WMMBA and Rapid Wheelmen Host Film Festival
March, 2008
On March 2nd 2008 the wMMBA and the Rapid Wheelmen joined forces and held the first ever Grand Rapids Bicycle Film Festival, a fundraiser for the West Michigan Trails and Greenways Coalition.
I am happy to report that the festival was a great success, attracting 65 film buffs and raised $1,020 for our friends at WMTGC.
The events leading up to the festival were pretty hectic. In order to serve beer we needed to file a non-profit liquor license with the State of Michigan. The hoops that one must go through are so extensive, I truly believe the state simply hopes that most people give up, but I persevered and we had our license with 2 hours to spare on Friday afternoon. All in all I bet the process took a month of phone calls, document signatures, cashiers checks and other tedious tasks. I needed that beer after this one!
The festival featured a quick presentation from WMTGC and then many mountain biking films, a hiking/bicycling documentary, cyclocross, BMX and a bike messenger film. I don’t think there was a dud in the line up and everyone seemed to enjoy them. What surprised me was that most folks came and stayed for all the films even though we had a schedule posted.
Thank you to all the film producers for granting us permission to show these great films and all the volunteers that offered their time or expertise in pulling this event off!
For more information about the wMMBA, go to http://mmba.org/western/wordpress/ and for the Rapid Wheelmen, go to http://www.lmb.org/rapidwheels/. |
