IFMR History The Formation of the IFMR

The Rotary Club of Loxton, District 9520 in South Australia, sponsored the formation of the International Fellowship of Motorcycling Rotarians.
Rotary Club of Loxton members David Ingerson and Tony Moyle were the inaugural Chairman and Secretary of the new IFMR respectively.

Let me quickly add that at the same time as they started applying to Rotary International for official recognition, unbeknown to them, there was at least two other Rotary groups who were also attempting to do the same thing.
One of those groups was based in the US, and the other was in Scandinavia.
At that time, and I presume that the rules are basically the same today, to have Rotary International sanction a new Fellowship, a number of criteria had to be met.
These included a list of potential members (in the case of the IFMR, over 80 were listed), a Constitution, a Logo and the sponsorship of three current District Governors, two of whom must be from a country other than that of the sponsoring club.

A phone call to John Harding, the 1991/2 DG for District 9520, resulted in our first sponsoring DG.
District Governors in every city where motorcycles were manufactured were written to seeking their support.
Within 24 hours of receiving our letter, the DG of District 6270, Frederick Luedke, of Milwaukee, USA, he faxed us back the letter with “Excellent idea! Let us know how else can we assist! Rick Luedke” scrawled across it.
We had our second DG!

However finding a third proved much harder.
Many letters were never answered, and one that was returned summed up what many DGs of that time must have been thinking.
It came from DG Fumio Tamamura, District 2580 in Japan.
We had included in our letter to him: “I have chosen to seek your support because Tokyo is part of your District.
The Honda motorcycle is manufactured in that city and many Australians have strong links with that marque, having owned one, or follow the 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix with Australian riders Wayne Gardner and Mike Dooan riding Hondas.”
DG Fumio’s reply was dated Oct. 15. 1991.
It read in part: “In Japan, motorcycle riding is almost totally limited to the younger generation, and to be frank I do not believe that any Rotarian here would like to be seen on one.
Especially in Tokyo, where street congestion is almost chronic the only ones seen here are those used for delivering packages and messages, and is far from a pleasurable hobby.
Such being the case, I am afraid that it will not be possible for me to give you much encouragement about furthering your particular friendship activity in Tokyo.”

After some direct canvassing by the President of the Rotary Fellowship of Antique, Classic & Historic Automobiles, Brain N Henry, Andres L Guillen, the then District Governor of District 3450 (Hong Kong; Macau-Zone 4) willingly agreed to be our third sponsoring Governor.
Brian, whose advice was invaluable to the Loxton members, was a Rotarian from the Wagga Wagga Club, and that club sponsored the formation of the Rotary Fellowship of Antique, Classic & Historic Automobiles.
That Fellowship was the first Rotary Fellowship started in Australia.
This made the IFMR the second Rotary International Fellowship started in Australia.
Rotary International announced official recognition to the International Fellowship of Motorcycling Rotarians (short name: Rotacyclists) on the 13^th January 1992.
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IFMR History Membership Growth

Once the IFMR was granted official recognition by Rotary International, the first task was to ensure that the different groups of Rotarians who had been riding together, joined the Fellowship, and contributed to its development.
This was a challenge, as most motorcyclists tend to like to do their own thing, and not be too regimented.
Add to this the fact that most Rotarians are busy men, and just for good measure throw in all the different personalities.
To complicate things even more, English was not the first language for many, and some did not speak it at all!

Two of the groups in America deserve a mention!
One group rode under the banner of “Hells Rotarians” and the other as “The Mild Ones”!

The second task was to promote the IFMR, and to grow its membership. Back in 1992, Rotary International ensured that each of the regional Rotary magazines had one page dedicated to encouraging Rotarians to join a Fellowship.
At that time they listed 36 registered Fellowships that members could join, ranging from Amateur Radio to Yachting.

Rotarians would tick a box (or boxes) of those Fellowships that interested them, and post the form off to RI headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, USA. Amongst the many RI employees at Evanston, was Abigail McNear, Supervisor of International Fellowship & Special Programs.
Abigail would process the forms sent in by Rotarians, and send a copy to the relevant Fellowship.

Just as an aside, both David Ingerson and I, developed quite a friendship via letters, faxes and phone calls, with Abigail, and on one of the trips that David did to the US, he called into “One Rotary Centre” in Evanston, and met her – one more nice thing about Rotary!

It was interesting, and sometimes frustrating, to see what some Rotarians had expressed an interest in joining.
Sometimes we would receive up to 15 forms all from one club (often in India) where just about every one of the 36 boxes would be ticked.
It was rare that we even received a response to the membership package that we would send to each of them.

