1975 November

Many thanks to all of you who sent me your condolences on the loss of my wife this past June. My son Michael and I are beginning to get back to a normal life now. We moved to a small apartment in Kaiserslautern to be closer to work and Michael has started school in the second grade. Haven’t done as much riding as I would like to have done this summer, but plan to rectify that this fall.

Thanks also for my appointment to BMWMOA Ambassador – a real honor! However, the praise belongs to past and present European members who have made it possible. Your support has been well appreciated and I will need your continuing support to keep our European Group active. Understandably, I will be unable to devote as much time as in the past – for a while at least. And I would hate to see our group dwindle. We started off with a mere handful of members back in 1973 to almost fifty members now – and that’s no small feat when you consider that we are in a military environment here in Europe with members constantly rotating back to the States! Let’s review what we are doing here to assist our European members and define the type of support I am seeking.

First, of course, is this column. This is your column. It acts as a means of communication between all the members scattered throughout Europe as well as a way of keeping in touch with our stateside members. Hopefully, we give you items of interest such as upcoming rallies, riding styles in Europe, places to visit, experiences we have enjoyed and so on. Both Paul Lewis and I have attempted to do this and I will continue to do so, but I urge you to submit to me items that you would like to have in this column to keep it more interesting and enjoyable. Would you like to sponsor a rally or a BMW tour? Let me know about it and I’ll be sure it gets out to the other members.

We print two listings every three months (or at least we try in an attempt to keep up with our ever-changing membership). The first is the “European Anonymous”, similar to the Anonymous Booklet but geared, naturally, to our European group. The second is a list of all European members with their addresses to facilitate contact with our widely dispersed group. I need someone to take over this responsibility for me. It entails updating every three months the names, addresses and telephone numbers of our European members. Fortunately, the information is fed to me by Carol Plant, Jean Rihl and Stan Kain. But it takes time to compile this info, work up the draft, get it typed and printed and distributed to all European members and interested stateside members. Stamps, by the way, are paid for by BMWMOA. If you are interested, just drop me a line and I’ll fill you in on the details.

Once a year we have held the annual BMWMOA Schmittburg Treffen. We have had three so far, and they are becoming more and more popular. (I’ll announce the dates for the next one next month.) However, we need to meet more often than once a year. How about some of you letting me know at least two months in advance where we could all meet for a weekend of camping or touring or both. Give me dates, specific meeting places, what kind of activities you have in mind, etc., and I’ll take care of the rest. My telephone number is: from a military phone, 2226-6089; or from a civilian phone, 0631-866-6099. My address is:

Hq 21^st Spt Cmd, ACSEH
APO 09325

or

Pariserstr. 281
6750 Kaiserslautern
W-Germany

Safe Euroriding