|
|
To return to the Director's Page "click here"REGION II DIRECTOR'S PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS
I’am writing this as I sit in the Surgery
Waiting Area of a hospital in Columbus, Ohio, waiting for the orthopedic surgeon
to appear. Sandy and I often talk about
how we use this time of year in Central
Ohio to have repairs made as we did to our
motorhomes’ worn kingpins and tie rod ends in the past. However this year,
it turned out that it was a different kind of
joint that needed replacing to allow for safe and uninterrupted travel, Sandy’s
left hip. Just like the service centers and
their trained technicians replace parts to
extend the useful life of our RVs, hospitals and
skilled surgeons are able to repair or replace many of our bodies’ worn parts,
extending our quality of life. We are
certainly benefiting from the knowledge and
technology gained in the past twenty-five
years.
Since November of 2009, a survey on
the HRRVC website has asked your opinion
about our events (caravans, adventures
and rallies) and how you use your Holiday Rambler. As of January 3, 2012,
the accumulated data was compiled and
assessed. I thought you might like to see
how you and/or your fellow Holiday
Ramblers responded so I have included the data in a table at the end of this
article. Interestingly, regardless of your age
category, nearly 80 percent of you suggested
that you would enjoy a three to
four day rally at a National Park in a great location where you would volunteer
to work while dry camping. If that
location
was also near a National Historic
Site, folk, music or craft festival, or
there was fishing or a beach nearby, that would
enhance your experience even more.
Recently, a member contacted his
National Director asking why he had not
received a membership card after paying
his yearly dues. Because of our procedural change, an explanation is needed. We
have been reviewing a number of areas to
make sure we are giving you the best
value for your dues. As part of our
evaluation of office procedures, the use and
need of membership cards was questioned. We no longer require a member
to show their card as proof of membership when filing the Chapter Registration
and Membership Roster, which was the reason for their continued use in recent
years. Instead of a card, each member, upon payment of dues, now receives a
payment receipt that shows their new dues date and provides proof of
membership. Currently, proof of membership is
only needed if you take advantage of the
Sam’s Club discount coupon when
joining or renewing your membership. If you
do not receive the payment receipt within
10 days of submitting your dues payment,
please contact Christi using our toll-free number at (877) 702-5415.
Over the last two and one-half years,
the Board of Directors has spent much
time, effort, and sacrifice to reign in
our expenses and balance our budget to
assure our continuation. To a large
extent, we have been successful, as reported by
our National Treasurer, Ray Nichols.
While managing our finances is something
the Board of Directors is able to control, our greatest challenge is
something
that we cannot, volunteers for leadership
roles. For the past few years, we have noted that there have been an
increasing number of vacancies in our Chapter Officers and State/Provincial
Managers positions. Currently one of
every nine chapters does not have a full complement of officers, and 25 percent of
the States/Provinces do not have a State Manager. As noted in this issue, Region
VI failed to nominate a candidate for National Director this year. Our club is
organized and functions with the support of volunteers at all levels. Without this
support, the future of HRRVC may be in question. Please do your part to keep our
club functioning by accepting a leadership position when asked to do so. I can
tell you from experience that it is very rewarding in so many ways.
Support HRRVC!
Safe travels, we hope to see you in
Gillette.
John and Sandy Powell (74285)
RESULTS OF THE HRRVC
WEBSITE
SURVEY
From the Desk of the National President (March/April 2012)
Happy New Year!
2012 has arrived and this is the Club’s 48th
anniversary year.
Since only 35 current families can say that it is
theirs too; a brief history of Holiday Rambler and the Club might be beneficial
for the other 3200+ member families.
The National Holiday Rambler Travel Trailer Club (NHRTTC)
was formed in July 1964 with the support of Richard Klingler,
President of the Holiday Rambler Corporation (HRC).
All members who joined before January 1965 were
designated as a Charter Member.
The first International Rally was held at Alliance, OH
in 1965 with 484 units attending.
In March 1975, the Board of Directors changed the name
of the club to Holiday Rambler Recreational Vehicle Club (HRRVC) to better
reflect the types of Holiday Rambler units owned by its members.
The International Rally at Fort Collins, CO in 1977 was
our largest with 2,214 units. Richard
Klingler sold HRC to Harley-Davidson Inc. in
December of 1986 and they continued support of HRRVC over the next ten years.
Then in January 1996, Harley Davidson sold their
Holiday Rambler RV Division to the Monaco Coach Corporation.
All HRRVC
members of record voted to amend the Articles of Incorporation and restated our
Bylaws to update our Documents of Governance (DOG) in 1999. Most recently,
Monaco Coach Corporation filed in June of 2009 for bankruptcy.
