Well, I agreed to head things up for a booth representing the Timber Tamers (and PNW4WDA Region 1) at the 2021 Jeepcast.com All Jeep Show. As it turned out, this was a pretty good event to attend. It was planned as a big event that this year would celebrate not only Jeeps, but also the lifting of the COVID restrictions that had been in place for something like 17 months! It was well-advertised on Facebook as well as word-of-mouth, and on Facebook something like 1500 people had registered at least interest if not commitment to attend! (In addition, to that, more than 350 Jeeps registered to participate in the show-and-shine competition!)
Since this was far larger than All Jeep Shows in the past, the venue was changed for this year. In prior years it has been held at the Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-In in Issaquah. However, they were not able to host it this year, so “The Garys” of NWJeepcast.com found the Cook Brother’s Farm in Carnation, which proved to be a fantastic venue!
Prior to the event, I’d picked-up the PNW4WDA Region 1 pop-up canopy and two tables from Rudi (who stores them). I also picked-up the Timber Tamers banner and lots of Tamers brochures from Casey & Gary, and then a PNW4WDA tablecloth and PNW brochures from Nichol Phillips (PR representative and Tri-Power editor for the PNW4WDA). I also connected with Dave Taylor, former Region 1 Director, and picked-up the Region 1 banners as well as Region 1 swag—so it all came together pretty well to set us up for a good booth!
Then the complication. Thursday prior I developed a few non-specific symptoms that were suspicious for possible COVID, and I wasn’t able to schedule a COVID test with my health care provider until Friday—the day before the All Jeep Show, and I had all the stuff we needed for the booth!! (Fortunately, the test came back negative, but not until almost 10:30 PM Friday night!) Fortunately, the Tamers had come through for me, and Mihai had volunteered to help with getting the stuff and setting up the booth and working it had my test come back positive. Luckily, that wasn’t necessary!
So, Saturday morning July 24, 2021, I arrived at the Cook Brother’s Farm just before 8:00 AM to set up the booth. The site I found was next to the SAR booth—and that one was next to the DNR booth! (We were in a different line-up from the booths the vendors had set-up—and we were pretty close to the booths with the food!) I started out struggling to set-up the 10’ x 20’ canopy by myself, when Chris S. showed up and helped! (That was more welcome than I can ever describe—setting up this large pop-up is definitely NOT a 1-person operation!!) As we were finishing getting it set-up, Mihai arrived, and we then set-up the tables and banners with plenty of time before the attendees started arriving.
The other thing that was really cool was the number of Tamers who showed-up to help with the booth, as well as those who attended the All Jeep Show and stopped by to say “hi”! I didn’t catch everyone who did, but I can shout out special thanks to Jeremy and Noni, who really helped staff the booth and covered some time so I could check-out the vendors’ row as well as the Ultra4 Short-course-style competition, demonstration! I’m not going to try to list everyone’s names (because I will absolutely miss some of them), but I can definitely say that I’d have been in way over my head and we’d never have been able to connect with all the attendees who stopped by our booth without having their help. What a great club we have—and it’s a great club because of the great people in it!!!
We ended-up having a pretty good showing of people through the day who had interest and questions about the Tamers as well as where they can go to wheel. Several people were from areas pretty far away from the Tamers, and we were able to refer them to some clubs closer to where they live—like even some folks closer to Mt. St. Helens as well as east of the Cascades!
The Cook Brother’s Farm venue ended up being a great place for this event. In addition to the space for our booths from volunteer organizations and the line-up of vendors’ booths, there also was space for the food booths, the 350+ Show-N-Shine Jeeps, a big stage where “The Garys” emceed the event, and the crowning feature—an Ultra4 short course demonstration of that style of timed-racing with about 10 racers! This included Ultra4 race vehicles, particularly showcasing none other than our favorite Tamer Ultra4 racer, Anthony!! After we’d all had fun with this, “The Garys” also hosted and emceed a huge raffle with what seemed like at least a hundred prizes! (And a couple of Tamers seemed to clean-up pretty well in the raffle, too!)
All in all, a very fun day with lots of help from Tamers who pitched-in to help with our booth. We also had contact with lots of people who we hope we can turn around into joining a club (even if it isn’t the Tamers), and overall lots of good-will among the people there! (And I’ll say again that it was a good day, even if, once again, there were no tow-fees for Casey!!)
Thanks again to all the Tamers who pitched-in to help and stopped by to say hello!!
John Vandergrift
TT#308
You must be logged in to post a comment.