Nearly one hundred and fifty members and guests gathered at Belongil Fields Caravan Park in beautiful Byron Bay in NSW for the first ever National Muster and AGM of the Australian Caravan Club.
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In a weekend crammed with activities, the fully catered dinner on Saturday night was a highlight and members were surprised and delighted to find they each received a souvenir wine glass, courtesy of Caravan World, and a free glass of wine to start the evening’s festivities. The popularity of the glasses was shown later in the evening when surplus glasses were put up for auction. Spirited bidding saw increasing valueplaced on the glasses until the final pair, plus a bottle of wine, were knocked down by auctioneer Lionel for an incredible $125! Thanks Gary and Pam. |
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Great entertainment was provided by the talented ‘Chris and the Grey’ as award winning bush poet Merv Webster and his partner Chris like to be called. |
Round the Fire
Caravans started arriving the previous weekend and early birds enjoyed great fellowship and swapping yarns around the campfire each night at Happy Hour until the circle became too big as the number of vans grew to more than seventy.
A trivia night with much mirth and laughter started the official proceedings on the Thursday night as teams vied with each other for honours. In the sudden death ‘True or False’ contest, Sylvia McGrice surprised even herself by being the only one left standing after just seven questions!
The final trivia question sheet was about Greek Mythology and there was only one team that scored – and that was just for one correct answer. The team that won the prize for the night certainly didn’t win for their answers to that sheet – they answered ‘Thor’ for eight questions and crossed ‘Thor’ out and put ‘Aphrodite’ for another! Still wrong.
Boules
Friday saw the start of the keenly contested Boules competition organised by Rob Tudor and this continued with heats, semi-finals and finals throughout the day. The eventual winners were Gary Duncan and Brian Ward.
The first of a series of educational seminars was held on Friday afternoon when newly appointed ACC Honorary Technical Advisor, Tom Olthoff, gave a wide-ranging talk on ‘Towing Safely’. The number of questions was a good indication of the interest in Tom’s expertise. Tom also made himself available throughout the weekend to talk to individual members with queries.
The sausage sizzle provided by the club on Friday night proved popular and there was even provision for those with special dietary needs – in fact ALL the sausages were gluten free and delicious. Poor Judy Tudor and her helpers peeled and sliced about twelve kilos of onions to go with the snags.
Impromptu entertainment followed with Brian Ward providing the music and members showing rare talents as well. However we won’t allow a microphone anywhere near Webmaster Rob again. I’ll say no more but Slim Dusty he is not!
Bright and early
After the activities on Friday it was great to see so many people front up first thing on Saturday for the continuation of our education programme. This included a very thought-provoking fire safety demonstration. I wonder how many of us have fire extinguishers that are out of date and how many smoke alarms are getting new batteries after David’s presentation. Oh yes – and how many fire blankets were purchased as a result of the practical demonstration of their value?
Copped
Member Gary Duncan, newly retired from the NSW Police, and his still serving friend Grant Seddon, told us how to stay safe while travelling. Most things they talked about are common sense but of course in a difficult situation there is always a tendency to panic.
12Volt Electrics
A very important topic for both caravans and tow vehicles is 12volt electrics and Brian Springer of Springers 12volt had a great deal of useful information to impart including such things as the kind of house batteries to buy, using the correct diameter cable to overcome voltage drop, solar power, and much more.
Our first AGM – and a year of achievement
Happy birthday to us! In just one year we have achieved a great deal and Chairperson Lionel Mussell, outlined some of the goals we have set and met during the twelve short months we have been in existence.
The report is appended at the end of this article.
The fact that we have now finally obtained a ‘members only’ insurance policy through MHIA with many benefits for members is a dream fulfilled and the end of a very frustrating series of investigations and negotiations with other companies.
The CEO of MHIA, Phil Nossiter, was the first speaker on Sunday morning and he and his staff outlined the many add-on benefits members will be able to enjoy if signing up with his company.
It was interesting to see the number of hands in the air when Phil asked how many people were already with MHIA. Even more interesting was the positive response to the question of whether they were happy with the service provided.
Following the insurance seminar, Colin Hopgood gave the final talk intriguingly titled ‘Safe drinking while travelling’ which outlined the benefits of using B.E.S.T. water filters.
Highly Successful weekend
This rounded off a very successful weekend and the number of smiling faces and sounds of laughter from groups gathered under awnings were testimony to the enjoyment everyone felt from our first Annual Muster.
The wonderful pictorial record put together by Webmaster Rob shows many of the people and activities that contributed to making this such a memorable occasion. You will find these in the Picture Gallery.
