THIS JUST IN from SALEM:

[janetbjt]

right on stef!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[scottanlily]

Hey summerkid , I agree completely ,steph is right and the VAC is a good
place to be .

Scott

[dwightdi]

The club (whatever we chose to call it) has evolved into something quite different than Wally's Caravan followers had originally intended. It offers a variety of services, which meet some peoples' needs and wants and yet does not offer enough of the "right" kind of services for others. From the 15 years declining membership it is evident that, it is meeting less peoples' needs year after year.

To break this trend, we will need to make major changes. The long term requirement to gain a leadership position in the club means, those people are not likely to have the right new ideas of what needs changing. If you look at it on a their personal basis, the older leadership may have their own personal needs which might be different that potential new younger members. They may rule the club to serve their own needs.

I would suggest the club hire at least one professional "non-profit" manager who conduct market analysis to identify what needs to be done to re-market the club to new prospective members. This would entail market analysis of who we are competing with and their success and how we can change our offering to properly position ourselves to gain and retain the new market. (It seems Thor has done their market analysis to identify that the Class A and smaller B-van is not a valid growth market. )

The club at the moment is making itself too pretensous and old fashion "stuck in the mud" to be a successful camping club.

Read the Salem International post mortums coments on these blogs.

http://hikenbike.net/wordpress/

http://www.tour.airstreamlife.com/weblog/

[bryanl]

On the name change vote: a better way to view it is that it wasn't defeated but rather that it did not pass. Very important but subtle distinction.

In some respects the vote was the result of parlimentary shenanigans that depended upon improper instructions to delegates by their Units. Many delegates came prepared only to vote on the motion as offered. When this motion was ammended, they did not feel they had the authority to exercise judgment to vote on the ammended motion and defaulted to voting not to change as safest.

dwightdi hits a good point but I'd stress executive rather than management and I am not so enamoured with the idea of a market analysis. His idea about the club "evolving into something quite different" is, in my mind, key. WBCCI members need to figure out what the club is all about, clarify its identity and purpose, and begin to measure activity by that understanding.

That hits the delegate vote dilemma, too. They had no standard of reference from their members by which to base judgment. If they knew their members understanding of mission and purpose and identity then they would have a reference that they could use to better determine their action.

This understanding and implementation of the identity and purpose of WBCCI by the membership isn't going to happen with surveys and outsourced analysis. It is going to happen only by heartfelt discussion, individual action, and people working together. I witnessed a great deal of that at Salem starting with a hunger abundantly illustrated by participation in the leadership seminars.

[scottanlily]

in any event its a dissapointment that many cannot see the vision of wallybyams idea for commradery and togetherness and most of all the adventure that awates us all .I don't want to belong to the wbcci period .I want to meet up at the vac ralleys and meet my newest freinds auch as
meradith who is my new airstream neibhor here in sb .We will talk airstreams and visit ,ill help her get started on her repairs and such ,we will have some enjoymewnt of sharing our airstream experience ,She stopped by the house yesterday and we enjoyed talking restoration ,with much excitement ,That is what I am about and my direction towards that will be my goal .no ceromonies and the other stuff ,I want the friends ,the chili cookoff ,the polishing demos ,guitar playing ,songs around the campfire ,along with our beautiful ,wonderful children in attendence.Biulding therte intertest in the finest silver trailers ever biult by a man named wally byam ,who s vision .even in the hard times of the past brought us a wonderfful piece of americana .
When I see any year airstream rolling doen route 66 or the inerstaste 70 'makes me smile ,a good feeling .I cannot whate to be apart of the fun with
all the other folks.

Sincerely

Scott

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by scottanlily

...no ceromonies and the other stuff ,I want the friends ,the chili cookoff ,the polishing demos ,guitar playing ,songs around the campfire ,along with our beautiful ,wonderful children in attendence.Biulding therte intertest in the finest silver trailers ever biult by a man named wally byam ,who s vision .even in the hard times of the past brought us a wonderfful piece of americana .

