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Good Morning.

As you know the world and our Country has been going through an unprecedented economic and health crisis in the recent weeks. The Board of Directors has been talking the last few days about how current events in our region will or will not effect Chapter function in the near term.

As you may know I put a non chapter ride up on Facebook last Saturday, because there wasn't one on our calendar, and I needed to get my head clear for a few hours from all the doom and gloom. And while that worked, we still have to get through the bigger problem, and that looks like it will take awhile to get that done. Given that, and the public directive from Buncombe County restricting gatherings of 10 people or more, that hit yesterday, we as your leadership team have decided to postpone everything scheduled to happen in April to be set again after we get some more information on how the fight with this pandemic goes.

We came to this decision after days of back and forth, and much conversation about normalcy in the group versus the safety of our membership. Given another 30 days this whole picture may brighten quite a bit. The ride last Saturday was 5 bikes, seven people and proper recommended distancing protocol was practiced.

All that said, we are postponing everything noted on our calendar noted for April, including the regular Chapter meeting. All the lost rides will be reposted later in the year, and if you need to get your "knees in the breeze", get a hold of someone in the group and plan something there. We found out Saturday that we can pull off "Social Distancing" on a smaller ride very easily. We really didn't want to have to do this, but a lot of our members are part of the high risk population for the virus and it's just not worth the risk.

The other factor in this decision is that if we don't do this voluntarily, the Federal and local government might just step in and take a much stronger role in that. I have that on good authority from some of my local Government contacts...

This Nation is facing a threat that we have never seen before. A public health crisis coupled with an economic crash. If we follow some basic common sense options, and stay calm, we will come through this stronger than ever. The goodness , and resilience of this group never ceases to amaze me. Let's use this time to pull together and reinforce some of those individual relationships within our group that you may not have had the time to spend with before now.

We will get through this. Keep Kicking,  Steve Caraker SMHOG #3002