The Toronto Supershow turned out to be an excellent

idea and proved a success despite a Thursday night drop of some 10 inches of our favourite white stuff! While it was mild and clear during the Thursday night setup time, it started to fall lightly around 11 PM and continued on for the next day or so. By the time it was all over, there was some ten inches to be cleared away from the local roads and parking lots. Oh, yeah, and Bill Knowles' driveway. Needless to say, in a city like Toronto, the first thing to happen is the application of salt which turned into pure driven slush. This did NOT make it easy to drive the half-hour or so to the show location on the Express lanes of the 401 crossing Toronto. Nevertheless, the show location was, for the most part, cleaned up enough to be passable. The Supershow staff took good care of us, directing us to our free 20'x30' (!!!) location and making sure our staffers had the right passes to speed through the line-ups. Setup and teardown was a breeze and we were in and out of the loading area within a half-hour or so.

While you can see in the photo below highlighting Bruce Jenks, Mike Gorman and Bruce's 2002 Kawasaki Vulcan Classic 800 that our booth looked somewhat sparse without the rope outlining our area, the presence of our new CMR banner on the backdrop ensured that we had a good level of visibility and an open welcome to all passers-by. This kind of initiative looks like it will be a good thing to continue, at this and other similar happenings. If anyone else would like to create a CMR banner for use in your own areas, I can send you the banner file in JPG format by dropping me a line at Roadranger@Myrealbox.com . Or you can order it from our local sign maker for $116.73 plus shipping. For motorcycle show booths in particular, you may want to come up with affordable, easily made and transported gear that will allow you to spruce up a CMR booth anywhere in Canada, like some way of demarcating your booth space. These booths don't have to be a million dollar effort like the commercial setups in order to be effective.

The show itself was as full as ever, albeit missing the participation of the manufacturers. The manufacturers have decided, for this year anyway, to host their own show earlier in December. Nevertheless, the dealers had a full complement of bikes on the floor to ensure that all show customers could see and touch their favourite dream bikes. Even the wee-folk tagging along with their dads and moms had their own mini-bikes to salivate over. There was also a strip of some 35-40 used bikes for sale, from dirt bikes to early '80s Gold Wings, for those who might be interested in starting out or moving up as riders. Biker Billy was there again this year tantalizing the

crowds with his blend of severely ... and I mean SEVERELY ... hot-peppered cookery, something not altogether exquisite to those of us who have reached the age where setting our taste buds aflame no longer has the panache it may once have had! Why, they even had a massage booth staffed by licensed Shiatsu therapists where you could get a cool 15-minute massage to ease the strain of trying not to buy every goo-gah in sight. And, yes, I can personally attest that they were very good therapists. And, of course, the fashion show was a particular

highlight and seemed to be coincidentally timed to occur at just about the same time as Bill Knowles needed a potty-break (or

might it have been the other way around). Well, ok, maybe I am exaggerating, but it was still a cool event to have near our booth. (Note to self: Claim squatter's rights to spot near fashion show next year.)

While this Supershow booth idea was admittedly a late blooming initiative brought on by the discovery that our group could have free booth space for clubs, the membership was able to pull it off in such a way that we came off as a credible and fun-loving organization. A lot of this was the result of our being able to purchase a CMR banner. Thanks to those who sent in donations to this effort, we have paid it off out of those donations. And we all owe a vote of thanks to those brothers who accepted the eleventh-hour call to staff the booth - Bill Knowles, Len Cotton, and Don Thorne, along with Bruce Jenks and his riding buddy, Mike Gorman.

A special thanks goes out to Bruce for being the only one with the "(c)hutzpah" to bring in his

bike from Matawatchan, south of Bancroft, one of the furthest away places of the attendees. Trailering it in was only part of the contribution because, with that open trailer and those dirty roads following the snowfall, Bruce will have had a serious cleaning job once he got his bike home! On the other hand, the man is always grooming his steed. In fact, his was one of the best-buffed bikes at the show and was one of the few things shinier than my skull! (I've got this picture of me standing with my hair blowing in the wind ... and me too proud to go after it!) Many people stopped just to have a good close look at his Vulcan, some having too close a look as we had to put a sign on the bike to keep people from swinging a leg over and sitting on it. PMS (Parked Motorcycle Season) is sometimes hard to live with for some riders, I think.

The staffers met a bunch of Masons in for the Show. (A bunch? I think that's somewhere between a bouquet and a bushel.) We had a fine time sitting and talking with them as they stopped by. Naturally, no one had heard of the Canadian Masonic Riders and they were very glad to hear that there was a Masonic riding group in Canada. It was kind of fun to be able to reply to their question of where we were based out of, by saying we're based out of everywhere with members as far east as Fredericton NB and as far west as Edmonton AB ... so far. Through the course of the three days at the booth, we signed up eleven new CMR members. I expect we'll end up with a goodly number of more new members in the coming weeks.

This bike show event was a good enough idea that I think it may be a nice suggestion for any member to organize in their own local areas. It would be important that free booth space be negotiated though, and it would be helpful if a few bikes could be exhibited in that booth space as well. This idea may be especially useful for those of us who live further away, like Fredericton or Edmonton, where the early news of our existence will not have happened yet. In fact, the Nova Scotia government will include the CMR in the riding club listings in their Motorcycle Tour Guide Magazine if we can provide the name of a member in Nova Scotia. I imagine the same would be true for similar tourism sites/publications in other provinces.

Well, let's see. I guess it's soon time to start preparing for our Spring Ride in Eastern Ontario. One of the things we'll be discussing, of course, is the location. With the majority of our members being in the Toronto and Eastern Ontario areas for the time being, it would seem that a point somewhere in the middle would be workable to allow as many members as possible to attend. With competing events in that time of year, one of the most feasible weekends would seem to be Saturday, May 24th. This would hopefully mean we'd get a warmer day than we chose last year while still allowing for a reasonable day-ride before Americade Week.

And remember, this thing of ours just starts in Ontario; it doesn't end there. I've lived in every province except Manitoba, and the north of course, and I'd love to be able to get to know all riding Masons throughout Canada. Why, just think of the touring possibilities alone!