This pretty accurately describes a NEU of WBCCI rally.

I bet some others, too...at least, I hope.

Don't judge the whole group based on the International. For the most part, the only people that are able to take several weeks off and drive across the country to do this are going to be older, retired folks. At the local level, you might find a more diverse cross-section. (then again, you might not. But thats the way it is here...and thats the way it certainly COULD be everywhere)

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by scottanlily

.I don't want to belong to the wbcci period .I want to meet up at the vac ralleys and meet my newest freinds auch as
meradith who is my new airstream neibhor here in sb .We will talk airstreams and visit ,ill help her get started on her repairs and such ,we will have some enjoymewnt of sharing our airstream experience.....
Sincerely

Scott

Scott, I think you need to remember that if you want to play in the VAC sandbox, you eventually will need to join WBCCI. The two are joined at the hip and I don't believe the VAC folks would accomodate a non member forever...after all then why have the formal organization??? It's sort of like the "Little Red Hen" story. If you want to eat the bread ya got ta' help in the baking.

So your choice for the long term if you don't want the WBCCI overhead is to join some other RV organization or champion the Forum side of the world and our get togethers. I'm sure with a little organizational guidance you can get the Forum folks together for rallies in your neck of the woods. That has worked for us in the Midwest and there is no reason why it wouldn't for you folks in the far west.

Jack

[wkerfoot]

Originally Posted by summerkid

wow ... whatever the heck this club is all about, i'll never go near it ....
what a nightmare

Summerkid,

Too bad, we have met a lot of great people who we would not meet any other way.

Bill

[myboyburt]

Originally Posted by summerkid

wow ... whatever the heck this club is all about, i'll never go near it ....
what a nightmare

At least in my Unit it's all about camping and having fun. There is some cr*p that must be handled by Unit Officers in regards to International but for most of our members it all about camping together, helping each other and just having fun. It's why I'm still in the club, we have a very progressive Unit that understands the value of all it's members regardless of age.

[66Overlander]

Originally Posted by uncleneal

56% voted to change the name, that means only 44% voted not to.
.
.
.
It's not over until it's over.

56% of what voted for the name change? Delegates representing 56% of the club membership voted for the name change. 56% of the members DID NOT for FOR the name change. If fact, due to the last minue "flops" from "NO" to "YES" by several delegates (apperently including both of the units I belong to) the true measure of defeat will never be known. AOAI would have received far less than 50% by my estimations. The proposals to amend the name at the last minute were a final gasp effort by the pro-name change faction to salvage something out of this fiasco.

The problem is that this should have never been allowed to play out this way. The delegates should never have been forced/asked/allowed to vote on anything as important as a modified name change without direct feedback from all members of their unit. Asking them to "guess" how their unit would want them to vote is just plain wrong when the issue is this important.

I am upset that my delegates "flipped", yet I can't blame them because the system forced them to make a snap decision. And I say this as one that may very well have voted YES for WBAC rather than NO for AOAI had I been given the opportunity to vote on it (and had the Licensing agreement situation with Thor have been resolved before we were asked to vote, as it should have been). In fact as a dues paying member of this club it is my right to be able to vote, not to have someone turn my NO into a YES.

And I'm afraid you are right. The name change issue won't be over until the Name-Change zealots get some sort of name change passed - or until someone gets a motion passed to table the name change discussions for good. The name change really doesn't serve any useful purpose - it is just distracting the entire club from addressing other issues surrounding the club's ability to attract and retain new members. At best a name change to "incluide AIRSTREAM" might have a small effect on increasing awareness of the existance of the club, thereby having a small impact on the abilty to bring in new members. However, without other deeper changes, those new members aren't likely to renew the following year.

P.S. Sorry if I am late to this discussion, but I just got back home from a two week trip camping in my Airstream where I had no Internet access.

[Over59]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Scott, I think you need to remember that if you want to play in the VAC sandbox, you eventually will need to join WBCCI. The two are joined at the hip and I don't believe the VAC folks would accomodate a non member forever...after all then why have the formal organization??? It's sort of like the "Little Red Hen" story. If you want to eat the bread ya got ta' help in the baking.

