spuds
-
Content Count
37 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by spuds
-
-
11 hours ago, aztec7fan said:I will be removing my goose eggs this weekend, and asking for a refund of my membership dues. You lost at least one member who is under 60 years old
As are we, just no kids as you have.
-
Since the club is no longer motorhome-centric, and we have no need for a third generic RV club membership beyond Good Sam and Escapees, we've requested a refund of our unused future membership years (we had renewed for multiple additional years prior to the leadership's push to change the charter).
-
Not sure where the green/red map came from, but it's not Sprint's official coverage map.
Visit the Sprint website to get a look at their published coverage map to see just how much is roaming
https://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp?INTNAV=TopNav:Support:CoverageMap
Most of Alabama, Georgia, S. Carolina, Arkansas, Texas, NY, Vermont, western US...
Be sure to zoom in so you can see all the grey (roaming) and white (no service) areas.
It might be a viable option for some, but Sprint has the poorest network coverage of all the providers.
-
Extended LTE means partner networks where you would be roaming.
Be absolutely sure you understand how roaming works on this plan. You are allowed only minimal data roaming (300 MB) with Sprint. So true Sprint coverage is much less than the other networks.
-
We sent in our "No" vote a few weeks ago.
We actually had paid up for several years when the last increase was announced. If membership becomes generic we'll ask for a refund. If that's not possible, we'll let it lapse. GS and SKPs already provide all we need from a generic RV club. The only reason we are FMCA members is because it's focus has been motorhome-only.
When the board began blatantly pushing this change, we took our FMCA placard off our coach and refuse to provide free marketing for an organization that does not follow its charter. The revelation about the huge "gift" to RVillage was an eye-opener.
-
I posted this in the Verizon benefit topic, not realizing which topic I had posted in.
Sprint has well less than 10% of the coverage that Verizon or AT&T have, so research carefully whether this plan would work for you or not. We are rarely in a Sprint area, and it's not like we go deep into the wilderness...
From RVMobileInternet's site, one of their graphics from their Coverage app
-
Do research Sprint's coverage vs. Verizon or AT&T to determine if the Sprint option will work for you. Sprint has well less than 10% of the coverage area that the other 2 do. If you are typically near major metropolitan areas, then it will likely be OK. For us, when we look at the places we travel, we are rarely in a Sprint coverage location. RVMobileInternet has some graphics from their Coverage app that shows this more clearly:
-
23 hours ago, camarti1 said:You stayed with FMCA didn't you? So you have the best revenge, you have your integrity in place and your honor is intact.
Actually, we have been members since 2004 and are paid up for several years in the future, so I can't say that I "stayed" with FMCA after that unpleasant interaction. It will, however, be considered along with the result of this vote as to whether we ever send another dime to FMCA.
Michelle
-
On 10/27/2017 at 1:46 PM, manholt said:How nice! Here I was reprimanded by some of our finest, by PM, for just hinting about FMCA working on a new Verizon deal..
I got publicly attacked by an FMCA board member on another website for posting my experience with the Verizon issue (mine was a comment to their article about how it had failed). Total turn-off to FMCA's board.
-
2 hours ago, jimnorman said:we need to figure out why so few Motor Home owners join. If we can't attract our core group, we are doing something very wrong, opening membership to a different group does not and will not fix the underlying issues.
I agree, Jim. If anything, opening up to towables would put the club in direct competition with Good Sam for members as it will look like an identical organization, and it doesn't have advantages over that organization (discounts, services, etc.) to succeed in that competition.
The motorhome-only focus is what drew us to the club years ago. We already had GS (and still have it, as we were young enough when they offered discounted Lifetime membership that it was a no brainer to sign up). We don't see a need for a second GS-equivalent club.
Michelle
-
5 hours ago, aztec7fan said:The national conventions are designed to seperate families so the adults have more time to attend seminars and look at exhibits, but I feel this is an old fashion design. Families today have so little time together, activities need to be scheduled that includes kids and adults.
