BUY ONLY FROM THE RIGHT BUSINESSES

BUY FROM BUSINESSES ON THE LAND USE TEAM

By Del Albright

Land use means keeping our trails open and our sports alive. When you spend your OHV/off-pavement money, spend it with a business that SUPPORTS the SPORTS. Period. 

Do the homework; check "under the hood" of their website.

Get on your "creeper" and check around to see where they support the sport like with donations to raffles; joining organizations (that's some times a hard one as there are so many); making significant donations to land use organizations; and being part of the team like those businesses represented in landuse groups on the social networks.

We should not get mad at a business that does not belong to your organization or my organization or whatever; but if they are not supporting some event, some club, some organization at the best level they can afford, then they are not helping FIX land use.

And if that is the case, and you cannot convince them otherwise, DO NOT BUY from them if you want to save outdoor motorized sports. 

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Del

• RUN A BETTER MEETING
• LEARN MORE ABOUT NEPA
• WRITE A LETTER
• GIVE A SPEECH
• LEARN TO FACILITATE MEETINGS
• WHY JOIN A CLUB
• ORGANIZE A CONVOY
• JOIN THE RIGHT GROUPS
• GET VOLUNTEER TRAINING
• LEAD VOLUNTEERS
• CHOOSE THE RIGHT JOB FOR YOU

GO BACK TO HOME MENU FOR THIS MOBILE PLATFORM

ASK BUSINESSES TO HELP US SAVE TRAILS IN 2016

OFF HIGHWAY, OFF-ROAD BUSINESSES NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU THE CUSTOMER

Saving Trails in 2016 Will Take us All Doing Our Part.

By Del Albright, National Ambassador, BRC

I ask for your help as we start 2016 to get a TON more off-road, off-highway businesses to join or renew in BlueRibbon Coalition. I just reviewed this list of member business and dang, I'm a bit disappointed.

Please take a look (by state) and if you don't see YOUR favorite business, shoot them a personal email, post on their FB page, do whatever it takes, but we WILL NOT save trails and keep our sports alive WITHOUT our businesses fully behind us. Period.  This job of keeping our backcountry motorized recreation sports alive and our trails open will take all of us doing our part.  BUSINESSES ARE KEY -- they may also be busy and not remember to join up or renew.  Let's help them help us.

LINK to current BRC business members (and clubs) 

https://www.sharetrails.org/about/member-organizations

While you're at it, you can also check your listing of businesses on your state association or other group you believe in. Find out WHO in our business world needs a reminder from YOU, the customer. Give them that nudge; and thank them when they do renew (or join).

I will be happy to help if you need my assistance.

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Del

• RUN A BETTER MEETING
• LEARN MORE ABOUT NEPA
• WRITE A LETTER
• GIVE A SPEECH
• LEARN TO FACILITATE MEETINGS
• WHY JOIN A CLUB
• ORGANIZE A CONVOY
• JOIN THE RIGHT GROUPS
• GET VOLUNTEER TRAINING
• LEAD VOLUNTEERS
• CHOOSE THE RIGHT JOB FOR YOU

GO BACK TO HOME MENU FOR THIS MOBILE PLATFORM

ARE FEAR AND EGOS STOPPING US FROM WINNING THE WAR ON ACCESS?

  LEARN OR DIE: BOOK REVIEW FOR RECREATIONAL LEADERS

 By Del Albright

Caroline Cornell interviewed Edward Hess, author of Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization, in Communication World Magazine (Dec. 2014), the voice of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).  The link is below.  I took Mr. Hess's words and just substituted "companies" and "businesses" with our OHV words like Groups and Organizations to show how his wisdom and advice applies to off-road groups as much as it does to today's business world.    

So when you read this really valuable article (link below) about technology and learning, see if this hits you the way it hit me as to how it relates to off-roaders and backcountry recreation groups.  Here are some highlights that slapped me across the face as applying to those of us in the recreational world, especially those in leadership positions.

