Features
THE CHAUTAUQUA ...
UNDERSTANDING CLUB CULTURE
Gregg Patterson , General Manager - The Beach Club
Chautauqua---Huh ?
I love Conference . And to do conference right , I need to bike .
Huh ?
To do conference right , I need to bike fifty miles a day , wear spandex shorts , eat pizza off paper plates , drink beer from long necks , patch flat tires , and wipe chain grease off my legs .
Huh ?
To do conference right , I need to rub shoulders with association presidents , executives from Ireland , tennis pros from Vancouver , CCMs , no-CCMs , college professors , chefs , Assistant Managers , students , wives , husbands , boyfriends , the fat , the skinny , the wimpy , and the stud-ly---all fellow bikers with sweaty gloves , odd colored shirts , dorky helmets and clacking shoes . Ma buddies .
Huh ?
To do conference right , I need to talk with “ Ma Buddies ” about “ The Big Journey ” called life . I need to yap about clubs and people and careers and passions , to loosen my tongue and theirs with Budweiser debriefs , wine soaked dinners , and Starbuck ’ s coffee at 8:00 a . m . each morning .
Huh ?
Ma Buddies and I are Bicycle Chautauquans , a group of bike riding club managers who participate in a three day pre-conference workshop called The Bicycle Chautauqua . We do The Ride for the joy of biking , for the camaraderie it creates and for the “ deep emersion ” it provides into our industry , our social networks and our psyches . We ride because the ride provides an opportunity to build relationships and to create a community by working together , eating together , drinking together , bitching together and reflecting together . Chautauqua is the quintessential club experience at the ultimate club gathering .
Three cheers !!! Ride on------------------
Chautauqua---What ?
The Chautauqua vision---that of a mobile , tented “ university ” ---surfaced sometime in mid-nineteenth century rural America . Hugely popular early on , their impact began to wane as the university system blossomed .
Chautauqua was given a “ boost ” in the mid seventies when Robert Pirsig published his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance . In the book , Pirsig---who was a philosophy professor in Montana---talked about
his motorcycle ride west one summer as a “ Chautauqua ,” an opportunity to think deeply about life ’ s “ great journey ” while motoring through America . Riding and reflecting . The mobile university . The Chautauqua . Good stuff .
Then Chautauqua got another “ boost ” in the late nineties when Randy Delany---a CCM ’ er , chapter president , former Green Beret trooper , avid biker , writer and raconteur---and I were yapping one day , brooding on the need for an “ added value conference experience ”, and we thought it would be neat and novel to combine biking ( which we both loved , me as a commuting / touring biker and Randy as a “ Stud Boy ” racer ) and nontraditional , non-linear “ organic ” education in a pre-conference workshop . Although we didn ’ t think riding and reflecting would be seen as a “ serious educational opportunity ” by The Powers
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