Haslett, MI - The snowmobile community has announced Take a Friend Snowmobiling Week, which will be held Feb. 11-20, 2012. This elongated week celebrates friends and family snowmobiling. This special week compliments the Take a Friend Snowmobiling campaign, encouraging all of us to take our non-snowmobiling friends out snowmobiling.
We have all had many conversations, telling stories about how much fun it is to take people snowmobiling for the first time and many of us have a lot of non-snowmobiling friends to take snowmobiling.
The event is really designed to be simple. There are a few recommended guidelines. They are:
· Safety training - make sure to cover all the safe snowmobiling behavior with your friend before taking them out on their first ride.
· Make sure your friends are comfortable and properly dressed for the cold when they first get on a snowmobile.
· You need to be cautious and ride slow when taking out a new rider.
· You should plan on making numerous stops and enjoying the scenery. It is always recommended that the first ride be short and include a stop for a light meal or hot chocolate or coffee and a little camaraderie and storytelling at the local restaurant, clubhouse or outdoor barbecue area.
Clubs and their members are encouraged to participate and to hold a special day or weekend encouraging members to bring non-snowmobiling friends to the clubhouse to go for a short ride and discover what snowmobilers do during the winter.
The campaign follows the guidelines and recommendations from customer research, which says that non-snowmobilers know very little about snowmobiling, but they want to try it. Most non-snowmobilers don't know where the trails are, they don't know who builds and maintains and pays for the trail systems and have no idea of the beautiful scenery that we enjoy while riding our snowmobiles. We know folks want to go snowmobiling. All we need to do is ask.
As a special incentive to take non-snowmobilers snowmobiling, the manufacturers will give away a gift certificate to a lucky individual who registers online and participates in the Take a Friend Snowmobiling Week event (see http://www.snowest.com/snowmobile-news/display.cfm?ID=3239). Beginning in December 2011, the Take a Friend Snowmobiling Week Registration Form will be prominently displayed on the Go Snowmobiling website: www.gosnowmobiling.org. Non-snowmobilers and their snowmobiling friends need to fill out the registration form to be entered in the drawing. If a club is interested in organizing an event, their club members who participate get to register to win and their guests get to register to win as well.
Plan on participating if you are going to be snowmobiling from February 11-20, 2012 and make sure to register on the Go Snowmobiling website www.gosnowmobiling.org.