30th Anniversary - Southbank

Made the effort to attend the second of three events to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Melbourne BMW Motorcycle Club.

The plan was to assemble a lot of bikes on the promenade of Southbank to raise to publics awareness of the clubs history. The plan entailed arriving between 8:30 am and 10:00 am and leave around 3:00 pm. An early start for a country member, but I made the effort. Up at 7:00 am, breakfast and set off arriving at Southbank at 9:30 am. True to form, the club had members stationed on the corners to direct arriving members where to park.

Parked and fixed a provided flyer to my bike with the following details: Owner, model and year of manufacture. This enabled participants to vote for the best bike in various categories: Oldest and the best of various models. As I travelled through rain and wet roads, my bike wasn't particularly bright and shiny, so there was no chance I was going to win anything. As I checked out all of the other bikes I noticed a GS that had mud all over it. I guess in the real world that's what a GS really looks like, no sparkle at all.

I took my slide guitar with me to provide some musical entertainment for the patrons. The weather in Melbourne was really very pleasant. Blue skies, but the wind was still blowing. I found a spot that wasn't too cold and out of the wind and proceeded to play for about 45 minutes. That's a guess as I stopped quite a few times to answer questions from passer byes. I didn't mind stopping and having a chat. It's not every day that you see a slide player performing acoustically.

Packed up the guitar and walked to the Subway (the franchise) and bought lunch and walked back. No sooner had I sat down back at Southbank than we were called together for the formalities. Ian Sadden, the President, handled to job of MC, talking over a 12 volt powered PA. various awards were handed out and a long list of thank IAA's for the people who had planned the event. Maybe I'm being a bit vain, but I was half expecting a throw away line from Ian to thank me for the music I had provided that didn't happen.

Had all sorts of trouble with my digital camera. I tried taking pictures of the event, but a combination of beeping, not being able to see the screen and noticing that I hadn't taken the picture I thought I had, took about three attempts. I clearly need more training!

A long day, but I'm glad I made the effort.