Secretary Grant and Treasurer Julie did most of the planning and organising for the weekend, including a number of trips to Byron Bay from the Sunshine Coast. We owe them a great debt – thanks a million you two.
Thanks also to the people who assisted so willingly during the muster.
Volunteers and ideas are needed to make the 2008 National Muster even brighter and better.
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CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT TO THE ACC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15.9.07
Welcome to this historic AGM – the first of what I trust will be many more exciting and fulfilling annual get-togethers.
The club is now a year old and in the past twelve months a great deal of work has gone into laying the foundations for what will without any doubt grow into a real force to be reckoned with in the world of caravanning.
I want to pay tribute to the work of your Board. When the club was founded – largely through the efforts of the Foundation Chairperson, Gary Stratton, and Foundation Secretary, Grant Stable, they based our club on the highly successful UK organisation ‘The Caravan Club’ which boasts 350,000 members last count. 7,500 of these were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace recently to celebrate the club’s centenary.
There was a settling in period at the start of the year. Gary found pressure of work made it impossible to continue as Chairperson and Tom ‘Titch’ Richards assumed the helm for a short time until he too found it necessary to resign from the Board. That was when I was coerced into reluctantly taking on the role and now wild horses couldn’t drag me from the chair as it has been an intensely challenging and rewarding experience. It has been a pleasure working with dedicated directors, workaholic secretary Grant, financial expert Julie Baldwin and Webmaster Rob Tudor.
Our Board meetings have been held via the internet using MSN Messenger and despite living or travelling in widespread areas of Australia it has been possible to conduct our meetings in a similar fashion as being face to face. It was only a few days ago that Rob and Grant met in person for the first time.
Your Directors have worked tirelessly for the club but we now need assistance from people willing to lead and work on committees. We need a recruiting and expansion committee, an education committee and an advocacy committee to name just three.
We have taken out Directors and Officers Insurance plus Public Liability Insurance.
Nomad
Keeping in touch with members is a vital part of any organisation and we have been able to do this through the pages of The Nomad that has been delivered as promised to members every quarter. Thanks to being able to produce it in-house and success in getting advertisers, we have been able to produce and send the magazine at very little cost to members. The task is getting too big now with 500 copies each issue so we are exploring ways of getting it printed commercially. The content has been interesting thanks to contributions and photographs from members – keep ‘em coming folks.
Our Logo and the name Nomad are now our registered Trademarks and the magazine is registered through the National Library with an ISSN.
Website
Rob Tudor joined the Board during the year and took on the important role of Webmaster. A website had been set up right from the beginning by Gary and when he resigned from the Board I took it over for a short time until Rob came in and revolutionised the site and has since kept it a dynamic medium for informing the general public about our club and for members to get access to up to date news and contact details. An example is Tom Olthoff’s excellent article on ‘Warranty Woes’ that appears in its entirety in the Members Section of the website. (http://www.australiancaravanclub.com.au/)
Publicity
A club like ours can only function if we have enough members and hand in hand with that goes the need for publicity.
I took on the role of Publicity Director when I joined the Board and have continued wearing that hat ever since. We have received good support from the RV media. Caravan World has given us excellent coverage both through publishing my releases and by allowing me to use my ‘On the Wallaby’ column to spread the ACC word – to the annoyance of some sections of the caravanning industry. We have also had coverage from Caravan and Motorhome and On the Road magazine.
It gives me great pleasure that Ros Bromwich, editor of Caravan World is here with us this weekend and Simone Costi, editor of Caravan and Motorhome was with us yesterday.
My activities as your Chairperson at one stage upset the industry so much that they were not going to have me present my ‘Preparing for the Big Trip’ seminars at Caravan Shows after doing seminars for them free of charge for many years. Fortunately common sense prevailed and I did presentations in Melbourne and Brisbane. Sydney had a different reason for not including me on their programme – but I can read between the lines.
Branches
An analysis of enquiries from potential members showed that social activities are an important factor in the decision of whether to join or not. In light of this the Board started encouraging State social weekends. We also feel that our growth can be increased by the formation of local branches and we were pleased to approve the formation of two branches during the later part of the year. The ACC Sunshine Nomads and the ACC Happy Holiday Coasters are up and running and have held a number of successful weekend functions. Congratulations to those Branches. The name ‘Muster’ has been adopted for our gatherings and musters have been held in Queensland, NSW and Victoria so far. More are planned and details are on the website. There is talk of special interest groups and we are very much in favour of these – Bob and Loretta Taylor here today with a Classic Olympic fibreglass caravan are trying to interest other owners of these vans to form a Branch and in fact the presence here this weekend of another two Olympic vans is a result of their efforts. We hope to soon have more new branches with interest being shown in South Australia, the Gold Coast and Victoria.
