2010!  It's the beginning of a new year and mostly new Directors for the Twisted Spoke chapter. The Directors for 2010 are; myself, Jenny "Cinnamon" Taylor, President/Membership/Products ; Louis Richards, Secretary/Treasurer/Road Captain/Web Master/ Community Relations/Safety& Education; Roger Miller, Vice President; Terri Forbes, Chairman; and Darryl Farthing, Security. Louis and I are returning Directors who have taken on some new roles. Roger, Terri and Darryl are new Directors this year.

The 2010 year is shaping up to be busier than 2009 was for Twisted Spoke. Our chili cook off is on February 7th. We have also sanctioned two events with the AMA for later in the year, a poker run/field meet/ campout with bands for August 28th at Lake Bailee, and a Halloween Dance with a date and location to still be determined. We have also started the process of visiting and "interviewing" local charities to see which ones Twisted Spoke would like to support. Chapter membership has indicated that they prefer us to look for charities that receive no federal, state, or county funding, and I’m in agreement on that. I'd like to thank member Beverly Richards who has graciously offered to research and visit charities for us. Beverly will be reporting on the charities she has visited during our regular chapter meetings. At some point membership will be voting on which charities to support, after our research is done. We really want to make sure that every dollar TRAIN MRO donates will go toward making a difference for someone.

On the safety and education front, we have several members who are interested in shadowing and/or teaching the motorcycle curriculum in the local driving schools. At our February meeting I should be able to provide membership with a date when our people will be in class with the Iron Wheels educators and start training. Some of you may not know this, but to teach the motorcycle curriculum in any driver's education school on behalf of TRAIN MRO, you must be trained and CERTFIED by the Iron Wheels educators before teaching any classes or contacting any driver's education schools.

I mentioned Lake Bailee above, and I'm sure many of you are wondering, "what is that"? Lake Bailee is a motocross park located on Jackson Road up New Miami way. The track held their first AMA sanctioned race last year. They also host poker runs, concerts and other events. Jesse Von Stein, the owner, has been working hard the last few years to improve Lake Bailee. Last summer he added a beer garden, so you can purchase a beer to go with the food from the concession stand. In the fall Lake Bailee hosts "Screamfest" from September until Halloween. It's a good place to take the family and have some fun! Lake Bailee is also TRAIN MRO's newest sponsor, so go out and support the folks who help support TRAIN!

Lake Bailee will be hosting a poker run on May 15th and Jesse has decide to donate all proceeds to TRAIN MRO to further our mission of safety and education, and to help kids in the community. We'll have more details on this poker run soon.

Twisted Spoke will resume the "fun runs" this year. If you have a place you want to go, email Louis at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and he will be happy to look at the route to make sure it's safe, and help you with planning if you need it.

We're all looking forward to doing more activities this year, but need your participation. Everyone likes to have fun, but in order to have the most successful events and activities we need people to volunteer to help out. Have you ever noticed at most bike events you always see the same few people from the same organizations working them? What would happen if these same few people could not work an event?? Well, my answer is the event would either not go off, or go off poorly. It may look easy, but it takes a lot of time, planning, and volunteers to do a successful event. I have people who have told me "I can't commit x hours, so I can't help". Yes, you can! There are always things like dropping off flyers, making phone calls, sending emails, etc. that take very little time. Any and all effort is much appreciated, no matter how big or small. Just ask the Directors what you can do to help and we'll tell you and work with the time commitment you can give.

I was outside today and saw that my daffodils are coming up, a few were up about 4". Seeing daffodils pop their sleepy heads out of the ground always reminds me it won't be long until spring and riding season! YEE HAW!!

Until next month,

Cinnamon/Jenny