The Motorcyclists Confederation of Canada (MCC) held their annual face to face Board Meeting in Edmonton, Alberta on September 26th. With nine Board members in attendance, the MCC Board had an incredibly productive all-day session.

At the meeting, the Board identified 4 key priorities to focus on for 2015, including:

Communications, Go-to Motorcycling Resource, National Motorcycle Awareness Month, Socio-Economic Study on Motorcycling

We are happy to report that all financials are now up to date, thanks in part to the generous support of the Motorcycle and Moped Industry of Canada (MMIC) who have provided additional book-keeping assistance. The audited financials were approved for 2013, allowing us to go into our 2014 Annual General Meeting on September 27th, 2014 with fully audited financials to present to the membership for review, questions and acceptance.

With the financial issues out of the way, the MCC Board tackled one of its biggest challenges: demonstrating value to its members as well as to the general motorcycling public. MCC’s work is often less visible, as we do much behind the scenes. While we do have many recent accomplishments (MCC Statement of Policy, MCC Days on the Hill – talking to MPs and Senators, lobbying to keep free parking in Toronto), we realized that without a consistent voice to communicate these activities, as well as other successes throughout the year, our members have no real way of knowing about what we’re doing on their behalf. To rectify this situation, the MCC is building a comprehensive Communications Plan to keep our members and the motorcycling community up to date on our activities.

Another area where we felt the MCC could accomplish more for its members and for motorcyclists anywhere is to really live our mandate to be “the voice of motorcycling in Canada”. By creating an online repository of all things motorcycling, representing both Canadian and international content, we believe the MCC can become the “go-to resource” for the Canadian motorcycling public, as well as for MCC members.

As part of living up to our goal of being the “go-to resource” for motorcycling information in Canada, the MCC has undertaken a Socio-Economic Study on the benefits of motorcycling in Canada that will commence in October and be completed by early summer 2015. The study will look at both on-road and off-road motorcycling in Canada – from a national, regional and local perspective. The study results will be broken out by off-road and on-road results as well as aggregated information to demonstrate the significant financial impact motorcycling has in Canada today. It should also provide statistics on projected future growth.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the MCC Board recognized that while its actions can be of real benefit to its member federations and to motorcyclists, it needs to take a more active role in providing them to all motorcyclists across Canada in a visible, meaningful fashion. Accordingly, the MCC is proclaiming that, starting in 2015, May will be known as National Motorcycle Awareness Month across Canada. MCC’s goal is to obtain participation in this campaign on a national level from its members, from government, and from motorcyclists themselves. Building on the success of the regional campaign held the past two years in the Ottawa valley area, the MCC will expand what started as a grassroots campaign to have Ottawa declare Motorcycle Awareness Month citywide to encompass numerous cities across the country. MCC will be leveraging a centralized theme built around safety and awareness, both for the driving public as well as for motorcyclists themselves.

The MCC Board believes that with these four initiatives we not only have the MCC firmly back on track to deliver on its mandate of motorcycle advocacy for all motorcyclists in Canada, but that we have also identified a number of actions that will benefit all motorcyclists and our member federations.

We are excited with the direction the MCC is taking, positioning us for growth and prosperity in 2015 and beyond.