Only forms which had the “Motorcycling” box ticked would be sent to us, but it didn’t take us long to work out that the chance of someone joining the IFMR was remote, when they had also ticked for example, the “Egyptology” and/or the “Bird Watching” and/or the “Pin Collecting” boxes.
However we still sent the membership packages!
Even sending these packages could prove problematical, as some of the hand writing was nigh on impossible to read, and add to that addresses in some countries are written quite differently to the way we were used to.

Partly in an attempt to promote the IFMR, and partly to promote Loxton, members of the Rotary Club of Loxton would, twice a month, raise their glasses in a toast to a Rotary Club in some other part of the world. Members present at that meeting (plus the guest speaker) would sign a card, and it would be posted off with IFMR information and local promotional material.
We picked up a few new members this way, and the Rotary Club of Loxton received the odd letter back saying that our Club had been toasted at one of their meetings!

Back then many new members were very keen to help promote the Fellowship, and we would send them promotional packages containing photos, membership forms, the structure of the Fellowship, an ever growing International Directory and of course a few copies of the latest IFMR Newsletter.
These members would promote the IFMR at Rotary District Assemblies and Conferences, and spread the word at other motorcycling functions.
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IFMR History The lead up to our first World Convention.

With the 1993 Rotary World Convention being held in Melbourne between May 23^rd and 26^th, there was much activity in the IFMR in Australia during that year.
As early as Xmas 92, personal contacts were made with Melbourne Rotacylists, and the seeds for manning a Fellowship Booth at the Convention, a motorcycle ride, and a Fellowship Dinner were sown.

Thanks to the efforts of John White, a member of the Rotary Club of North Melbourne, the premises of the Victorian Automobile Club was secured as a venue for our Dinner.
John also took responsibility for the post Convention Ride, which he decided would be around the Mornington Peninsula.

Steve Chiodo, manager of Peter Stevens Motorcycles, Melbourne, went to a lot of trouble following up on high profile people, associated with the motorcycle industry, as possible guest speakers for our Dinner.
Eventually he was able to secure the services of Peter Smith, better known as “Mr Smith” Editor of Streetbike magazine and a regular contributor to other Australian magazines such as Two Wheels.

The first International Newsletter, accompanied by an International Directory was posted out to 226 Members (or Potential Members) in 13 countries in February 1993.
The Newsletter Editor was one George Sinclair, Rotary Club of Adelaide Parks, and the contents included a Chairman’s Corner, the Fellowship Structure, an invitation to help man the Convention Booth, Ride and Dinner registration, coming events, contributions from Rotacyclists in U.S.A, and United Kingdom, plus a request to members in all of the countries to support “The International Friendship and Goodwill Link”.

The idea of this Goodwill Link, was to have Rotacyclists approach leading politicians, dignitaries and notable citizens in their area, and have them send a message of peace and goodwill to the World President of Rotary, Cliff Dochterman.
The end result of this was a bound book containing 35 letters of welcome, goodwill and recognition of Rotary’s role in world peace and understanding from Australian State Premiers, Senators, the Ombudsman to the Lord Mayor of London.
This book was presented to World President Cliff Dochterman in the House of Friendship when he visited the IFMR Booth!

Preparing for the World Convention was not the only activity in the first half of 1993. On March 5^th, IFMR member, Russell Johnson, Rotary Club of Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.A., armed with information and IFMR paraphernalia, sent to him from Australia, conducted a presentation at the World President’s Salute to W.F.A, display and dinner.

Meanwhile a membership application form was received from Rtn David Lamb, Rotary Club of Devizes, Great Britain, and in his response to the package that was sent to him was a short line saying that he would join the IFMR on his return to the UK, as he was accompanying his wife Nina who was soon to lead a tour group to Australia.
You can imagine David’s surprise when the train pulled into Adelaide, and he was met by Newsletter Editor George Sinclair, and John Donaldson.

Adelaide was planned as a two day rest period for the group, and David has since stated in several articles that he has written, that what took place during those two days was the highlight of his trip!
George and partner Carol took them out and showed them the town, and then on the second day they were taken to Thornton Park where about 20 Rotacyclists and quite a few members of the local Rotary Club had gathered for a BBQ lunch and a ride through the hills.

Great pomp and ceremony surrounded the extraction of AUD$20.00 from David Lamb, making him the first Rotacyclist to travel more than 20,000kms to personally pay his subscriptions!
David went on to become the Third World President of the International fellowship of Motorcycling Rotarians!
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IFMR History The Rotary International World Convention – Melbourne May 1993.

Many IFMR members had put in a lot of effort preparing for the World Convention.
Amongst the many invitations that had been sent out to members and DGs, was a number of letters addressed to the World President of Rotary, Cliff Dochterman, inviting him to join IFMR members on a ride whilst he was in Melbourne.
With the busy schedule of a World President, you would hardly expect a personal response, however we worked through the correct channels, and whilst the responses were non committal, there seemed to be a thread of hope that it may happen.

