Swamp Fox Chapter Call In
Today, we welcomed Brother Skee from the Swamp Fox Chapter in Charleston, SC to the podcast. Another great episode where no plan was the plan for the conversation!
Skee introduces himself and the chapter at the outset. Serving both his country and community, not necessarily in that order. At 38 years of age, he decided to join the Navy and says he held his own with the other recruits, nearly twenty years his junior. After 6 years of service, he was sidelined with an injury and subsequently medically retired.
The Swamp Fox located in Charleston SC, was started in 2015 with Skee and a handful of other patches. Growing quickly, they soon began to deal with the challenges that come with a large member footprint and have since leveled off at a more manageable size that is producing results. “We are doing a lot better now than we have in previous years”, says Skee. They currently have a group of “really good guys”. “I would rather have 12 guys that will go to everything than have 40 guys and have same five guys show up all the time.”
The Chapter has their 10 year Anniversary Party Coming Up on April 26th starting at 12noon.
Low Country Veterans has been designated as the charity to benefit from the event. Low Country is a Veterans' Residential Home on James Island. The chapter has donated and visited the home in the past. They have donated Care Packages to the Residential and Transitional Living programs.
Listening to the Boondocks Chapter episode on the podcast, Skee admits he’s liberating their idea of buying supplies through Amazon to put together 100 Personal Hygiene packages. “Actually, we kind of stole that”, he says.
All of the programs are crunched for money these days, Skee points out, and this helps them out. The residents really appreciate the chapter visits, just hanging out and talking with them. Alot of residents are WWII and Korea era veterans who enjoy the bikes and the visits.
The chapter is running a Gun Raffle, and the proceeds help them with these programs.
One of the chapter’s patches recently had a serious motorcycle crash, and a Go Fund Me has been set up to help the family defray the hospitalization cost. Link Below
Go Fund Me Link
Nobody supports our Brother better than our own.
We started to explore the details of their upcoming Anniversary Party. The first detail that jumped out was the Bikini Bike Wash, which we first suggested was going to be Skee himself washing bikes. He suggested they may be more successful if he accepted donations to do it in reverse and pay him not to wash the bikes.
$20 per plate gets you the Low Country Boil, DJ music, cigar & knife vendors, beverages, and the promise of a great afternoon at their clubhouse. They are prepared to feed up to 80 people. The chapter has cornhole boards, dart boards, pool tables, and a large industrial parking lot behind the building. Plenty of room to enjoy yourselves.
In January, the chapter turned out to help a Veteran’s widow with repairs to her porch and home. Once the work started, they discovered that it was going to require a lot more than first anticipated. Last weekend, they completed the work with a paid General Contractor & work crew to finish the siding on the house. They are still working on replacing the floor in the future.
We talked about how impactful the sweat equity is as opposed to just writing a check.
The chapter hosts a monthly Open House at the clubhouse. We talked briefly about how challenging it is to organize and execute Poker Runs and such. It's hard to get municipalities to support large runs, road closures, and escorts. Not to mention liability riders and growing traffic.
A legacy member himself, Skee has been around the club since he was 16 years old. We explore some of the obstacles he’s encountered trying to etch out his place in the club.
Skee talks about the importance of networking and developing your own reputation among the community and bike scene and how they’ve worked hard to build that credibility.
“Over the last year, we’ve lost some members, and we’ve actually gotten closer as a chapter; we’ve become a much closer chapter,” says Skee. “I hated losing the guys that we lost, but I’ll tell you what, the rest of us have rallied.”
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