Get over yourself...

We are hosting some calendar competitions on www.beltdrivebetty.com

 - one calendar involves the guys - and is meant - a little tongue in cheek - to be a beef cake style calendar - The Motorcycle Men of 2012 Calendar. It will feature men who ride and hopefully show us a wee bit of skin...bare arms, abs both six pack and not...

The ladie's calendar is an empowerment calendar, meant to encourage other women to grab life by the handle bars.

I have recently gotten a few emails regarding the contests from people not happy that our site - a Canadian site, is allowing American women to enter and complaining there was not enough skin being shown in the men's competition. Give me a break....please!

These calendars are for charity - they are meant to give us the opportunity to "meet" each other, have a little fun and do something good for our community.

With everything that is going on in the world right now - in Japan with the nuclear reactors threat of melt down, the Earthquake there, the Tsunami's that quake has triggered - the unimaginable suffering and devastation, in Indonesia where a Tsunami has hit, well I have to say I am disappointed with the dissenters of our contests. I don't mind questions - those I am happy to answer, but a few of these emails bordered on the really rude and insufferable. If you haven't gotten a response from me it's because I choose not to engage in the nastiness. To those who were rude and in My Humble Opinion - rather nasty - get over yourselves.

The ladies calendar is meant to support the Women Who Ride - Rock - Breast Cancer Conga which is a cross border fund raiser for Breast Cancer Research and the Chrome Cowgirls and the good works they do down in the US,  (People will have a choice of which of the two charities they want to see their $10 go to when they PRE Order their calendars)

The men's calendar will support the CMTA's Injured Riders Fund here in Canada and in the US it will support the Patriot Guard and their HOTH - Help on the Homefront cause. (Again people will have a choice of which of the two charities they want to see their $10 go to when they PRE Order their calendars) Because I don't want to fill the calendars up with advertising we will be selling the calendars by pre order only.

Now folks, I am glad there are people out there who take these calendars seriously - I am grateful and humbled that so many have gotten on board to participate, but remember, there are 13 contests in total, one for each month of the year in the calendar. If you don't win for January, you can try the next month...

Ali and I manage 95% of everything by ourselves. We have Robert Burns of the Alberta Lonewolves who contributes to our news on a daily basis, we have Tracy from Patch Chick Resources who pitches in when she can and WyzWmn who posts biker puzzles in the forums every day for your playing pleasure. Once in a while we get help from a couple of gals in the East with the event calendar postings and we do have a number of the riding clubs starting to take the time to post their own events in the calendars instead of just emailing them for us to add - other than that - there are just two of us who do the work to keep the community informed and offer some contests to keep us amused and to hopefully support our community. Remember - membership on our site is free - the only things we charge for are the weekly Newspaper, The Busted Knuckle Chronicles, the patches we sell and if you order a phone book on line - we have to charge shipping...and our Road Side Assistance offerings from Best Roadside and MotoLimo.

We do the very best we can - and your following the rules, reading the instructions and providing us with solid contact information at registration simplifies our job immensely and allows us to accomplish our work much faster.

We want you to use our site with a measure of confidence hence we hand approve EVERYONE to prevent those slippery spammers from getting in to our site. We use 411 services and phone calls to verify information. We have found that the automated processes just do not keep the spammers out and so - hand approvals are necessary.

It's a time consuming job phoning people and looking up the information but it is so vital to protecting our hard work and your memberships on our site. We value each and every member and we want you to know that.

I hope you will get involved, contribute to our site, get in on the forums and meet each other and just generally enjoy our site.  I have something exciting to announce in the next day or so...so stay tuned!

Like very day - I enjoy it when you jump in on the discussions of the day!

In Other News:

In New York, a biker bar that fed the homeless, and those having a tough time making ends meet has had to stop that practice - Click here to read why.

In New Hampshire a widow has opened a biker bar in her husband's memory. Click here to read why.

In Florida a new bill to protect bikers is being introduce - find out what that's about - Click here.

Also in Florida, Bike Week is over and the mixed reviews are starting to come in. Click here to read about it.

In Indonesia a motorcycle rider was killed by the Tsunami that was triggered by the earthquake in Japan. Click here to read more.

In the UK a huge ride called the Ride of Respect is being planned. Click here to read more.

There is a ton of other news over at www.beltdrivebetty.com where we sift through the news, so you don't have to!

Have a fantastic Monday!

Belt Drive Betty
Editor & Rider
www.beltdrivebetty.com
www.bustedknucklechronicles.com