In spite of inclement weather in the Twin Cities area, the December meeting of the Pioneer Chapter of the Excelsior Henderson Rider's Club was held at the Kopper Kettle on Saturday morning. With most people sporting new EH wear, it looked reminiscent of the first day of school.

The first order of business was the election of officers. We had about 40 members vote either in person or by proxy with the following results:

Director - Chuck Barsness Assistant Director - Bob Capitola Secretary - Rick Wawrzyniak Treasurer - Randy Schwandt

These offices will be held for the year with new elections being held again next December. Along with the elected officers, it's been determined that Tim Leary will continue in the capacity of Historian and Bob Gerhart will be our official WebMaster. Dave Hardman and Gary Thomforde will continue to serve as Ride Captains as well.

Other business covered was that of the implementation of chapter bylaws and a constitution. We've several samples of other motorcycle clubs' bylaws that we are drawing from and a committee will be getting together again in January to finalize these. The plan is to have them all drawn up for the January meeting which will be held on the third Saturday of the month. The time and place of the meeting is yet to be determined and will be announced as the date draws closer.

Homecoming 2001 has been determined to be held from June 20 through June 24, 01. Hopefully, we won't have any issues with rainy weather. Tom Robinson has volunteered to be the chairman for the Homecoming committee. Look for more information regarding this event to be published monthly on the Website.

We're also looking at getting together a membership committee that will solicit other owners that have not had the opportunity to join our club. Delano alone delivered over 300 bikes in the Twin Cities area and we'd like to target those owners to at least find out about our club. This will be addressed at the January meeting.

Mike Hamann had some copies of more developed logos for shirts and such. We anticipate having a final design picked and ready for the new shirts that go along with membership for 2001.

Bob Capitola gave us an update on the national organization. In essence, we've been given the green light to go ahead and use the X and Bar logo as long as our contact at the factory - Joel Norenberg - gets a chance to look it over before we put it on a bunch of shirts and other assorted articles. Bob will also continue to work with Joel on efforts to put together a national charter. This will be a slow moving task for obvious reasons.

We've now been together for just about a year. In that year, we've developed a fairly organized club and put together a very successful rally. All of this with very little guidance from the factory. As we go into our second year, we're poised to make the club an official organization with a constitution and bylaws. We now have elected officers and a much better sense of what needs to be accomplished going forward. We can learn from the mistakes that were made in the last 10 months as well as leverage the positive moves that we've made. We also have an Internet presence with a very robust website and an ever-growing base of members. All of these things dictate that 2001 should be a very successful and fun filled year for the Pioneer Chapter of the Excelsior Henderson Riders Club.

Rick Wawrzyniak Secretary - Pioneer Chapter - EHRC