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22 Years, 10,0000 New Members
Trustee’s member-getting odometer rolls over
 DAL
SMILIE is a pretty accomplished motorcycle enthusiast. He's a Charter
Life Member of the AMA. He's a member of the AMA Board and the Motorcycle
Hall of Fame Museum Board, currently serving as vice chairman of the
AMA Board. He's won a BMW mileage award by riding more than 50,000
miles in one short Montana riding season. And he's racked up national
championships in vintage motocross racing.
But none of those is necessarily his proudest moment as a motorcyclist. These
days, Smilie is justifiably proud about reaching a rare milestone: Over the
past 22 years, he has signed up 10,000 AMA members.
That number represents uncounted hours of volunteer work at rallies, races,
club meetings, shows and other events, spreading the word about the AMA's efforts
to protect riders' rights. But to him, it's all worth it.
"My main goal is preserving the sport, and it just strikes me that there's
strength in numbers," Smilie says. So what's the key to signing up 10,000
members? Smilie says that being a salesman has little to do with it. Instead,
he starts by informing riders about threats to motorcycling that they may not
even be aware of-like the new federal health insurance regulations that legalize
discrimination against motorcyclists.
"A lot of motorcyclists are just not joiners," he says. "We're
individualistic. But once you explain to people what we're facing, they're much
more likely to join."
Smilie understands that few motorcyclists will have the opportunity to match
his level of 10,000 AMA members, but he prefers to look at it another way.
Signing up 10,000 new members over a little more than 22 years, he notes, comes
out to about one and a quarter memberships per day.
Maybe the idea of signing up 10,000 people is overwhelming, but Smilie suggests
that each of the 270,000 current AMA members probably has a shot at signing
up one member today. And if we all did that, he says, think about the strength
we'd have in those numbers.
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