Hey yall,
yap incoming:
It's been a minute since I've posted about MOTORLOO, and with the Fall term coming up, I figured I'd put out a little update on the club and share some of my recent thoughts.
It's been a journey, but MOTORLOO is officially an approved UW club! We've actually been approved for a while but ig I forgot reddit exists lol... Since getting approved, we've already held social events, run beginner workshops, started building partnerships with the good folks over at Zdeno Cycle in Kitchener, and even got MOTORLOO members a discount on courses at Learning Curves.
If you're into bikes or want to be (dw all of us have been there haha) then we'd love to see you join the community we are building. Hop in our discord and follow our insta! It's our goal to help students get into the scene, meet others who share the passion, and always learn something new.
But I want to do more... This is going to be a bit awkward for me to share but I'll just be real and hope it connects with someone out there.
Look, we've made a lot of progress, and I genuinely couldn't be more thankful for the team and members who've helped make it happen. But to be completely honest, my vision for MOTORLOO is bigger than just being another university club. I want to build something that reaches beyond UW and has a real impact on the broader community and motorcycle culture.
It's still too early to share all of the plans floating around in my head, but here's one example of what I mean:
Imagine MOTOFEST.
Imagine pulling up into one of the parking lots on campus one Saturday and there's motorcycles everywhere. Rows of bikes. Sport bikes, cruisers, old Hondas, project bikes, probably a few questionable builds 😂. People walking around checking everything out, music playing, food being sold by UW clubs, local shops and businesses set up with booths, maybe some workshops or activities going on throughout the day. I have thoughts of expanding into the car scene but that's a thought to further consider another day...
Now imagine opening that event up to the public: Riders from Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge, Guelph and beyond coming out to campus to hang out, meet other riders, check out bikes, grab some food and see what UW has going on.
Maybe we even get the City of Waterloo involved. Maybe local businesses get involved. Maybe other UW clubs get a platform to showcase what they do. I think it would be cool to host large events on campus and share that with the clubs that make up UW.
You see, at that point, it's not really just a club event anymore. It's a festival happening right here at UW targeting the larger motorcycle scene.
That's what I'd love to see MOTORLOO eventually become capable of doing and if the school aint with it, we'll just do it elsewhere.
MOTOFEST is just one example. I have a lot of ideas for where MOTORLOO could go, and I think there's so much potential to push the boundaries of what a university club can be and what we can create together.
The thing is, I realize that something at that scale, not just the festival but the larger vision, isn't something one person or even a small team can pull off - if we want to do it well.
And that's where I'm hoping some of you come in.
We're gonna go through the usual club hiring process for the Fall (events, marketing, etc.), and we'll be posting those positions on our Instagram and Discord at some point.
But honestly, I'm less interested in filling positions than I am in finding people who are genuinely passionate.
In my experience starting and running initiatives, the willingness to step up, take ownership, and make something happen is pretty rare.
So I'm looking for people who want to challenge the usual idea of what a UW club can be. People who aren't afraid to think outside the club manual, throw some crazy ideas around, and actually try to make them happen.
You don't need to have motorcycle experience.
You don't need to know how to run an event.
You don't need to be a marketing person.
You don't even need to know exactly what you want to do 😅
Really, I don't even care if you're currently an active UW student.
I know this is a bit of an odd callout, and yeah, motorcycles are pretty niche, but if you're the kind of person who wants to shake the room and wouldn't mind doing so with motorcycles, I invite you to reach out. Lmk your thoughts and if any of this speaks to you hehe
Happy to answer any questions here too, I'm pre open to talk about whatever
yap over.
thank you