• Those groups that best incorporate the science of learning into their culture, processes and practices will be the winners.  Winning groups learn better and faster.

• That learning environment will be a humanistic, positive, emotional environment that results in high employee engagement—designed to mitigate the two big learning inhibitors, Fear and Ego.  (Note, back in the 80’s the big thing was “Japanese Style Management – known as Quality Circles where the guy putting the widgets together had a huge say in the way the widgets were made.  Factory workers helping designers).

•           Emotionally we are defensive “thinkers” seeking to protect and affirm our self-image.  Real learning (old dog new tricks) requires optimizing our humility and opening the door to better listening.  Most folks in our organizations listen to confirm we were right in the first place and have trouble suspending judgment while the other person is still talking.  It makes our motivation appear more to look smart than to learn. (Read more on my take on "aerobic listening" here on my website: http://www.delalbright.com/articles/opponents.htm.)

•   Many OHV group leaders have yet to figure out how to be an open-minded, non-defensive, good listener who is willing to subject his beliefs to challenge by others.

•   One of the big tricks to “being smart” for our organizations is to KNOW what we DO NOT know, learn how to overcome that and learn from our mistakes.

   So I'm curious how this applies to what you've seen in OHV/Recreation groups and organizations, even clubs?  For me, to take this info and build it into our strategic plans, training workshops, business plans, club bylaws, whatever, just the way we do business, might give us a heads up to win more and back-track less.

Good information on how we can get better with using our technology.

http://cw.iabc.com/2014/12/08/stay-relevant-todays-technological-age/

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Del

Buy Bad; and Park Your Junk?

BUY BAD; AND PARK YOUR JUNK?

Love the one you’re with and let the others you’re not with know why!

By Del & Stacie Albright

If you buy off-road parts from a company that does not support landuse, trails, raffles or off-road organizations, you are buying “bad” and you might as well go green and park your junk!  I’m not being harsh here; I’m being real.  I’ve been off-roading for 50 years and working in landuse for 30. We’ve come far enough in the landuse world that EVERY club, business, group, virtual club, whatever, knows we are losing trails to enviro-exclusionary elitists and we have to fight back!  Companies not on the landuse team in some way (commensurate with their size) and merely making money from our love of our sports need to be brought to justice – the justice of our pocket books.

If you are buying from outfits merely because they’re cheap and not checking to see if they support landuse, you might as well give a similar amount of money to the Sierra Club or other anti-access groups trying EVERY DAY to shut us down.   It’s that simple.

Famous Red Jeep parked in garage....

So what can we  do to make sure we ARE buying from outfits that are in the game.  Here’s the simple process:

1. Ask them if and how they support landuse.
2. Find out what events they show up at and if they are donating to the event raffle --- that raffle hopefully supports landuse in some way and not just some warm and fuzzy cause solely.
3. Look at their website to see what links they offer in the landuse world (United 4WDA, BlueRibbon Coalition, state organizations, AMA, ASA, etc.); and…
4. Check out your state association and regional off-road groups to see what businesses THEY claim as members and supporters (on their website and in their newsletter where some list levels of sponsorship even).

Now let’s say you really love a company but they failed on all the above checks….just get in touch and give them a chance to “convert” to supporting pro-access efforts.   Get a few buddies to jump in with you.  Be fair.  If they don’t covert, STOP buying from them and let them know why.  You will be helping  to SAVE our sports and keep our trails open by doing that.

On the other hand, let’s say you buy from an outfit that is ALWAYS showing up with product donations to raffles, giving to landuse organizations, supporting the cause of access on their website and in their newsletters…..GIVE THEM A HUG – publicly!  Say so on forums when it’s appropriate.  Let your buddies know about the “good guys.” Be outspoken why YOU buy from the businesses who support keeping our trails open.  This has to go two ways  -- love the one you’re with and let the others you’re not with know WHY!

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