Builth Wells Ride, Bank Holiday Monday - Wales -

[grotbag]

I found this posted on another site, needs sharing me thinks!



"The town of Builth Wells, according to the tourist board take an
average of 3/4 million pounds over the weekend of the Welsh Motorcycle
Show. The show has always benefitted many different businesses in the
town from petrol sales, beer sales at the pubs and off licences, as
well as food and day to day essentials. The hotels and guest houses
are always fully booked for miles around, months in advance.

This year, the Dyfed Powys Police, in their infinite wisdom, decided
to approach the organisers for them to cancel the show, when the
organiser refused, they then approached the Welsh Showground Committee
and persuaded them to cancel the show, regretfully and reluctantly,
they did. 7 WORKING DAYS BEFORE THE SHOW WAS DUE TO START!!!!!!!

The local townspeople are pretty annoyed with the closure of this
year's Rally, even the local councillor, Avril Yorke, is annoyed as
she owns a shop in Builth Wells high street and stands to lose out as
much as the other traders. The local police have always had a big
problem with the bikers doing this yearly jaunt to the town and had
arranged with the local Spar not to sell footballs that weekend so the
annual football game that happens in the high street would not happen,
and YES, that's was the only problem they wanted to avoid !!!!

There has never been any violence or any other reason for the police
to be called to the Rally, apart from the odd petty theft; it has
always been a peaceful and family orientated weekend. There is more
violence in a night on the town than there is at the weekend rally.
One woman who was taking both her children this year stated that she
would never go to Cardiff town centre on a Saturday night for fear of
party revellers, but had never had a problem with being at the rally
or taking her children.

What the proposed idea is that as bikers, so many of us for 15 years
have been doing the same vigil year after year to the show in Builth
Wells, and this year we all meet in the town on a Bank Holiday Monday
ride out.

The idea is to ride to the town, we can then spend a few hours there,
buy some fuel to get home, spend some money in the shops buy some food
and drinks and show the town that we still support the local
businesses, ride the half mile to the show ground which I am told is
always unlocked so we can ride in and around to show that we are all
unhappy at the closure of the show this year.

A peaceful ride out by an amalgamation of like-minded people will have
a better impact than a demonstration which requires too much
organisation, and anyway, we don't want to get into trouble with the
local police as we hope that next year we will have the show back. If
we are lucky, we may get media coverage of the event if we get a nice
amount of people – but please remember, this is just a peaceful ride
out, we don't want to annoy any locals.

All laws must be adhered to as the police won't be long in noticing a
lot of bikers en-route. So drinking and riding will be the
responsibility of the rider, it's not advised. We don't want to give
the police any reason whatsoever to pull even one person over for
drink riding.

We don't want anyone pulled over for speeding, it only adds to the bad
publicity.

It is the responsibility of every rider to ensure that their
motorcycle is legal for road use; this includes MOT, Tax & Insurance
as well as tyre tread and the correct size number plate. Remember, if
the police can't find any obvious reason to stop anyone, they will
start being picky, so keep back those black visors for another time J

The show organiser has been financially stricken by the last minute
closure of the show and may not be able to afford to take the legal
action needed for the injustice of the show closure. It was only 10
days before the day that the police shut the show, The hope is that we
can do a collection on the day in aid of the legal action needed, he
plans to sue in aid of all the businesses and bikers that are owed
money, for what was paid out in ticket money and businesses for stock
they purchased up on and can't pay for, for example a Cardiff
motorcycle shop used to have a stall at the Motorcycle show a few
years ago, about 2 weeks before it they used to spend about £5000.00
on extra stock just for the show, £5000.00 that has to be paid within
the month normally two weeks after the show. If they had done this,
this year they would not have sold any of it and then not had the
money to pay the suppliers.

Many other small businesses could also suffer the same consequence
from this show being cancelled. 10 days is really not sufficient
enough time to fairly impose a closure on such a peaceful show.
Multiply this injustice across the country with other shows that have
been cancelled and the police have a lot to answer for as far as small
businesses are concerned.

The monies collected would be held in the South Wales Alliance Bank
Account, for anyone that does not know, this is an alliance of all the
motorcycle clubs in South Wales. Thus ensuring the money can be
accounted for and no one person can misuse the funds. For example If
there were a request for financial support to fight the action taken
by the police the money would be used in such instance.

A group will be leaving Junction 33, M4 Services (Cardiff West), at 11
am and riding along the A470 into Builth Wells which is the usual
route, hopefully with media coverage (film crew). More locations will
be added as they are requested. We will spend a few hours in the
town, have a collection ready for the campaign fund and have a
spokesperson to outline the disgruntlement felt buy the biking
community at the recent developments.

Please pass this information onto all those you know with a bike and
interested in supporting this event.

You don't have to have a bike to do this. Families can come by car
and follow behind the bikes. Again, the onus is on the car owner to
ensure the legality of the vehicle. Alternatively, you can make your
own way to Builth Wells to meet in the town centre at about 1pm"