At that time, Navistar purchased the assets of Monaco
Coach and established their new RV division, Monaco RV, LLC.
For additional
time-line information, visit
www.hrrvc.org and read the history article.
In November 2011, Rev. Dr. Donald
(Don) Fishel, National Chaplain, submitted his resignation saying that a well
–known philosopher once said “Know Thyself” and following that advice; he felt
that this was the right time for him to do so.
Don has served as National Chaplain at the request of
five National Presidents for more than seven years and we are grateful for both
his and his wife Mary’s devoted service to our organization.
We wish Don and
Mary the best in the future.
I am pleased to announce that Robert
(Bob) Bauspies (21658) has agreed to become our National Chaplain effective
January 1, 2012.
Bob, who also serves as chaplain for Florida and Region
III ; assisted by his wife Jan,
performed the duties of the National Chaplain at the
International Rally in DuQuoin IL this past July.
He plans to continue to serve Florida and Region III in
addition to his National Chaplain duties.
We look forward
to his messages; his first written one appearing in this issue.
This year our International Rally will
be held at the Cam-Plex Multi-Event Facility in Gillette, WY, from July 16th
through July 20th.
Based on your comments and discussions, this venue is
one that many of you have been looking forward to visiting.
Since this
location will require most of you to travel several days to attend the rally,
sight-seeing along the route to Gillette more than likely will be part of your
plans.
For others, the rally location provides a starting point for
sight-seeing to points beyond Gillette.
If you would like to be part of an organized caravan or
adventure either before or after the rally, we have scheduled the Oregon Trail
with a stopover at the International Rally, and the Dakota Wonders Adventure and
Washington State Caravan Adventure are also scheduled following the rally.
We expect all three of these events to be very popular
and fill quickly so don’t delay in signing up.
I believe that our members have a wealth of information
about places to visit, things to see and do on the routes to Gillette.
The forum section of the HRRVC website has an
International Rally area where you can provide your insight to other members who
are looking for this kind of information in planning their trip to Gillette.
Please help by posting whatever information you can
provide and help make this website a valuable resource for everyone planning to
attend the International Rally in July.
Safe Travels and we will see you down the road.
John
and Sandy Powell (74285)
From the Desk of the National President (September/Octember 2011)
At the Board of Directors Meeting in
DuQuoin, IL, I was elected to a second term as National President.
After my installation as National President during the Business Meeting,
I gave the following address. I am
including it here for those who were unable to attend the International Rally
this year.
What a difference a year makes.
Last year, I began by saying that we were faced with
what was considered the most challenging circumstances that HRRVC had
encountered since incorporating. In
fact, financially HRRVC was in crisis.
I told you that the Board of Directors and Office Staff would continue to
work to lessen expenses, look for ways to increase revenue and do so without
significant impact on the operation of HRRVC.
This year I can say that during the past year we have devoted much time
and energy into doing just that.
As
Treasurer Ray Nichols reported to you, our financial circumstance is greatly
improved as a result of reductions in expenses throughout our entire operation.
These have not been without much sacrifice.
The most notable was the recommendation from Linda Moran that we could no
longer justify or afford her continuation and that she would be willing to
accept a voluntary layoff for the good of HRRVC.
Over several months, discussions between members of the finance
committee, Linda and Christi, Linda’s salary and responsibilities were evaluated
and we concluded that her original recommendation should proceed.
Linda’s employment with HRRVC ended on April 30, 2011.
The layoff has allowed Linda to apply for unemployment compensation at no
cost to HRRVC. A second area where
cost reductions were realized is in the Ramblings which has undergone a 20-25%
reduction in page count without any loss of information important to all members
of the Club. While there are a
number of other areas of savings, these two were the most notable.
Over the last two years we have used
the word “change” as part of messages to you about the Club’s future.
This past year, change has happened. We
are now operating without a COO. We
established a virtual office for Christi Crist in her home in late May and are
in the process of vacating the Beardsley Avenue office space with efforts to
affect an early termination of our lease.
Christi has accepted the additional responsibilities that Linda’s
departure brought to our office operations, with the exception of our Caravan,
Adventures and Rallies. As we move
forward, it may be necessary to make some additional adjustments, but these
should be transparent to you.
The Board of Directors completed the
2011 Board Meeting last Friday. I
will highlight some of the actions that were taken:
·
Reviewed the Annual Dues as required by our DOG and approved changing the New
Member first year dues from $25 to $50 dollars.
Emeritus dues remain unchanged.