So your choice for the long term if you don't want the WBCCI overhead is to join some other RV organization or champion the Forum side of the world and our get togethers. I'm sure with a little organizational guidance you can get the Forum folks together for rallies in your neck of the woods. That has worked for us in the Midwest and there is no reason why it wouldn't for you folks in the far west.


Jack

This would seem to be an empirical question. How long will it be allowed... The ONLY way to answer the question is wait until someone really important, not some self important member, but someone with the authority to say; You have to join or else. WBCCI is just loaded with self important folks who quote rules. Sometimes they are right, but I have found in reading the Blue Book that people make alot of sh-t up.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by Over59

This would seem to be an empirical question. How long will it be allowed... The ONLY way to answer the question is wait until someone really important, not some self important member, but someone with the authority to say; You have to join or else.

Well unless I'm wrong, I'm highly doubting that there are any VAC members who are not WBCCI members. Unless there are some undercover members that VAC is sheltering. I think the VAC organization itself is following the process definded by mother WBCCI. So for all intents they (VAC) are saying join or else.

Jack

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by 66Overlander

If fact, due to the last minue "flops" from "NO" to "YES" by several delegates (apperently including both of the units I belong to) the true measure of defeat will never be known.

The problem is that this should have never been allowed to play out this way. The delegates should never have been forced/asked/allowed to vote on anything as important as a modified name change without direct feedback from all members of their unit.

Our unit was one of those who voted first no then yes, but at the unit meeting prior to Salem, the issue was discussed on how to handle a situation if an alternative name was proposed.

Since the original resolution was passed at our unit was to "add the name Airstream" to the current name. The alternate name that was proposed, met in spirit, our original discussion and was well within the authority of our delegates as approved by unit vote. So for all intents the positive vote for WBACCI was what our local membership wanted.

My feeling that a lot of those delegates went up to Salem with a no vote for the first name choice but also a yes vote if WB was left in the alternative proposal. So it might not be totally accurate to state that the units did not give feedback to the delegates on this issue.

Jack

[66Overlander]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Our unit was one of those who voted first no then yes, but at the unit meeting prior to Salem, the issue was discussed on how to handle a situation if an alternative name was proposed.

Since the original resolution was passed at our unit was to "add the name Airstream" to the current name. The alternate name that was proposed, met in spirit, our original discussion and was well within the authority of our delegates as approved by unit vote. So for all intents the positive vote for WBACCI was what our local membership wanted.

My feeling that a lot of those delegates went up to Salem with a no vote for the first name choice but also a yes vote if WB was left in the alternative proposal. So it might not be totally accurate to state that the units did not give feedback to the delegates on this issue.
Jack

My experience differs in that in my units there was no significant discussion of what the delegate should do if an amendment to the name change were to arise. The vague wording about this in the Blue Beret and Presidents instructions was woefully inadequate if this was viewed by the club leadership as a significant possibility for the meeting in Salem.

In my case, most specifically it was never discussed what to do if the name change proposal was amended to allow WB were to remain in the name. I am sure the votes flopped, however, because there was a general feeling that members did not want WB removed from the club name. However I still feel it was improper for such a significant deviation from the name change the members voted on to be allowed to be put before the delegates. This change is just too important to let approximately 141 delegates decide the isssue for themselves. Personally I don't object to WBAC, except that I feel we should not even be entertaining it until the whole licensing thing with Thor is worked out. Thus my NO should have remained a NO.

AOAI should have been voted on (and voted down) at the Delegates meeting as planned. If a further proposal for WBAC or WBACI were to be put forth, it should have gone back to the members for approval along with attendant discussion of the pro's & con's and clear discussion of the impacts of the Licensing Agreement with Thor. And we really do need to get rid of the "Delegates" thing and get to "one member-one vote", at least on the BIG issues. Let's get the voting procedures out of the 1950's and into the 21st century.