nea4wd.org

Zaedock wrote:Awesome job, Mike. We're gonna multiply your current salary X3.

Citing the East Coast Four-Wheel Drive Association and Northeast Association of Four-Wheel Drive Clubs as examples,

its winter, a lot of people have cabin fever and want to do something positive for the sport, and that's awesome. i get asked pretty often what people can do to help. trail cleanups are good, but we are the only ones who know about them, and this isnt the season anyways, you can't see the trash under the snow. in the meantime, we can all work on public relations, needed now more than ever.
im trying to create a grassroots campaign, an "uprising" of outdoorsmen to petition the MA state government into recognizing 4x4 groups as a recreation entity, and to recognize motorized recreation's financial and tourism value as a whole. but it isnt as simple as a bunch of signatures. its going to take an overwhelming majority of public opinon to insist on the government becoming more motorized-recreation friendly.

-legislators are held accountable by their voting constituents.
-the general public makes up the constituency, but elderly women in particular tend to make up the majority of votes
-elderly people get their news and opinion of current events from the newspaper
-only two things get in the newspaper. bad events and good ones. 4x4's get mostly bad press

so what creates good press? what makes it hard for the ordinary citizen to dislike a stranger? in my opinion, its tough to dislike someone doing charitable work, doing community service or other good deeds, generally contributing more than they draw from the system. thats what we need the general public to think of 4x4 groups as.. contributors.

things we could easily do during the winter months that are newsworthy:
food drives
clothing drives
blood drives

these are all ive been able to come up with but there have to be more, what else? throw out your ideas please.

having just done the ware toy drive this christmas and had $1100 in my paypal account to deal with, and now maybe even have to pay taxes on.. i would suggest staying away from raising dollars. chances are, we arent going to raise an amount that makes people take much notice, and it presents a lot of opportunity for problems. i think time, goods and services are safer.

some of you might have experience setting up a charity event or might want to try your hand at it.. thats what im hoping this thread encourages. we need our membership to really start asking how we can market our sport to become more likeable to the general public, and taking steps to make it happen.

please take this thread back to your club forum's and see if you can spark interest from your membership into taking the lead, setting up their own events and contacting their local newspapers and stations to get credit for their hard work in their respective regions. this really needs to be a state wide push, and we (the organized 4x4 leadership) really need to start focusing our efforts on training and cultivating the next wave of leaders who will defend our sport.

mike_belben wrote:
...............these are all ive been able to come up with but there have to be more, what else? throw out your ideas please. ...........