Archive of BMW Motorrad Club Cape (2006 - 2019)

9 August 2011 , National Women’s Day , while most of South Africa had a “ly-in” on this public holiday we got up early to get ready for the Elim /Mizpah Charity run with the BMWMCC . It was a most emotional and rewarding experience, and made me count my blessings.

I'm so proud to be part of this club that has been instrumental in making a difference in the lives of the children we engaged with at Elim /Mizpah today. Long may this initiative continue and hopefully this will become an annual event in the club calendar.

A huge thank you to Anne, Tanya , Adrian and everyone that got involved with the preparations for this event , and all the club members for their generosity and commitment to this cause.

Jean and I echo Hamid's words. It was brilliant to see so many bikes attending this event. The kids faces and actions shone with excitement when the "scooters" arrived.  Some of the seriously physically handicaped children were given a ride with Andyman being the pilot, magic comes to mind. Then a number of riders carted the more able children around a make shift the track, sometimes 3 up. I am a loss for words to describe the pleasure these youngsters derived from this visit. Let's count our blessings daily irrespective how tough our day has been. 

Here are some photographs of our day at Elim.

Meeting Point at Engen 1 Stop N2

Deflating tyres for the "dirties"

Arrival at Elim - greetings by the Townsfolk

Giving rides to the Townsfolk

Arriving at Mizpah School

It was great to see some 32 bikes parked at the School

Inside the school we were greeted with song !

Handing out the "Lucky packets"

It meant so much to each and every one of them

Taking the children from Mizpah for rides

At the Elim Home the children were more severly handicapped,

but the enthusiasm was equally high when we arrived

Tanya

Andy could well have a permanent pillion ! They could not get enough

A big "Thank You" to our braaiers

Our visit to Elim and Mizpah proved to be a great success and will no doubt live on in the memory of every child longer than it may in ours as we get on with our "normal" lives.

Anne, you took on this project (sorry !) and ran with it. I would like to thank you, on behalf of the other riders, for all you did to ensure that the day was the success that it was.

Tanya, you are a very special person and I think that the work you do in this community is incredible.

Thank you to all the riders for their participation, Club Members who contributed and lastly, but not least to the various sponsors who came on board with various donations.

Well done and thank you to everybody involved in this fantastic day, especially Anne for taking this on in the way that she did.

Sorry we could not join you yesterday, it seems like it was a very special day.

Thanks to everyone that donated and came out for the day or part of the day.

Thanks to ALL the dealerships for supporting the event so wholeheartedly.

John sr. and Mark, thanks for coming out and helping so much.

John n Neil, I know you both had commitments so it was really warmly surprising that you came out to ride part of the way with us. And then hare back to your engagements.

Thanks to Lawrence Herbert from Atlantic Motorrad who came out and participated in the venture.

And a special thanks to Graham Johnson from Biketique for leading the road ride group.

To the special people that made up the lucky packets and helped collect the many goodies, going shopping for the items needed etc. a very big salute to you all.

Anne cataloged every item donated and every cent was accounted for.

It really is great to see how people pulled together.

The whole Versveld family and cousins made a day of it- really wonderful.

I found so many messages coming out of the event - on cooperation, dedication, walking the walk, giving and sharing.

But the most poignant message is that it is in giving that you actually receive.

it was actually cathartic to go out and find from this experience that you really appreciate what we have been gifted in life and the graces we have received.

Those kids did absolutely nothing wrong to deserve the conditions visited upon them, mostly by irresponsible parenting.

And then society is embarrassed so it goes and puts them nicely out of the way, so we do not have to look at our sick sins every day.

Those two German students spent an entire year (they go home in 2 weeks) caring with those kids in such a backwater- their sacrifice is immense, no "big Lights", discos, movie houses, creature comforts etc, they spent that year in the shadows doing REAL work.

Well done all and thank you.

And hey we had some lekker roads to ride.

Wella kapella for the lead dirty group that missed the turn at 'Sandies Glen' and missed out on that magical 7.5km tweespoor pass over the mountain - what a lovely track and so picturesque as it wound up and over the neck thru forest, glade and glen.

Well done to Marthi for keeping up with the pace, that girl sure can handle her Dakar anywhere. 

Well done to every one that attended and thank you Anne for all that you have done for these folk.

Unfortunately Elsa and I couldn’t be with you all. For those who no us, we have an interest in people with these special needs.

The guy in red on Andy's bike looks like Sophia's boy friend!

What a great day! And grateful thanks to the club & Nico & Toby for collecting my bike up on Highlands road on the way home! Amazing that when I needed them, they could have been going down Sir Lowry's like everyone else, and yet they were sitting at the Shell garage waiting for the ladies to catch up. Less than 15km away..

Dear Andy, you said that 8 packets needed to go back to the Mispah side, so I took them and when I got back to Elim, everyone had left!! Took a bit of time getting the gate unlocked and then getting the back door unlocked.

Who was it that asked for pics of the children with Jive bottles? I have some great ones for you.

I've uploaded all the pics I took at Picasa Web Albums here

Here are a selection of Elim pics:

Serious Concentration

Wotta Smile

Jive Bunny 1

Happy or what?

for Clare

Happy pair

and a selection of "the ride there" pics:

Highland View

Peeking Thru The Forest

Highland View 2

follow my leader

Colours of Day

wide open road

Fynbos or is it heather?

Oom Tat's

now the real roads

rustic views

and finally, a friendly pine cone.. moral of the story, please try to break down when there is cell phone reception. This friendly fella was sitting right where I finally found a signal.. whew!

Thanks Andy.

We had a great time and will do it again. The ride was great and well organised. Hope to join you again soon.

Thanks everybody who made this possible. It was a really special day. A first for me.

