June Rally

Wes Barager and Janet Gunkler have completed plans for the June rally in Palmyra. They are under a tab at the top of the blog or you can click on the link below.

June Rally 

Deadline is June 1st.
We look forward to seeing you there.

May, 2013 Rally highlights

Our first official event of 2013 was at Elkdale Campground outside Salamanca, NY. This is a good location with a nice clubhouse when May weather can be 70’s and sunny or 40’s and rain. This year, the latter was closer.

Wes Makes muffinless McEggs

Wes Barager, Russ and Dorothy Taylor and Dick and Mary Randall headed quartered the great weekend at Elkdale while Janet Gunkler prepared the Saturday night dinner ("Walk Around Tacos") at home before the rally even though she was at a wedding. 

Friday night most of us had a nice dinner at Elkdale Country Club followed by an ice cream social.

Saturday morning breakfast were dishes prepared our attendees.

Saturday rain showers let up enough for folks to go sight seeing. In the heart of ski resort country, there are beautiful homes, a railroad museum and a casino. A few of us hung around the campground clubhouse making up stories.

Sunday breakfast was a continental breakfast.  This team of hosts has been together for 5 years doing the May rally. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU !

Next month our June rally moves to Palmyra Fair Grounds with Wes and Janet Wagon Masters again. This time, they will be assisted by the Sprouts and Burgmasters. More soon.

Remember, you may see a larger view of a picture by clicking on it.

Alternative camper

Leonardo Dicaprio has a nice "little (53 feet)" trailer he uses during movie shoots. Below is a brief video of it. We've seen a number of these trailer conversions when traveling, but his may be among the nicest.
Just click on the link.

Leo Dicaprios home on wheels

State of affairs from Paul DuBois, NEA VP

Paul Dubois sent this on May 11th. It's his interpretation of the state of affairs in FMCA. The information he provides is a bit negative, because "FMCA" could be replaced every where in the document with fraternal groups and clubs like "KofC", "Masons", "Elks", etc.  However, I thought you might enjoy the reading.  Tom

To All Northeast Area Officers and Members

Since I was elected to office I have tried to be open with you and have tried to the best of my ability to keep you informed on issues in both the Northeast Area and of happenings on the national FMCA  scene.

     On the Area scene the past two years have been very difficult in putting on our rally as each year the number of dealers displaying coaches has been dropping to the point where in 2012 we only had one dealer with ten coaches.  This is caused by the cost of fuel and the expenses involved in displaying coaches. Motorhomes are not selling and towables are selling so fast that they don’t need to show them at rallies.

     Our vendors have dropped off as they state that people come to the rallies look at the products and then buy them cheaper on the internet. Without vendors and coaches and a drop in family coaches it has become impossible to finance the rally. In 2012 we worked with several veterans organizations who agreed to help us with the understanding that we would use any profits that they made for disabled veterans which we did.

     Our Executive Board felt that it was necessary to cancel the 2013 rally as we  couldn’t see any way to finance it. The plan was to wait until my replacement was elected and new NMA officers and let them make the decision on 2014. Unfortunatly there was not a single candidate to seek the office of Northeast Area Vice President inspite of two attempts to find a candidate.  The decision has been made by the National office with my agreement to hold off from any further attempts until after elections in Gillette in June. Also earlier this year we sent out over 300 mailings seeking Area officers. There was not one person who expressed interest. We currently have two vacancies from 2012.

     On the National FMCA scene I have as well as some fellow National Executive Board members have some very serious concerns as to operation of FMCA. I will attempt to relate some of those to you and there will be some others that at this point I am unable to discuss because they could involve legal action. You may have read in articles written by the President and others that everything  is going well within FMCA and we are financially sound and things are on the rebound. And the current administration has us in the Black. Myself and some others wish that we could agree with these statements. In 2011 the Treasurer Wil Young and the Finance Committee became aware that we were withdrawing between one hundred thousand dollars and one hundred twelve thousand dollars from reserves each month to meet our bills. Members of the Executive Board requested The President Charlie Schrenkel to call a special meeting of the Board to discuss how we could cut expenses by 1.2 million dollars so we could balance the budget. The president declined to call such a meeting so the only way that we could have the meeting was to get the approval of 80% of the Executive Board. I was asked by the Board members to try and obtain the necessary members to agree which I was able to do. At the meeting in Brooksville in February a motion was made to instruct Jerry Yeatts the interim Executive Director to cut the budget by the 1.2 million dollars and report back to us by April 15,2012. The motion passed with only the President voting NO The Executive Director came back with the ordered cuts

     Immediately after the vote a motion was made by Charlie Schrenkel to buy $86,000 worth of Atlases. The motion was defeated with the President voting to make the purchase and the rest of the Board voting against the purchase.

     In the last two years the Executive Board has had a very difficult time getting timely information necessary to govern FMCA. The Treasurer has at different times either been refused information or had a very difficult time obtaining it as did some Board members.

     In the past few years we have been hit with some surprises that have cost us large sums of money. We learned that the computer system that controls the entire FMCA operation including all departments website , finances, membership and credit cards had not been updated since 1996. This meant that we were not Federally credit card compliant and if our system had been hacked we woud be subjected to a heavy federal fine, responsible for all losses and required to pay for credit card monitoring for every card holder for three years.  The money was approved by the Governing Board last year but the installation has fallen behind and will not be completed until October and has cost us much more than was budgeted for.  When a long time staff member left ,the President  and the wage review board approved what has called a significant severance package but the Executive Board has been unable to determine what the amount is. We have been told that we received a large fine because workers comp. was not paid for a period of months.  These are just a few of the problems that this Executive Board has faced.

     Although I am sure I will be admonished for revealing this information to the officers and membership of our Area , I feel that it is my duty to do so and I feel that the Governing Board cannot make the right decisions if they do not have all the facts. Those of you going to the National Convention must ask questions at the Meet the candidate forum and the Governing Board meeting and not take no for an answer on obtaining the necessary information.

     There are two candidates for National President Charlie Adcock current South central VP and Alan Rein current Senior VP.

     Although I consider both candidates my friends, I feel that in order to survive FMCA needs a change in direction. Both Charlie Adcock and his running mate for Senior Vice President Jon Walker are experienced business men Charlie Adcock  prior to becoming Area Vice President successfully ran several businesses and John Walker is owner of a successful Mail equipment and mail equipment processing business. I have had discussions with both men as to what their plan is and they have a good business plan to put in effect  if elected. They have both committed to immediately travel to the Northeast Area and meet with chapters to see how they can help our members and are also committed to bringing A  national convention to the Northeast Area. They are both committed to operating in a open manner and keeping the members and Governing Board updated.  I will be supporting them and look forward to helping them in our Area. I want to thank you for your support and friendship during my term in office.

Paul DuBois

Harborfest 2014 Update

Jim Miller from the Pen-NY Mixers reports -

Have you seen the article about us on page 30-31 of the May FMCA magazine? It is written by Kelly Fedeli, she and her husband Shane have a 85 Bluebird. If you cant place them Shane had the other 10x20 tent and Kelly and Bev Brown passed out the door prizes.

The article is what she had put in Vintage Birds newsletter as a review after the rally.

We bought 8 bottles of rum in St Thomas duty free, 10.00 each, so it will be a rum party at Harborfest 2014

Jim