·
The Board has authorized a Chair, known as the Director in Charge of CAR who
will have authority to oversee our CAR activities.
Until now, this has been the COO’s responsibility.
·
Gave final Approval for the Southeast Spring Picnic in 2012 at Bushnell FL
·
Gave final Approval for the 48th International Rally in 2012 at
Gillette WY
·
Authorized chapters to allow Emeritus Members to hold office and vote
·
Changed the deadline for submission of Chapter Forms 2 and 10
·
Changed the Procedure for Innumerable Caravan notifications
·
Approved the creation of a Corporate Sponsorship Program
·
Approved several reimbursement policy changes · Approved nine “housekeeping” issues
·
Adopted a strategic plan for 2011-2012 focusing on practical objectives
Safe travels and we’ll see you down the road.
I personally wish to publicly thank
the members of the Board for their commitment and focus in resolving the many
issues we have faced throughout this past year and at the board meetings last
week. Finally, I would like to thank
my fellow Board members for their support and confidence by electing me
President for a second term. I will
do my best to meet their expectations and that of the members of HRRVC during my
term.
John and Sandy Powell (74285)
jpowell@columbus.rr.com From The Desk of The National President (March/April 2011)
Winter, according to the calendar, is almost
over with only days until Spring officially begins.
The three National Rallies:
Southwest Sunshine Rally, Southeast Spring Picnic and Western Sunshine
Rally will soon be underway.
I hope that you have sent your registration as the rally coordinators
have worked hard to make them interesting and memorable.
The present Board of
Directors and CAR Committee have taken steps to make changes to our rallies
based on your suggestions in order to increase your attendance.
The importance of your attendance for these rallies as well as all of
the HRRVC caravans, adventures and rallies (CAR) cannot be overstated.
As reported to you by past and present board Presidents and Treasurers,
HRRVC must rely on these events for approximately 40% of its income because
membership dues only account for 50 -55% of the Club’s income.
In the past few years, the attendance at our rallies as well as
caravans and adventures has failed to produce that needed income.
If you have not put a CAR event on your “to do” list for 2011, I
strongly encourage you to do so.
This is one way that you can support the Club, enjoy the benefits of
sharing these activities with your friends and help to make sure that we are
able to continue these events in the future.
In this issue, I would like to address the
subject of communication.
Like some of you, I too, have not always been satisfied that enough was
done to communicate or distribute the information to all members.
There has been a
perception that the National Directors are either withholding information or
failing to assure that it is passed on to the members.
Some believe that even if
the information is passed on using the process defined in the Documents of
Governance, that some State Managers do not pass it along to their Chapter
Presidents, or if they do, that some Chapter Presidents do not pass it along to
their chapter members.
I have heard all of these scenarios and perhaps you have too.
There are, no doubt, instances where there has been a breakdown in
forwarding the information or continues to be the case and it is important that
we work to correct this problem.
The simple solution in many cases has been to update an e-mail address.
The current Board has discussed how we communicate and have created additional
ways to get the word out on club activities, operations, membership and our
finances.
We have worked with State and Chapter officers to distribute the
information; we provide opportunities for any member to ask any question while
at all rallies we attend; we write articles in the Ramblings as well as post
articles on the HRRVC website. We do not withhold information that members need
to know.
We, do however, keep Board meetings private to ensure a free and open discussion
among the members and do not discuss financial payments to our employees and
volunteers. We
must rely on our members to let us know if there is a break in the line of
communication.
If,
as a member, you have a
problem, such as not receiving communications
or just have a comment or suggestion that you would like to express,
the proper procedure is to take it to your Chapter President
(in person and/or
in writing) , your State Manager, your National Director,
the National President,
in that order.
This, of course is the reverse of the process that the Directors use to
provide information to you as a member.
In your case, the
Chapter President should contact the State Manager or the State Manager should
contact the National Director if they are unable to answer the question(s) or
resolve the problem(s) that you present to them.
Your Directors in the past two years have
redoubled their efforts to communicate to you information about all aspects of
HRRVC. We believe
that HRRVC belongs to its members, and as a member, have volunteered make the
necessary operational decisions as Director and inform all members of those
decisions.
I can assure you that the Board of Directors has not been withholding
information. We are
continually looking for better ways to get the information to everyone, chapter
and non-chapter members alike.
Because of space limitations in this magazine due to cost, we have and
will continue to increase our use of the
HRRVC website,
www.hrrvc.org
to publicize information that all members have the opportunity to
access in order to keep
you informed about important information you need to know.
Maria Donnelly, Webmaster and Phil Cline, Coordinator, both volunteers,
are doing an outstanding job of maintaining the HRRVC website.
