". I believe fundamentally that any social club, whatever the specific interest area, works well because there is a core group of good people that hang together and keep it rolling, and in that mix / available to the core are some decent skills sets to actually pull it off and keep it moving along nicely. Obviously the enthusiasm needs to remain, which is pretty easy with Ducatis. Also it needs to not become "cliquey" with an "in crowd" and an "out crowd" which is the essence of the problem that occurred with a previous Ducati interest club in the area - that one was also afflicted with the other main risk area of social clubs - "personality issues" (which I euphemistically refer to as "the dickhead factor").

The HunterDOGs has had a zero count on "dickhead factor" since inception including anyone who has joined / attended / whatever, which I am pretty happy about I gotta say! Certainly there has been no "cliquey" stuff either. Our "issue" has been with natural attrition where the original active core have unavoidably moved on but not been replaced by like minded enthusiastic PARTICIPATIVE people coming in. A web forum doesn't cut it to maintain the effective operation of the club, it is just a tool. Neither does one person carrying all the load as they will soon wonder why they are doing it and what are they getting out of it and not be happy with the answers. Welcome to the here and now.........

Should we get to a place where we have an active interested committee / group of friends and have regular bbq's around each other's place then you beauty, we'll be off again. But otherwise, despite what I might wish and think I'll do to make it work, I am kidding myself I truly want to / will do it by myself. I got more enjoyment out of helping a (prospective) member pass a DECC noise test with his termis still on a couple of weeks ago than anything else I have done to prop up everyone else's good intentions with the club but zero actions in a long time.

OK so that is some perspective. What others may "want" comes with "and do something REAL about that ISN'T just saying it". First and foremost it needs to be "an answer THAT WORKS" and that is my sole motivation, happy to have any alternate that works, but the only true alternate RIGHT NOW is "caretaker mode". Anything else needs your body on the line, so to speak. I will also say I have no idea where the "growth is king" perception has come from, I regard that as a natural outcome of a well set-up club which, broadly speaking, this one is. I have only ever wanted to see a reasonably consistent level of participation with due regard to weather and changing of the mix under the general theme that "lots of people want to and will make it there lots of the time".

I certainly do agree that the format of social engagement and riding needs a once-over. In essence mixing it up more, but I am damn sure I am not going to single-handedly sort it out! As a technical point I have explored ONE other club, and the concept of exploring Ulysses is ridiculous in the terms this was being done, that is plainly a club one would simply be a member of if they wanted to.

Anyway, to some relevant feedback now that I have been on a ride. What I was contemplating is making wherever BA were going for a ride to on the third Sunday of the month be our ride, and the simple fact that a few Ducatis were likely to turn up means BA would select routes / activities more consistent with our general interest to ride the better roads. This is not out of the question but my general assessment is that it wouldn't be a "marriage made in heaven" and ultimately we wouldn't see the benefits we were looking for. In simple terms the people I met were all just fine and come from the normal scatter of our fellow humans, there was no bad behaviour and everyone was very welcoming which I thought was just great. I did join the club and will continue a personal association over time, but I suspect your typical Ducati owner is going to have a little difficulty adjusting to the simple fact that most of the riders like to wear black vests and sprinkle "stuff" all over it, including their nick names. So there is a general "outlaw biker look" without ANY of the underlying reality, which I am fine with as it is about the people for me, but I know this is not such a common view in others. Also there are a lot of cruisers which has its own reality about riding routes / techniques. Not that I didn't have some fun buzzing back and forwards in gaps that opened up between differently skilled riders........

However there is a silver lining. One fellow I particularly like, "Trip", has a Buell, and he knows how to ride it well. He is endeavoring to get the Buell owners club to be active in the area again and I get the sense he expects to be successful. This I think could be a good thing, but is a "work in progress" for now.

The other thing I really respect and appreciate with how BA do things is the fantastic participation rates they get, out of 60 members they are getting about half along to rides which they do ALMOST EVERY weekend. Their "secret technique" is regular sms communication letting people know what is going on, including "making the call" on weather on the morning of the ride in plenty of time to call it on or off. Another thing is they use Glendale Hungry Jacks as their most frequent departure point as it has fuel and coffee adjacent and typically they are all there half an hour before the departure time for a chin wag. The guy that sends all the sms's is the President who will typically turn up but will only go on some of the rides as he, like everyone, has a life too - whilst recognising that riding with your friends is an important part of that life! They have several women riders but it was mostly blokes.

I am aware one can do great deals on sms rates so maybe this is a tool we should look more closely at. But first, if you have a body to offer up complete with a truck load of enthusiasm, let's hear about it. Otherwise the very appealing activities around my last post updating the pillion tips article info are going to take precedence I gotta say!

Some feedback: I went along to this meeting last night along with a couple of other DOGs and was surprised to see 39 people in attendance, all having a rollicking good time and clearly well into the "social" piece of what a social motorcycling club is all about, great to see.

Their prez (Neville) dragged me up front to address the meeting (no warning / whatever but that's OK) and the open discussion that ensued decided they would be delighted to have the HunterDOGs come along to any of their rides and they were totally happy for us to retain our own identity. It was pretty clear that, when it comes down to it, these people are just damn keen to go riding and participate in all the social side that naturally comes along with that and are not too fussed about the details after that! They clearly have a range of faster and slower riders so we should fit right in as that is what happens for us too. They say they typically don't ride longer than an hour or two. I assume that is each way but will find out in time.

So my intention is to go along for a ride sometime soon and see exactly how it all works, then most likely decree that our regular riding schedule is to become a joint ride with BA Hunter. Funnily enough they ride the same roads we do and even the Hardleys make it through, so it should be interesting to mix it up a bit. I did the update thing on the Ringwood raceway and there was a fair bit of interest in that too, the more the merrier I say!

PS: I will just add as I was confused about it that Bikers Anon and Bikers Australia are different entities. My comment about joint activities with BA Sydney and NSWDOC was actually about Bikers Anon who are here http://www.bikersanon.com/ and TOTALLY Sydney-centric, as opposed to Bikers Australia and you can see here http://www.bikersaustralia.com.au/about.php5 that they get out a lot more!