I'm probably not going to be too popular today.

The results are in on our 6th Annual Beat the PMS Blues Online Show ‘n’ Shine.

We will announce the winners in the newsletter that your newspaper comes in, tomorrow morning.

I will be contacting the winners and organizing for their prizes to go out. 

I have some things to say, they are hard to say but they must be said.

There are a few people who made this, our sixth annual - FREE Show 'n' Shine hard to deal with - they took all of the fun out of it for me.  

You see I truly love seeing all of the entries and knowing what my friends and other community members ride. I get a kick out of it and it really does ease up some of the dreadful PMS that I suffer with - Parked Motorcycle Syndrome, for those not in the know.

When we do it again next year there will be some measures put in place just for those who think they need to win at all cost.  Or they think someone is cheating so they should too, to win.

People do not seem to understand the power of social media and if one person has lots of friends voting for them, their tallies go up - fast. 

There is a right way and a wrong way to win. This is the right way, getting your FRIENDS to vote for you.

Everyone was encouraged to contact us if they had any issues. 

Many people did, their problems or challenges resolved, one rider had friends that Sasktel was blocking from accessing our site for some unknown reason, he emailed us, we verified the problem and worked through friends, to get the issue with Sasktel resolved, and he gave us the names and phone numbers of people who were having trouble voting for him and he was given the appropriate number of votes.

We verified that their IP's had been showing up consistently and then all of a sudden all 5 stopped.

We do everything in our power to keep it fair and real.

We can tell you if some one is cheating or not by the IP addresses that they use and the time stamp.

When someone has 50 or 60 friends voting for them and they all have different IP addresses – there is no cheating.

However when you see the same IP on the show 'n'shine page 25 and 30 times a day.... 

We remove those votes, we email the offender and tell them they were removed – so there really was no point to the effort. And this of course, would therefore be, the wrong way to try to win.

The reason I no longer do calendar contests is for a similar sort of reason.

Back biting, name calling, horrid, horrid behavior from people who are supposed to be adults and of course the attempts at cheating.

I hold contests for FREE – the prizes, we spend hours and days gathering, the labor it takes to host a contest is mind numbing - we do it because we want to have some fun, lighten things up – we have enough grief and enough challenges to deal with every day as riders and people. 

Does it help our business – yes, but my primary purpose, especially with this contest, is to have some FUN.

BUT - there comes a time when one really has to look at the whole thing and ask yourself – is it worth it?

Our community is based on the fundamental principles of life – being respectful is one of them and another is standing up for what you believe in.

Well I believe in fair play.

I believe that if I don’t like what someone has to say, I don’t need to take it in to my soul and then lash out hatefully. 

I believe that if someone is a jerk, you don’t keep poking them – you walk away and give them no energy.

Soon enough, they go away.

These are but a few of the core and fundamental values of being a good human being, I believe.

I have never pussyfooted around an issue that was important to me, much in my life.  

I listen to other people’s opinions, I decide what if anything they have to say resonates with my core values, makes sense to me on any level and look to understand their point of view, but understanding their point of view and adopting it or taking it into my soul are two different things. Understanding lets me hopefully find a better way of working towards a resolution to a challenge but I do not have to take that person's viewpoint on as mine in order to work to a resolution.

AND I am not pussyfooting around this issue either.

RESPECT is one word that I believe in and the disrespect shown to Ali who busts her hump, our sponsors who supply the prizes blows my mind.  

As the idiot who does all of the legwork; the obtaining sponsors, the emails and letters, the promoting – I am just discouraged. 

Next year will be far, far different.

We will be putting in every safe guard we can find to ensure a FRIENDLY AND FUN contest. 

And if we can’t find a way to prevent the nastiness – then we won’t be doing it again. 

I do not get paid enough to put up with some of the situations I have been put in over this.

This was supposed to be a fun thing. 

But there were some people who took the fun out of it for me.

That won’t happen again – I do not do things like this unless they make people feel good. PERIOD.

Belt Drive Betty,

Editor & Rider