They are not
responsible for the content of the information published to the website;
however, they can assist you with problems that you have using the website.
For that reason, please direct any questions or comments you have about
the content of the website to your National Director.
In a future issue of the
Ramblings, look for an article about the website and how you will benefit by
logging on.
I hope that through my articles each month you
are gaining a sense of trust that your Directors are not only working diligently
to make the best, though sometimes necessary decisions that will allow our Club
to continue, but also trying to keep you informed of those decisions.
For me, I would like to hear from you about how we are doing and
particularly interested in your constructive ideas and suggestions.
Safe travels and we’ll see you down the road.
John and Sandy Powell (74285)
From the Desk of the National President (January/February2011)
Happy New Year!
On behalf of the COO, HRRVC Staff and your Board of Directors we wish
that 2011 brings you much Fun and Fellowship and that you reap the benefits from
attending the Educational and Safety seminars that will be presented this year.
These are the objectives of our Club’s motto:
Fun, Fellowship, Education and Safety.
In this issue, I’ll try to address
some issues/questions that I have received about the Ramblings, Rallies and
Dues.
RAMBLINGS:
All National, Regional, State and local advertisements for any event will
be charged the actual page space publishing cost ($125.00/page;
$62.50/half-page). This charge
applies to each issue that the advertisement appears.
Advertisements should be sent to Linda Moran along with a note indicating
the size and number of issues for publication.
Payment either by check or credit card should be sent to the HRRVC office
prior to the issue deadline and should reference the ad for proper credit.
There is no charge for the generic rally registration form that appears
in every issue. There is no charge for placing the same ad, or a more
comprehensive one, on the HRRVC website (www.hrrvc.org), in fact, it is
encouraged.
We are NOT eliminating the Region News section.
You are encouraged to continue to submit articles about the fun
activities that you enjoy as well as about upcoming activities that others might
consider attending. Articles about
upcoming activities provide the 60% or so of our Club’s non-chapter member’s
information about events in their area, an open invitation for them to attend.
Only one article per Chapter per issue will be published and the article
should not exceed 350 words in length.
For complete updated information see Guidelines for Articles on page 2 of
the Ramblings.
RALLIES:
The Board of Directors has suspended the $20.00 administrative
cancellation fee for National and International rallies.
This means that if you register for one of these rallies early and for an
unforeseen reason(s) you must cancel prior to the rally, your registration fee
will be refunded. This does not
include fees paid for rally tours which are refunded under a separate policy.
For complete information about the HRRVC
policies for Deposit, Payment and Cancellation for our National Events see the
HRRVC Rally /Caravan /Adventure Registration Form page in an issue of the
Ramblings.
The Board of Directors reluctantly cancelled the Flag Presentation
Ceremony at the International Rally this past year in Perry GA because of a lack
of representatives from the various States and Provinces to carry their flags.
At this time, the ceremony for the International Rally this year in
DuQuoin IL is still scheduled.
States and Provinces should contact their Region Director with the name of a
representative that will attend and take part in the ceremony.
The Board is also concerned about the
lack of entries to the Chapter Newsletter Contest.
Each year fewer entries are submitted.
All chapter members recognize the importance of a Chapter Newsletter in
promoting their chapter to potential new members.
Newsletter editors, who submit their newsletter in this contest not only
gain recognition for their chapter and a monetary prize, but also provide those
attending the rally the opportunity to view their newsletters as examples of
what makes a great chapter newsletter. Please
help keep the Flag Presentation Ceremony and Chapter Newsletter Contest
activities part of our International Rally by participating in these activities.
MEMBERSHIP DUES:
“…with the Club’s current situation, should I renew my dues for one year
or continue for three years? I don’t want to lose my money.”
There is no reason not to renew for three years and take advantage of the
$10.00 discount. You should
know that the money the Club receives for future years of membership is set
aside for that purpose and not available for use until that year.
If for some reason you need to terminate your membership early, the Club
will refund the money you paid for future years.
Sorry, we cannot refund dues for the current or partial year.
By paying your dues in three year increments, you help save the Club from
the expense of sending renewal notices and this cost is passed along to you in
the form of a $10.00 discount.
Don’t forget to take advantage of
the Southwest Sunshine Rally, Southeast Spring Picnic and Western Sunshine Rally
that are scheduled in March and April.
When you register, remember to let the Rally Coordinators know if you can
volunteer for a task at the rally.
Please do your part to make the National Rallies in 2011 a success!
Safe travels and we’ll see you
down the road.
John and Sandy Powell (74285)
jpowell@columbus.rr.com
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||