Thanks Anne and Tanya and all those who made this day possible. It was very special and I am so glad I went along. Seeing how happy some of those kids are with the little they have, makes us realise how much we actually take for granted in our lives. I felt really priviledged to be a part of it all.The departureCoffee pitstopstepping back in timethe first bikes arriveA message from ElimA little bit of magic

Some more magic :)They are so specialWaiting for the big rideJust chilling :)hometime

Thanks to ALL the dealerships for supporting the event so wholeheartedly.

John sr. and Mark, thanks for coming out and helping so much.

John n Neil, I know you both had commitments so it was really warmly surprising that you came out to ride part of the way with us. And then hare back to your engagements.

Thanks to Lawrence Herbert from Atlantic Motorrad who came out and participated in the venture.

And a special thanks to Graham Johnson from Biketique for leading the road ride group.

Phew!  Where to start?  I needed a day to process the whole day and also allow my eyeballs to stop vibrating (double-vision) from all those potholes and the wind.  So please forgive me if this may appear a little “jumbled”.

First of all, a BIG THANKS to the whole club for all your wonderful contributions, donations and most of all – input and help with preparations. 

I’m still getting the last figures from Tanya…

It’s simply amazing that if everyone gives a little something, doesn’t matter what – time, money, donations, then it translates into the figures below – in the small space of 3½ weeks!  And then at the end to realise that, once we got there, the physical delivery happened behind the scenes, and ON THE SCENE were the very excited children, waiting to touch us, waiting to be touched and waiting to ride on the big “scooters”.  And so, suddenly the ride changed perspective – from delivering our collections - to being touched by these children and the helpers who look after them tirelessly.

For the record, we collected a whopping R 9 040.00 of which we still have a small amount left – this will go towards Elim & Mizpah – probably a smaller Christmas thing.

Then – we collected and bought almost 0.8 Ton of dry foodstuffs – which, when cooked, probably doubles or triples in weight and volume – this was divided evenly between Elim Home and Mizpah School.

Then a further approximately 0.2 Ton of clothing, shoes, linen, toys and other items were collected.  Also divided, according to the needs, between the two institutions. 

All thanks to (in no particular order):

• Tanya and her whole family:  Johann (JR), Nico (dad), Elzaan and Luaan for helping with all the preparations – storage & sorting in garage, THE BIG SHOP on Saturday – we needed calculators, trolley-pushers, lifters etc – 4 BIG trolleys
• The the lucky packet packers, and the loaders of the vehicles.
• Tobie & his wife for driving the backup vehicle with the club trailer.
• JR, Graham Johnson (aka Sidestand) & Andyman for leading all the various rides
• To our Transporters of 1 TON of goods:  René & Jean Verhulp, Gerald Stark & Johan Lochner, Pam Versveld & family. 
• To everyone who donated something, or contributed towards the event, also to those who transported more items on their bikes.
• To Hamman Motorrad and Biketique for offering be collection points, and then for delivering items to us.
• To Hamman, Donford & Atlantic Motorrads & Biketique for advertising the event to their clients and then also for their participation in the ride itself:  Graham Johnson, John Hamman, Mark Cant-Haylett, Lawrence Herbert, Neil Berry.  It meant so much to us!
• To Andries Zietsman (AJ) – for organising the Boerewors & Colddrinks all the way from Bonnievale Spar – and at such a reasonable price.  Then for going one step further and braaing all 130 pieces of boerewors!
• To all the riders – I couldn’t quite tally the number of bikes- but I think we were close to 40, and the number of people in total even more – thank you for braving the wind and the elements.
• Then there were companies who donated the ± 250 Jive colddrinks and other items (need list from Tanya)

And the list goes on. 

But this was not the point of our drive – the point was the children of Elim & Mizpah – and the absolute squeals of delight to see Tanya and her gang of “scooters”!  It is both humbling and amazing to see how much pleasure can come from so little.  What you don’t know is that, although the club has not done a charity run to Elim since 2008, Tanya and her family have been visiting and doing things for them every 3 months or so since then.

I almost forgot to mention that the rides themselves to and from Elim were absolutely stunning!

A big heartfelt thank you once again.   I’m enjoying all the photos you are posting – keep them coming!

It was an awesome day.  Thanks to all who contributed to the success of this charity ride.  Handling out sweets to the children in the 'dorp' and then having some bikers offering them rides was not part of the plan but I believe was a dream come true for those children in the community. 

Mizpah children's faces lit up when they saw us and my tears were coming when we were greated with : "It's a welcome here, it's a welcome here, it's a Christian welcome here.  He wants everybody to be happy...." They are all so happy despite their circumstances. 

I will most probably get thank you letters and cards and will post them on the site.  Your visit, meant the world to them. THANK YOU!!!! 

It was the biggest food load we've ever delivered since I got involved 3 years ago.  I was one of the last to leave and when I popped into the kitchen to say goodbye, they were busy sorting and writing up the food and commented that the quantity meant a saving of at least 1 week.  They were very grateful for the gift packs - espacially the caregivers.  They are really passionate about their jobs and appreciate the recognition they get for the work that they do. 

We all take something away from the visit.  Sometimes it’s a smile, a hug or a thank you, but most importantly is the life lessons we learn.  Funny enough - it makes us go back for more!  I was carrying two boys on my hips who would not leave me and my arms felt the workout on Wednesday morning. 

These are all children who are just ‘differently-abled’ and I love them to bits.  We have more love and compassion than we think.  My involvement has put real meaning to the words ‘money cannot buy everything’.

We are all touched in different ways.  All we can ask for is that our interactions within our communities, leaves us a little different and a little more caring than before. 

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by places and moments that take our breath away.”

I am truly blessed to be surrounded by wonderful friends and an awesome family who support me in my endeavour to touch the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves.

Yours in the heart of needy communities,

Mother T (Tanya)