Something Different For 2012

PALM has 700 rider limit. When I first joined staff in 1998, Drew was doing the registration. He would always make a motion to extend the May 1 cutoff date for signing up for PALM. Then 6 years ago we hit 700 riders in April and had to close the ride early. We didn't know what to do. We ended up well over 700 because we were caught off guard. Since then, we've been filling earlier and earlier. Now it's to the point that the ride fills before some of  our out of state riders have gotten their applications. I tried to rectify that by mailing out of state applications and out state applications earlier. But even though we mail out applications 1st class, the mail is not delivered predictably. Our ride chair, who lives 45 miles from where the applications were mailed, received his 4 days after it was mailed and last year the ride closed in 4 days.

We want everyone to have an equal chance of getting on PALM.It is obvious that mailing out applications is not going to do it. So we are going to try something different. We are going to announce a date and post the application on our (new) website for download on that date. Everyone will have a chance of getting the application at the same time as everyone else. This only works if everyone knows we are going to do this and the date on which we are going to do it. To this end we are going to mail out postcards to everyone on our mailing list announcing the date that they will be able to download the application.

As you can see we have our work cut out for us. We will be getting the word out in all kind of ways, this blog being one of them. Please, if you know anyone who is interested on PALM, let them know of this change. The only way to get the PALM 2012 application will be to download it from our website. We will announce the date when it will be available on Facebook, this  blog, our our website. Everyone on the PALM mailing list will receive a postcard with the details. Keep your eye out for an oversized postcard with the PALM logo.