International President 2020-2025, International Vice President 2017-2020, International Merchandise Officer 2012-2014, and Ellen Pfeiffer Award recipient in 2018
Back in 2017, at the WIMA Estonia international rally, a very close friend of mine tried to persuade me to apply for an international committee role and use my management and organisational experience to help improve accountability and transparency within the WIMA organisation. My initial reaction was that I was having too much fun just enjoying the WIMA international family with no responsibility to anyone apart from myself and my loyalty to WIMA GB, whose membership was my access to all of these wonderful new experiences. Her suggestion though stayed with me all the way home and so, when a call was put out for volunteers for the newly vacant international vice president role, I decided to put my name forward and was appointed in October of that year.
After three years I felt that I had successfully completed my goals and was preparing to step down but did put forward a proposal to help improve support for national divisions and individual members – to encourage members to experience the international aspect of their membership and to share those experiences with other members both in their own national division and our new divisions who had joined in the wake of WRWR. I offered to support anyone who was willing to take on the challenge as I saw a need for a younger person than myself to lead WIMA International. The national presidents agreed with my plan but disagreed with my view about age and appointed me international president in October 2020.
In 2018, I had decided that wherever and whenever possible, I would ride my bike to visit as many divisions as I could, to speak with national presidents and members to chat about what they wanted from WIMA and for me to get a feel for their country and any particular problems that they were facing.
Living in Scotland at the time, each visit was a new adventure for me but I managed to meet with newer WIMAs France, Luxembourg, Greece and Romania. Unfortunately when I visited Bulgaria, Violeta was on her round world trip and my visit to Lithuania was cancelled when I was in Warsaw, by the then national president due to her ill health, but I have travelled through and stayed in Lithuania several times and Bulgaria the once. My travels through Italy to Sicily were before WIMA Italy joined. I still have Norway and Liechtenstein on my list to visit before my five-year term of office ends in September 2025. In November 2024 I ventured beyond Europe on my motorcycle to meet with WIMA Morocco on their amazing Atlas Mountains weekend rally.
Contact with members is important to me, with WIMA International rallies being an important source of information, requests and advice from ordinary members – as well as national presidents at face-to-face meetings.
Since 2020, we have seen the introduction of support loans for national divisions to develop their division and grants for individual members to attend an international rally that they would not otherwise have been able to afford. We have seen a growth in divisions inviting members from other countries to join them at their events and the numbers of WIMA members increasing even though the number of divisions remains fairly static, no matter how hard we try to encourage people to join us.
WIMA International officers are now recognised for their service with special pin badges made by WIMA Japan and succession plans have been introduced to help ensure continuity of officers, including the international president and vice president. In 2024 we introduced three regional officers for Americas & Australasia, Asia & Africa and Europe, not as an additional layer of management but as support for national presidents, their management committees and members, especially for those divisions who find attending international events difficult. The regional officers will promote their regions, including organising regional events.
The future of WIMA is looking good so, as we celebrate 75 years since Louise Scherbyn established WIMA, we can look forward with confidence to the next 75 years. Even if the internal combustion engine is to be relegated to history, the joy of riding on two-wheels and sharing experiences with other women interested in motorcycling will remain with us.
(2025)
This is the Ellen Pfeiffer Award nomination that was submitted for Zara, by WIMA GB:
Zara Strange has been a member of WIMA GB since 2008, and served on the committee for several years, as webmistress, and was instrumental in organising our very successful members’ forum. Sadly, with the increased use of social media, this died a natural death. Since then, Zara has remained an active and supportive member of both WIMA GB, and WIMA World, and last year was elected international vice president.
Zara lives in the northeast of Scotland, so every journey to a WIMA event is a long ride! Nevertheless, she regularly supports events in the south of England, attending lunches and birthday parties held for some of our eldest members, usually in the Somerset area. Most of these entail a return journey of around 1000 miles (1610 km). She is always on her motorbike, and arrives quietly but cheerfully at each venue, no matter how wet and cold she sometimes is!
She is also a regular attendee at rallies, both national, and international, including the Dutch international rally in Markelo, and the French national rally in Val d’Ajol. Whilst on its own this is not an amazing feat, what makes Zara unique is the distances she travels to get to each event.
This is what GB members say about Zara: ‘I vote for Zara for her quiet but constant support and leadership by example and her efforts to attend national, international and other groups’ meetings (like France). She’s also very supportive to other riders and never judgmental.’
