[SBC] FW: 2009 North American Cycle Courier Championships in Union Square?

Fri Jul 25 12:51:55 EDT 2008

Thought you might want to know about this.

Dennis Fischman 
Director of Planning 
Community Action Agency of Somerville 
66-70 Union Square, Somerville, MA 02143 
Phone:  (617) 623-1392 x 105    
Fax:    (617) 628-2512 
E-mail:   dfischman at caasomerville.org 

Web: www.caasomerville.org

From: Mimi Graney [mailto:mgraney at caasomerville.org] 
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:23 PM
To: SWinslow at ci.somerville.ma.us; dorie at dorieclark.com;
alanjane at highstream.net; bikexec at massbike.org; ereisner at rcn.com;
beckrule at rcn.com; kthidemann at aol.com; Dennis Fischman;
jeff at livablestreets.info; larry at tazachocolate.com; sfitanides at hotmail.com;
RFalvey at GentleGiant.com; jakeqs at hotmail.com; Greg Jenkins; Bess Paupeck
Subject: 2009 North American Cycle Courier Championships in Union Square?

Dear Somerville Bike Lover --

There's going to be an preliminary meeting to discuss the possibility of
hosting the North American Cycle Courier Championships in Union Square,
Somerville in August 2009. The Boston Bicycle Messenger Association
approached Union Square Main Streets to help evaluate the viability. The
meeting takes place on Monday, August 11 at 6:30 at Bloc 11 Cafe (11 Bow
Street in Union Square).

Please feel free to distribute to other folks you think might be interested
in discussing this idea.

-- Mimi

Mimi Graney
Executive Director
Union Square Main Streets
P.O. Box One
Somerville, MA  02143
617-623-1392 x119

www.unionsquaremain.org - Main Website
www.unionsquare.ning.com - On-line Forum 

  _____  

From: jacobsmoller at gmail.com [mailto:jacobsmoller at gmail.com] On Behalf Of
jacobs
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 8:13 AM
To: USMS at unionsquaremain.org
Subject: The 2009 North American Cycle Courier Championships

Hi!  I'm writing you on behalf of the Boston Bicycle Messenger Association,
a 501(c)6 non-profit established in Massachusetts.The BBMA is planning to
host the 12th annual North American Cycle Courier Championships in Boston
for 2009. We would love to see Somerville, and more specifically, Union
Square involved with the event. Somerville and Union Square's rich cycling
history and vibrant artist community could be assets to the many facets of
this event.

I've been in communication with Steve Winslow, who told us we should try and
get involved with you at Union Square Main Streets. Hopefully this is an
event that we could work together on, and would bring a lot of life to Union
Sq. for a weekend.

The 2008 NACCC is to be held in Chicago over Labor Day weekend 2008. The
2007 NACCC was held in San Francisco. That event brought out just under 1000
attendees, with over 400 racers from 10 different countries competing. The
NACCC is one of the biggest international events every year for cycle
couriers, but not just for racers. The NACCC is also one of the largest
annual gatherings of our community. Cycle Messenger Championships are world
class sporting events, but are also a world class festivals celebrating
messenger culture and its broad influence on modern urban culture. The NACCC
hosts a variety of related galas, shows, parties and vendor markets where
spectators mingle with messengers to get a jump on the latest bike trends
and urban utilitarian fashion. The side events showcase the artistic,
photographic, musical and literary talents of the world's hardest working
professional athletes. The BBMA has a planning committee in place, and we
already have some corporate sponsors signed on to help make the 2009 event
one of the best in our community's history.

We are writing you in hopes of your support. The event will require help and
assistance from the local government in providing us with street closures to
create a race course. Our race is an exciting event for spectators to watch,
so we are trying to organize a race that will allow us to have part of our
course work into an urban, downtown area, where foot traffic could see the
racers in action. Our first choice for a location is in Union Square.
Washington D.C. held the CMWC (Cycle Messenger World Championships) in 1998
on some of the busiest streets in the downtown sector of the city. That race
is remembered to this day in the messenger community as one of the greatest
championships so far, and a lot of that is credited to it's urban, downtown
location.

Our requirements for a race course are extremely flexible. The event both
encourages and requires a lot of creativity in order to simulate the work
that cycle couriers do every day on a closed circuit. We have some ideas
we'd love to talk to you about, or maybe you have some ideas to throw at us
as well. The general requirements are only that we would need to have the
closed race course running for 8 hours or so on Saturday for qualifiers, and
4 hours or so on Sunday for finals. We haven't set a concrete date yet, but
are looking at mid to late August 2009.

There is a lot of information and press about the 2007 San Francisco NACCC,
and also statistics and media from years prior to that we'd love to share to
you. This information could help give you a better picture of what the event
can be. The BBMA will be represented by 4 of us that are being flown out to
Chicago on Labor Day Weekend for this year's NACCC to make our official bid
for the 2009 event, and we'd love to see Somerville in the proposal! Here's
links to a few videos, one about the NACCC in SF, and one about the CMWC
that just happened in Toronto:

http://current.com/items/76772812_couriers_carbs_cash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcex9gIq4UI 

Thank you for reading, and we hope to hear back soon!

Sincerely,
Jacob Smoller
President
Boston Bicycle Messenger Association
http://www.bbma.org <http://www.bbma.org/> 
857-221-1563
58 Batterymarch St. #111
Boston, MA 02110

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