Chris, I would extend your "old fashioned idea" even further and comment that many rallies, both national and some chapter, separate the "menfolk and the wimmenfolk" so the men get technical seminars and the women get "cheap bedazzling floral arranging crafts" (which seems like an afterthought as well - "what the heck do we do with the wives?".) That only serves to further the misconception of FMCA as an older, retired person's club. As younger folks are becoming RVers (we started in our 30's and are now in our 50's), we have always done things together (there are no "pink" or "blue" jobs in our coach) and personally I go to the tech seminars because they are a heck of a lot more interesting (you couldn't pay me to sequin-coat a planter ;-) )
TBH the main way to make this paradigm shift is to get younger folks into the leadership of the organization, particularly for the planning of rallies and conventions. Escapees is doing this successfully with Xscapers and their convergences.
Michelle
-
1 hour ago, MWeiner said:Brocki wrote below...
"We joined FMCA over 17 years ago specifically because it was motorhome-focused. (still very much is on the larger Class A's)
Wewere (are) also members of Good Sam. If FMCA changes to allow towables, I see no advantage to remaining in the club as the content would be diluted/become more generic "RV", and Good Sam gets us better and more varied discounts for lower cost"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----
This is no question the most hot button issue in the FMCA..... but, aside from any particular outcome.....the FMCA might as well just be called the Class A Motor Home Club of America...
It appears you mis-credited your quote. Those (with the strongly noted exception of your added "larger Class A" comment) are my words, not Brocki's.
We own a B+/C (depending on your definition of such) and do not share your impression of FMCA as a Class A Motorhome Club. I certainly haven't found the general community to be unwelcoming to any class of motorhome.
-
We joined FMCA over 17 years ago specifically because it was motorhome-focused. We were (are) also members of Good Sam. If FMCA changes to allow towables, I see no advantage to remaining in the club as the content would be diluted/become more generic "RV", and Good Sam gets us better and more varied discounts for lower cost.
It is VERY inappropriate to have "it's time to take a step in the right direction" plastered on the main FMCA web landing page. The leadership should not be pushing their opinion/agenda on the membership in such a fashion. Such verbage indicates that the leadership has put their main energies into making this happen rather than listening respectfully and thoughtfully to any of the membership's opinions. That alone gives me pause as to whether the current leadership has the general membership's best interests in mind.
-
4 hours ago, hermanmullins said:spuds,
You need to research Foretravel. It is a very nice High end coach made in Nacogdoches Texas. A very well respected Manufacturer.
I think you mean MWeiner, not me. We owned a Foretravel for 13 1/2 years. Know all about them ;-) We run Foreforums.
-
3 hours ago, MWeiner said:never heard of Foretravel.. I stay away from off brands that are orphaned off.
It's not an orphan - the company was bought by investors in 2005.
it's a very high end DP. Even more so now with the new owners. They have decided to focus on a different market than when the Fore family owned it.
-
We purchased our first and second motorhomes when each was 1 year old. The third we purchased new. None are the major RV brands you see on most dealers lots.
First was a Lazy Daze class C. 6 month or longer wait to buy new (factory direct only) back then, closer to a year now. Very low volume so we were lucky to find what we wanted in a gently used unit. Owner didn't experience too much depreciation as a result compared to other brands of class C. We wouldn't hesitate to order new if we could wait. We had no build quality issues.
Second was a Foretravel diesel pusher. We bought used when it looked like the factory was going to go belly up in 2004 (it did not, was bought by a group of investors in 2005). First owner took a significant depreciation hit. New ones have even a steeper drop than 10 years ago. Not a brand we could justify buying new.
Third is a Leisure Travel class C. We specifically wanted a 2016 or 2017 chassis for the collision mitigation. We also wanted a particular floorplan that wasn't the very popular MB. There aren't a lot of them used out there, and the wait time on a new order is 10 months. We happened to find an unclaimed new one that a highly-regarded dealer had on order, so the wait was much less and we were still able to make some adjustments to the options. These don't depreciate much in the first year and our dealer offered a great price. They are also delivered via flatbed, so ours had just over 30 miles on the odometer. We fully understand there may be a few things to shake out, but so far, so good :-)
-
If it's done like an annual corporate shareholder voting, it will be accompanied by a statement to the effect "The Board recommends approval of the measure" to bias the voting...
-
1 hour ago, BillAdams said:There was a period where FMCA gave a free 1 year membership to anyone buying a motorhome so it's real easy to make those numbers go up quickly. The problem is getting those numbers to have any meaningful value when the majority of those free memberships vanish 12 months later. I have a 192XXX number from 1994 and now it's approaching 450000. That's a lot of folks who came, saw and lost interest.
