What makes a community great?

[Irma]

Quoted from Bill Pope, 1st officer of CMC011 Ottawa

posted in CMC011 Ottawa: 

http://www.cmcnational.ca/index.php?/topic/23811-big-success-with-this-years-cruise-dont-bruise-event/

 

We helped raise over 20K for the Cruise don't bruise charity event this year. This was our 6th year with the event. We do the route planning and volunteer at the poker stops as well as the BBQ and music........OK pretty much all of it.

 

We heard that they were $196 short of 20K so we topped them up with a $200 donation to put them over the top. It was a great year and many thanks to everyone who participated and gave of their time and money to make this the best year ever. 

 

see our FB page for an article from the local paper talking about the CMC organization an what our participation meant to the event. The file was over 500K and not able to post here.

 

B

 

  CMC011 CDB article (1).pdf   541.26KB   0 downloads

 

 

http://www.orleansstar.ca/Opinion/Letters-to-the-Editor/2015-10-15/article-4310496/What-makes-a-community-great?/1

Published on October 15, 2015

What makes a community great?

 

  By Gayle Downing, gdowning@eorc.creo.ca

 

EDITORIAL. The Eastern Ottawa Resource Centre’s Cruise Don’t Bruise Bikers Against Violence motorcycle ride happened on August 22, 2015.  The event raises money for our Violence Against Women programs.  We have built this fundraising event for 6 years.  Our goal has always been to get 200 bikes out and raise $20,000.00. That was quite an aggressive goal and it takes really hard work and lots of really good people to create an event from scratch and grow it quickly.  We found really good people and collectively we worked really hard. 

 

 

 

We found Mike Laflamme (or rather he found us!), a committed biker who is a member of the Canadian Motorcycle Cruisers Ottawa Chapter.  Mike joined our committee and then got members of CMC to come out to the ride.  Eventually they started volunteering the day of the ride.  They did blocking and helped with safety issues, they volunteered at the poker stops, cooked the bbq lunch, they donated money and many members participated in the ride.  They came out when the weather was really bad in 2014 and they have been with us when the sun is shining.  Their support and their loyalty have been tremendous.  We have really enjoyed working with them.  They also taught us a lot about how to host a motorcycle ride.  We are still learning!

CMC has come to realize that their time and efforts have helped to make this event so successful.  Our success is their success.  CMC understands that the money raised goes directly to our clients and they continue to make a commitment every year. 

I was recently overwhelmed by an offer that they made to us.  Our 2015 ride brought out just over 200 bikes! We actually achieved that goal.  We raised just under $18,000.00. We were very excited to raise this amount.  It was such a wonderful day with so many great people volunteering and riding with us.  However, when the Canadian Motorcycle Cruisers found out that we hadn’t quite made our target of $20,000.00, they decided to top up their donation by $200.00 and now we can tell the world that we raised $20,000.00!  How great is that?

CMC gives so much to Cruise Don’t Bruise and now this donation is nothing short of amazing community spirit.  This kind of commitment and willingness is what makes our community great.  The generosity and sharing attitude of the members of CMC is something that I felt I needed to share with our community.  People need to know what wonderful people these bikers are!

There was a time when bikers did have a ‘bad rap’ in the words of Mike Laflamme.  Today, we have some amazing bikers in our community.  Kind, generous people who want to enjoy their bikes and do something good for the community as well. 

We live in a great community along with great people – some of them happen to ride motorcycles.