Thanks for the constructive feedback ReignMan. All good points, and we really are interested in hearing this kind of feedback.
In years past the THTB's have purposely steered away from being a very social organization, and put all our focus on building and maintaining trails. Around that time 4-5 years ago, we were in danger of losing significant amounts of our existing trails, so we put all our resources into the trails themselves. I believe this has worked out very well from the "trails" standpoint, since we've got more to ride than ever before, but we've learned you can't let the social aspect slide to continue to grow as a club.
The guys are a little too used to the "show and go" style of getting together (myself included), and that's just not the best process for the social piece of meeting new folks.
We plan on doing many more of these social rides at various trails this year, and I would ask a little grace as we take constructive feedback to heart and try and improve....i.e., don't give up on us, and please keep coming out. At the very least we need to have a Tarheel Trailblazer pop-up tent staffed with members at the beginning of the ride to have a focal point for folks to see what's going on and meet and greet.
ReignMan, I don't know if we've met before, but if you can make it to our next monthly meeting between now and the next social event/ride, I'm the MC of the meetings now, and would love to meet you. I'll be the introvert at heart with the big mouth..
Ride on...