Today, a few of us went to the motorcycle safety forum. It is put on by the state every year and they have vendors and speakers. They cover a wide variety of safety related topics and other stuff as well. Donna and I along with Sherrill and Glenn and Ernie and Louise were in attendance. Saw a lot of former members and lots of members from other organizations as well. Nice to see such a huge turnout at this event.
This year, the forum was moved to the varied industries building to accommodate a larger crowd. It has been in several places since we started attending these. Once in West Des Moines, once in Cedar Rapids and several in Ames. Last year they had 400 attendees and this year was projected to bring more and the facility in Ames just wouldn't hold more. I did not hear an official total this year but I'm pretty sure they had 500 or maybe more people show up this year.
The facility worked out pretty well. Lots of room for more vendors than I think they have ever had. Lots of vendors for the women as well. The conference area upstairs had plenty of room for the seminar.
For your $15 registration you got doughnuts, fruit, juice and coffee for breakfast. Snacks and drinks throughout the day and a lunch. This year was lasagna, with salad and breadsticks. It wasn't the best I've ever had but it was edible.
They also draw for quite a few door prizes and in the past, as well as this year, they have a drawing for a trailer. You get your choice of a cargo trailer or a bike hauling trailer. This year, they even drew for a motorcycle. When it came time to draw for the trailer, we were very surprised to hear that Pam Beverage, Chapter director of Chapter H, was holding the winning ticket. Congratulations to her. I'm sure she can put whichever trailer she chose to good use.
A few downers from my perspective. The meal was not the greatest as I've stated in my opinion but many enjoyed it. Many people don't know how to be quiet when a speaker is on stage. Too many sidebar conversations, many on cell phones were going on. Very rude in my book. The bathroom hand dryers were very noisy and drowned out some of the speakers. I don't know if this could have been negated if they had turned up the speakers or not. Lastly, some of the speakers had very dry topics with lots of statistics to talk about and this is very hard to make for something that will keep your attention and be entertaining. It is not always this way. Many years the speakers are very interesting and enlightening.
All in all, I highly recommend attending if it is at all possible for you to do so. It is always the last Friday in April. Keep it in mind and think about attending next year.