Cliff’s well known bubbly personality gave us some confidence that it may all come together.
David Ingerson and I rode to the convention (750kms), David on his brand new BMW K100LT, and me on my trusty old K100RT.
We had previously send a mountain of printed material, apparel and other parfinalia across to the hard working Melbourne Rotacyclists, who had set up the IFMR Fellowship Booth in the House of Friendship in the Tennis Centre.

When David and I arrived at the Tennis Centre, there was a quite a group Rotacyclists waiting there on the steps for us – it was great to put faces to the many names of the people who had been phoning and faxing us on the progress of the Booth, the Ride and the Dinner!
Without being biased, it is fair too say that the display at IFMR Booth was amongst the best there, and the two Triumph motorcycles on display were real crowd drawers.
The booth was manned by members (a number of then from overseas) for the entire duration of the Convention, and many new members were signed up – quite a number from other countries, and lots of District Governors took IFMR promotional material back to their Districts.

Being optimists, we had made contact with the police in Melbourne, and asked if we could have a police escort for the planned ride with the World President.
Since the Convention was being held in two main venues – the Tennis Centre and the Convention Centre, and we had obtained the World President’s agenda, our plan was, hopefully, to transport him from one venue to the other.
To this end, the Melbourne IFMR members, had arranged for two motorcycles fitted with sidecars, to be on standby.
In fact there were quite a few members who said they wanted to ride with the World President if it happened, and each had given details so they could be contacted at short notice (remember, this was all before the advent of mobile phones!)

Early on the second day of the Convention, David and I were to be found outsider the doors of a Melbourne theatre! Inside were hundreds of Rotarians being addressed by the World President!
By the laughter, they were really enjoying his delivery!
Not quite so easy outside for David and myself, as we were trying to convince the World President’s minders that we should talk to their master.
Persistence eventually paid off, and Cliff, followed by a couple more minders bounced out the door!

He had obviously read our letters of invitation, knew what we were about, and he was quite quick to agree to a ride.
Our question was “When?” His answer “This afternoon!”
This short notice was going to put all of or plans to the test.

A phone call to one of the Melbourne members, and the task of ringing the local riders was covered.
The police had been pre-warned that there maybe little notice, and when phoned they said they would have two motorcycle officers at the entrance to the Convention Centre prior to 1pm.

The next thing to do was to visit the Convention Centre, and sort out with the local Rotarians who were controlling traffic how this was going to work.
We also had to inform the security staff what was going to happen.
Mid morning, David and I rode up the spiral drive into the Convention Centre.
The drive is just wide enough for two vehicles to pass, and when we reached to top (the point at which we intended picking up Cliff), it was mayhem!

The local Rotarian in charge of traffic control was almost at the point total frustration!
It took us ten minutes to tell him of our plans – the reason it took so long he was constantly rushing off to sort out some crisis or anther!
When he finally processed what we had said, he told us that it was impossible, as we would never get a group of bikes up here, due to the chaotic traffic!
We said we would see him at 1.30pm.

Now there was a wait!

How many would turn up?
By 12.30, most of the 23 riders, including the two sidecars, had assembled at the entrance to the Convention Centre, along with the two motorcycle police, plus a police car!

At about 1pm, we swung our grand plan into action, and had the police car park across the entrance and only let in traffic that was vital.
All this was unknown to the overworked Rotarian at the top on traffic control, and he was amazed, but much more relaxed, when we rode in as a group at 1.30pm as planned!

The meeting that Cliff was addressing went a little over time, but he soon emerged from the function, laughing and as usual, and with some effort squeezed himself into the nearest sidecar.
We offered the second sidecar to one of his minders, but none of them were smiling – it would appear that they had not been told of this little adventure!

Some lucky Japanese exchange student got to ride in the other sidecar!

The minders were quick to jump into the two black Mercedes, and drop in behind the bikes, but when we got to the bottom of the Convention Centre the two motorcycle cops lead the cavalcade, and the police car bought up the rear. T
he two black Mercedes were left to fight their way through the busy Melbourne traffic the best they could!

The trip to the Tennis Centre too about 20 minutes, and Cliff had declined the offer to wear a helmet, and he had a absolute ball waving to the crowds that were on the street, all perplexed by the escorted group of bikers passing by.

Word had got out of what was happening, and there was a welcoming crowd at the entrance to the Tennis Centre.
They were all highly amused at the effort it took to extract Cliff from the sidecar.
The sidecar seating was of quite generous proportions, but Cliff was of even MORE generous proportioned! Cliff in his usual way was laughing and thanking the sidecar rider, but his laughter turned to astonishment when the ride removed HER helmet.
Cliff was quickly whisked off to the IFMR Booth, where he was happy to chat and have his photo taken will all and sundry.
It was a wonderful informal 20 minutes before the men from the black Mercedes came to claim their man!
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