It has been just over a month since the Horizon’s Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers meeting in Ontario which I helped organize. My role this year was much more involved and required a lot more of my time and energy than in previous years where I had only presented or helped find other presenters. I have been asked to be the host for 2016 event.
After some of the comments I had to have some discussion about keeping the event at the same venue or to find a new one. Horizons Unlimited is a very unique group for most venues and after much discussion it was decided that working with the OELC to improve was the event was the better option.
Here are the top ten things I learned from 2015 that will help the event improve in 2016 (in no particular order).
- We need more technical and “how to” seminars. Getting people to talk about their adventures and inspire others is a challenge and takes effort, but getting people to talk about – “How to” topics is very challenging. I need to find people to talk about repairs, tool kits, border crossings and those type of practical things. We did have some of these seminars, but there was a request for more.
- Daily meeting with the other organizers and volunteers is needed to make sure everyone is on the same page. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
- Put more emphasis on food quality rather than quantity. This event is hosted at a kid’s camp and the food expectation for adults is different than kids, we now know what to expect from our HU guests and the venue.
- Co-ordinate and promote the bike games and ride outs. We dropped the ball on this one, we had bike games set up and someone willing to do them, two people actually but when one dropped out we cancelled the event before checking with the second person, again communication. The ride out are not lead by the HU, but I can give you the route and you ride it on your own.
- No matter how many signs I put up people will get lost.
- Get more vendors. This year we had 6 vendors, I need to start working on other vendors now for next year.
- Wednesday set-up day also has to be a clean-up day.
- Message delivery is as important as the message.
- The venue has a lot of hidden benefits that we need to let people know about. Yes you can go swimming, yes you can go fishing, the Casino is 7km away etc
- Have more fun. I spent the time running around checking on things following up and not enough time enjoying the event.
See you all at HU 2016.