Chairman’s Chunk

Like many other registered charities, the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD) has taken a financial pummelling since the Coronavirus pandemic struck the UK. Our largest annual fundraising event, The You’ve Been Nabbed Rally had to be cancelled in May, causing a loss in the region of £35,000 to our annual revenue.

Despite lots of claims by government sources that there would be help for charities during this crisis; the NABD has not been able to gain a single penny in governmental support.

In addition to regular NABD fundraising events for 2020 having to be cancelled, many other events that traditionally support the NABD with sizeable donations have also been cancelled. When you also

consider that the vast majority of people in the UK now find themselves less‐able to support their chosen charities, you begin to see the dire situation the NABD is facing as this year progresses.

The profits from the annual You’ve Been Nabbed Rally usually cover a significant portion of the cost of employing our two paid employees, the Office Manager and the Administrative Assistant. Fortunately we were able to furlough our admin assistant, which has helped reduce the strain on NABD funds to some extent, but the almost total lack of income over recent months, and the prospect of worse to come, left the NABD Trustees no alternative but to suspend the NABD Adaptation Grants Scheme from June 2020 until the financial situation improves. This decision will be under constant revue, as will any other measures put in place to endure the survival of the NABD throughout this current crisis.

Not being the sort of people to sit back twiddling our thumbs and hoping for ‘Manna from Heaven’, we decided to run an on‐line virtual event via the NABD Facebook page on the weekend that should have been The 29th You’ve Been Nabbed rally.

Being a fairly impromptu project put together at fairly short notice the event did not raise as much money as we might have hoped but it did give us a chance to experience the problems relating to producing and managing an online event.

We had terrific live music performances on the evening of Friday May 8th from NABD Patron and top‐class tr oubadour Stevie Simpson, Steph Hoy live from Paris, Billy Mac, Denis Dowling and a headline solo set from Chris Harwood of Exhibit A.

On Saturday May 9th we posted a series of videos from previous NABD events throughout the day including excellent performances by Exhibit A, 5th Element, T‐Bone Jones, The Ra ttlers, Lil’ Devil, Re‐Generate, Magnum and The Jalapenos with lots of banter online to keep the party going. We also had a very special guest comedy video supplied by the magnificent Milo McCabe in his inimitable Troy Hawk character. comedy ‘Happy Hour’ (which actually lasted two hours) hosted by myself and my lovely wife Mandy (who got very drunk very quickly testing the cocktails I made during the early part of the show) and featuring live comedy sets from very fine stand‐up c omedians, Richard Massara, Jonathan Mayor and Martin Mor; with a guest ‘open‐spot ’ from up‐and‐coming comedian Bob Ingham.

Despite a few hitches along the way, everything went pretty well with the performances and we had a gratifyingly large audience watching online and joining in the banter via Facebook Messenger. Everybody involved had donated their time and talent free‐of‐char ge and NABD webmaster Simon Freedman did a magnificent technical job in the background keeping it all from falling apart.

Unfortunately we hit an unexpected snag with attaching donation buttons to the live performances on the host page, which meant donations fell far below what we had hoped for, but we managed to sell a couple of hundred limited‐edition ev ent patches which brought the total up to a much‐needed £1,000 over the weekend.

Fortunately the Sunday of this event also coincided with my lovely wife Mandy’s birthday and she had set‐up a F acebook birthday fundraiser in aid of the NABD which went on to raise a staggering £3,044 toward the NABD survival fund!

With many lessons learned we immediately started thinking about following the event up with another virtual rally to coincide with the cancelled dates of our annual ‘Nabdonia’ rally on the first weekend in July.

This time we set up a specific ‘Event Page’ on Facebook and made sure in advance that we could attach donate buttons to each individual performance. One of the great advantages to using the Facebook donation system is that every single penny donated goes to the charity nominated. Facebook take nothing out for ‘administration fees’ (unlike ‘Just Giving’ and other so‐c alled ‘charity fundraising sites’ online who take a hefty slice from both donors and the charity concerned for using their site as a collection point).

This time we made sure there was plenty of prior publicity and lots of chatter generated about the event online, so that when it began on Friday July 3rd we had a very respectable number of people watching. having had to make soup out of our clothes, and a rather fine cheesecake out of our boots, in response to the privations of the Covid‐19 pandemic. W e enjoy magnificent live music performances from Stevie Simpson, Jeff Lockett, Billy Mac, Blues Legend ‐ Adrian B yron Burns, and a rather brilliant trio called Finch. Despite one or two technical issues, the night was an absolute joy and the banter online was worth bottling. We even had couples posting tasteful pictures of themselves watching the show naked in response to the example set by Mandy and myself!

On the Saturday afternoon we had a Smacked Arse Comedy Show hosted by myself and Mandy (now fully dressed once again) featuring brilliant comedy sets from Freddy Quinne, Rob Mulholland, Lindsey Davies and Steve Harris. The laughter came thick and fast for more than two‐hour s of top‐class comedy.

Throughout the day we also had a silly online game running, courtesy of NABD Trustee Vic Hawkes who was also overseeing the online auction of a 3‐da y mini‐break for six people at a lovely farm in the Staffordshire Peak District.

In the evening we returned to the live music with brilliant performances with Stevie Simpson, Sam Ferris, Steph Hoy, Denis Dowling and Chris Harwood (who went on to do a spectacular 2‐hour enc ore).

Once again we had a special ‘limited‐edition’ event patch for sale but this time we had a much larger audience tuning in from at least five countries.

The upshot of the Virtual Nabdonia Rally 2020 was, more than £5,000 raised toward the NABD survival fund.

Needless to say, we are already planning a Virtual Autumn Nabd’ness rally for September 11th & 12th 2020. Keep an eye on www.nabd.org.uk and www.facebook.com/groups/TheNABD/ for further information.

I have no doubt at all that the Coronavirus pandemic is going to be blighting all of our lives for some time to come and I will not try to hide the fact that the NABD is increasingly facing a struggle for its very existence.

The only thing I can guarantee is that we will not stop fighting to keep the NABD afloat while we have the stalwart support of stout‐heart ed bikers!