Vi and I have been privileged to attend two Victorian musters, one in Queensland and now this one in NSW. It’s great to get together with fellow caravanners and swap yarns and enjoy good fellowship.
Advocacy
As you will have read in The Nomad, I believe we are still too small to have much impact yet. That is why we have been putting so much effort into membership recruitment. A club of 450 members can’t really claim to speak for the huge majority of caravanners and camper-trailer owners.
That doesn’t mean we haven’t been trying – far from it. We did a fair bit of stirring about the failure of LPG regulators but that issue seems to have been swept under the mat with no clear cut answers as to the real cause. The bandaid solution of copper pigtails and raising the mounting height of the regulator seems to provide respite for owners who have experienced the problem. We did get a fair bit of information from the Technical Department of the UK‘s Caravan Club where they have similar problems and are provided with the same excuses.
We wrote to the Pine Rivers Council and the Qld Dept. of Main Roads about long-stay campers doing the wrong thing at Wyllie Park on the north side of Brisbane. We also wrote to the then Premier of Queensland Peter Beattie suggesting the use of showgrounds and school facilities for caravan club functions and our letter was passed to the appropriate departments.
The Lake Macquarrie Council in NSW made some rest areas available to motorhomes only for a twelve months trial period and invited submissions about this. We made a submission pointing out that this was discrimination and followed this with phone calls. The Council will discuss it later in the year.
We also wrote to the RVMAA about the SA Coroner’s suggestion that Ball Weight be included on the compliance plate of all new caravans but as usual did not get a reply.
Our more recent interest is in the failure of caravan wheel studs and subsequent loss of a wheel. There has been a lot of discussion about this on forums but few details of actual failures. I emailed a number of caravan insurance companies about this but so far the only positive result has come from the NRMA and RACV who gave me the phone number of one of their assessors who has encountered the problem. He tells me that our correspondence has been forwarded to the NRMA Technical Research people who will be conducting some tests on caravan wheel studs. He also said he was pleased that someone is taking and interest in the problem. John Balding of Touring Oz forum has given me two broken studs that came from Merv Webster’s caravan. Merv will be entertaining us tonight and has givn us details of what happened to his studs.
I did ask on one of the forums for people with facts to email me but so far nothing has eventuated. Assistant Manager Neil has now added a thread on ‘Touring Oz’ so that may elicit some facts. Once we have solid evidence we can approach a whole lot of people who should be interested in this life-threatening problem and then - just maybe - someone will do something constructive about it before there’s a bad accident.
Some members feel we should be doing more. We are open to suggestions and offers of help if you have the skills and experience to assist.
Honorary Technical Advisor
We are delighted to tell you that caravanning guru, Tom Olthoff, has accepted the position of Honorary Technical Officer of the Australian Caravan Club. Tom is known and respected by caravanners everywhere and his technical expertise is recognised widely. He runs his own caravanning and automotive consultancy business in Adelaide and conducts very successful Towing Courses. He appears on the M&MH Forum under the heading of Tom’s Tech. Tom’s advice will be greatly appreciated and we feel his appointment will be a wonderful asset for our club. Those of you who were able to hear Tom discuss Towing Safely yesterday will know what I mean.
Insurance
I’ve left this until nearly last although it’s probably the most important item in the report.
Right from the inception of the ACC we have tried to get a competitive, members only, insurance scheme. Finally Grant and Julie attended the Brisbane Caravan Show with the intention of contacting Insurance Companies who were at the show.
To our great pleasure and delight MHIA (Manufactured Homes Insurance Agency) not only offered us a great deal but have followed through all the way and are with us this weekend to cement our friendship and show us the benefits of their caravan insurance policy. I hope you all take the opportunity to listen to them tomorrow morning and ask any questions you might have.
In conclusion
We have come a long way in just twelve months but there’s much more to do. We need numbers so that our still small voice becomes a mighty roar! The insurance scheme will help recruiting as we will have the best policy on the market but what we really need are dedicated members spreading the word wherever they go. Roving ambassadors. We have nice new brochures to help and Rob will be updating the website with details of our insurance scheme.
The next twelve months will be vital. A time to consolidate and a time to grow. Grant and Julie are planning a big trip next year so we will need to be looking at replacements on the Board next year. They have been the backbone of our progress up to now but there must be others to take up the reins.
For now though - if anyone is still awake - we must get on with today’s agenda.
Lionel
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