And the year after that it will be Wednesday than Tuesday the following year and so on and so on. To the one that have to work for a living this is becoming bogus. I'm already burning a week and a day to go now and the bargains I was hoping to find just move away.
This has been a problem with the VMBC meet forever and probably will be a problem forever. I share in your frustration. The fact of the matter is that it's a club set up by and targeted towards retirees. They don't care what days of the week the meet falls on, they are available and have no work conflicts.
At the same time the club talks about needing to recruit new members and get the "next generation" involved, the membership is aging, etc. I am in that so-called "next generation" and am not even close to being retired. A couple of years ago corresponded significantly with Darren about the realities of what that means for people like myself as it relates to meet attendance. I explained how the dates are really hard on those of us that work for a living and he agreed everything I laid out. In fact, he even wrote about it in the club magazine multiple times. I even pointed out that
the retirees would still all attend if the meet was REALLY over a weekend - it would just allow the meet to viable to those of us that work by being centered around a weekend. The club sorta-kinda made an attempt to to come up with better dates, but the reality was that not much actually changed.
I've gone to the meet before as a working-for-a-living guy. The first year, I went on a Saturday and was seriously disappointed. For all practical purposes the meet was shutting down by that point. The next year I actually took a day off work and went on a Friday (I was relatively local to the area at the time). Friday was drastically better in terms of overall activity level, but it was clear that I was STILL late to the party.
A major part of the problem (also something I discussed with Darren) was that folks arrive VERY early and by the time the real meet actually starts, they are packing up and ready to go home. They've done all the buying, selling, and riding that they wanted to do. This won't ever change because the fairgrounds allows camping and collects the fees and the VMBC isn't going to stop them. I
do think that the VMBC can stop essentially
encouraging it by sticking to Fri-Sun model, but hell will freeze over before they go to a three day meet from five (more below). I also don't think the early birds will EVER be stopped unless the fairgrounds takes a stand and locks people out which is extremely unlikely. Part 2 of this problem, if I wasn't clear earlier, is not just that they are arriving early, it's that they are then ready to leave smack dab in the middle of the meet, Saturday evening or maybe Sunday morning. I can't even imagine how bad it will be on Monday in 2016 - nobody will be there except for a few stragglers.
My solution is this:
I know it's unpopular, but I think the meet should be 3 days, tops: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Thursday and Monday could be travel days for folks from out-of-town instead of activity days. It would also mean that folks that can only make it on Saturday or Sunday won't arrive to find a total ghost town with folks packing up their trailers and campers. The working folks might be able to actually make it, the retirees would still attend, and the club would save some $$$$ by reducing facility rental to three days instead of five. The working crowd may be able to swing taking a single day (and a Friday at that) off of work vs. digging even more into the work week. The early crowd will still be a problem, but I think my proposal would help condense everything so that anyone interested can actually come to the meet and experience it in full swing on a Saturday or Sunday rather than having it picked over with many people ready to pull out.
Then again, the Cushman Club of American (I am not a member) is even worse...their meet for 2016 is June 6-10 which is a Monday-Friday.
It doesn't fall over a weekend at all!
Do I think things will ever really change or that my suggestion for a three day meet with ever happen? Let's just say that I'm not going to hold my breath.
