The following message was written for the November 2012 newsletter.
President’s Message – November 2012
The Fall 2012 rally in Springville, Utah was quite a bit smaller than normal but we met lots of new GMC owners, saw some wonderful scenery, and had our usual fun time. Thanks to Les and Sharon Watson and all their helpers for hosting the week.
The new GMCers that we met were mostly from the Provo and Salt Lake City areas. They have a fair number of GMC owners in their local club but not quite enough to qualify as an official FMCA chapter. They call themselves the Great Mountain Classics (GMC) and they meet monthly at a local restaurant – they gained at least one new member at this rally and GMCWS gained new members as well.
The timing of the rally was perfect for sight-seeing in the mountains to the East of Provo. The Fall colors in the mountains are much different from what you see in the Northeast but are just as beautiful. It looks like the slopes of the mountains are painted with large swaths of bright yellow and bright red instead of the multi-colored foliage in other parts of the country. We took advantage of the time provided in our rally schedule, toured the “Alpine Loop” above Provo, and visited Sundance Resort – awesome.
The number of coaches at the rally – about 30 – was smaller than usual for a variety of reasons: long distances, high fuel prices, conflicting schedules, breakdowns, etc. There was a conflict in schedule with the GMCMI rally in Iowa and some of the GMCers in the area chose to go there instead. In the future we will be working with the GMCMI and other clubs to try to coordinate our schedules so this will (hopefully) not happen again.
We again had a session of coach weighing with our newly constructed scales. The scales were made by Frank Condos and we tried them at our Casa de Fruta rally in the Spring. We had a couple of minor problems but, generally, the design proved itself. This time, Manny Trovao took Frank’s design, incorporated the lessons learned at the Spring rally, and rebuilt the scales with new materials. They worked even better! Take a look at the web site for a more complete report and the individual results.
The web site (GMCWS.org) has lots of pictures of people and coaches from the rally under “Rally Reports”. Speaking of pictures, we are working on a website-only photo roster. Fin Beven has been championing the idea of a photo roster for quite some time and has provided photos of many couples that he has taken at various rallies. An initial attempt at the photo-roster will be on the web site in the next few weeks. When that happens we will send out an email and ask you to take a look. If there is no photo of you, if you don’t like the photo we have, or you have a better one then send it to me and we’ll use it. My email address is available on the web site or you can send a print and I’ll scan it in.
We have some great rallies planned for 2013. Our Spring rally will be in Amado, Arizona, a small town just south of Tucson on I-19, April 9 – 14th . It will be hosted by Carol and myself along with Dave and Donna DeGraffenreid. The theme will be “The Old West” and we are planning some music, history, and cowboy poetry in addition to the local attractions like Tombstone, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Old Tucson Studios, Saguaro National Park, and Tubac and the Spanish mission just down the road.
The Fall 2013 rally will be a joint rally with the GMC Cascaders and will be held in Coos Bay, Oregon at the beautiful Mill Casino, Hotel and RV Resort October 2 - 7, 2013. It will be hosted by Jerry and Sharon Work and they already have lots of fun plans made so please go our website and take a look.
It’s renewal time so please check your email or mailbox and respond as soon as possible to we can get our roster together for 2013.
All in all we are looking at a great year ahead of us. Please, use the web site to stay up to date and plan to attend a rally. Hope to see you at the next rally.