Five of the founders of the BMW MOA: Vern Hansen, Jeff M. Dean, John D. Moore, Charles W. Smith, and Frank C. Diederich.

Greg Feeler, BMW MOA President

A motorcycle only makes sense when it's moving. Stationary, it will fall over at the first opportunity. However, when the wheels begin turning, something magical happens: that unsteady hunk of metal gains stability, becomes agile, can exploit the laws of physics, and almost defy gravity. In so many ways a motorcycle club is ironically identical. The BMW Motorcycle Owners of America only makes sense, fulfills its mission, and can be both stable and agile when our "wheels" are turning.

This month begins a year of celebration of our 40th Anniversary, and provides us the opportunity to not only recognize this great milestone but also to appreciate the road we took getting here, and consider the one we'll travel into the future. We have some pretty cool things planned to celebrate our 40th birthday, which we'll hint at over the next couple of months and then begin to roll out starting in April. I wish I could say more about them at this point, but I urge you to keep your eyes open for information as these things are announced, and how you can participate. Some might be sooner in the year or some later, some could be open to everyone, and some might be a part of our International Rally in Sedalia, MO.

The BMW MOA was founded on a 13°-below-zero day in Chicago in February 1972, and incorporated two months later in April of that year. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those people who had the vision and audacity to start our wheels turning. The founders were Vern Hansen, Frank C. Diederich, John D. Moore, Charles W. Smith, and Jeffrey M. Dean. Joining them on the first board of directors were John Harper, Robert Poland, Ronald Goodall, and Jean Rihl. The Articles of Incorporation they authored state the purposes of the MOA as:

The specific and primary purposes are to own, operate, and maintain a national BMW motorcycle owners club exclusively for the pleasure, recreation, safety, information, coordination and furtherance of goals and interests of the club and its members, and promotion of the camaraderie and friendship of individual members and BMW motorcycle clubs wheresoever located.

It has been an incredibly long road for our club since that freezing day in Chicago-a time before "free" long distance calls, computers, email, on-line forums, and all the other tools "necessary" today to build organizations and bind groups together. The founders only had toll phone calls, typewriters, a printing press, the U.S. Mail, and a big vision and enthusiasm. The American novelist Louis Dearborn L'Amour wrote, "A good beginning makes a good end." Although we are far from the end, there's no doubt they gave our club a great beginning. The foundation they laid has proven a solid one that has been adaptable to change while still holding true to those original goals.

The enthusiasm they started with has proven to be an infectious characteristic of our club. Over the subsequent 40 years, literally thousands of volunteer club members have expended many more thousands of hours to keep our wheels turning and build the MOA into what it is today: a giant extended family of friends and BMW motorcycle enthusiasts. If you have not been one of these people (and you can be any time you want), you literally have no idea how much effort has gone into our club over the years. I've seen the willing sacrifices of so many and say to all our members that it takes something very special to bring out that level of commitment. We are all a part of something special and very good, which is very rare in today's world. It now falls to us-the current club members, office staff, and volunteers-to keep our wheels turning. We have been passed a gift-a trust- and need to seize every opportunity to enhance the appeal of our club and meet the needs and expectations of future generations of BMW riders.

During 2012 we'll announce new capabilities that will greatly enhance the membership experience and set the stage for even further growth. We will be able to do new things, and do some existing things in better ways. We'll need more of you to help-to volunteer-to take your turn at turning our wheels.

Strategically, our mission can be simply stated, as it was said to me by one of our very first club Presidents. He described how they saw their goal back then, "We did everything we could to make sure there would be a BMW MOA in 20 years." The founders and their successors clearly succeeded, and now it is up to us to rise to that same challenge.

Ride well and often.