While 1 free year would definitely have created a higher join rate, why didn't more stay? What was it about "came, saw" that created the "lost interest"?
WildEBill mentions the demographic of an average age in the 70's. We joined when we were in our early 40's (now mid 50's). There are a lot of younger motorhome owners out there, especially in the class B and C market (we started with a C, went to a diesel pusher for 13 years, and are currently back with a C), but that demographic would say they aren't joining FMCA. Why not? Is it the rallies that are held during the week versus weekend? Does the content of the magazine not cover their interests (or make it seem like the club is only for older, retired folks?) It would be interesting to poll the members on the younger half of the distribution, especially the more recent signups, to find out what are hoping to find in the club - what they currently find of value and what they feel could be done better.
Michelle
-
8 hours ago, WILDEBILL308 said:If it is a matter of membership, then FMCA is doing a really really poor job of recruiting. I believe if you look at the total number of "Motorized" RV 's are registered you will see we have maybe 2% of that number as members.
I still don't see swarms of people who have towable lining up to join.
Not just recruiting, but retention.
We joined in 2003 or 2004. Our member number starts 336xxx. There is an article in the recent FMCA magazine by someone whose member number starts 427xxx. I don't know what the most recent number actually is, but let's assume (ha!) this is a recent one.
That's 90,000 new joins in 13-14 years.
FMCA currently has something on the order of 70,000 members, or so I've read (during the discussion of the VZW fiasco). So 22% fewer current members than new members who joined in the last decade.
That's quite the churn rate. Why is the club losing so many people? Why aren't folks renewing? Those are important questions the leadership should be working on.
-
1 hour ago, LCHammer said:honestly, I think the writing is on the wall - or rather the home page of FMCA with the "under construction" banner. I think that towables will be allowed and it's already a done deal. Personally, we joined about 2 years ago and liked the idea of a motorcoach only organization.
Once towables are allowed the balance of what will be offered will change and at least half of the offerings will have to be geared to towables.
I hope you're wrong, but suspect you are correct. Most folks won't thing about why they joined FMCA in the first place; what made it different from the other RV organizations.
We joined because it was motorhome-only. Not because we dislike towables, but because there are some issues that are motorhome-centric and we appreciated having an organization focused on this and able to be an advocate for it. We will vote "no", and see what the final vote is. If towables are allowed and the overall focus is diluted, we won't renew. Good Sam already gives us much more in the way of discounts; Escapees gives us an outstanding mail forwarding program. There will be nothing compelling us to remain members of FMCA if it alters its charter.
That said, the organization does seem to need a fresh point of view. Most of it seems geared to the over 70 retiree base, and there are many of us who are much younger and have chosen a motorhome rather than a towable.
Michelle
-
18 hours ago, dianahc said:FYI - a further not-very-informative response from Tiffany at Verizon
Diana,
I would say that e-mail you received actually was fairly informative and has provides most insight to date. It stated that
"there was a misunderstanding between Verizon Wireless and the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) regarding a contract that was being negotiated. The resulting contract was not a contract that allowed FMCA to resell Verizon Wireless services."
This appears to indicate that Verizon interpreted FMCA's actions regarding the offering to be consistent with acting as a reseller, which was not permitted in the contract.
-
2 hours ago, Boundertom said:For those that have not been following this discussion: I started this topic over on the "RV Internet to Go/Staying in Touch" forum, after an existing topic there was closed to further discussion. Today, they moved this discussion to this forum (with no notice or link), and renamed it. I take exception to the renaming, as it is misleading at the very least.
I find the renaming inappropriate as well. Especially the three exclamation points someone at FMCA apparently decided were needed. It's one thing to alter a topic title for clarity (if it was ambiguous), but to change it so that the meaning/intent is different is a whole 'nother thing.
-
2 hours ago, hyco2000 said:Perhaps T-Mobile could be enticed to "Uncarrier" Verizion and match the program that Verizion Pulled out of. Wouldn't that be GREAT !!!!!
T-Mobile has nowhere near the coverage that Verizon (or AT&T) has. Maybe in a few years if they build out, but right now they pale in comparison.
-
1 hour ago, wolfe10 said:Wow. And 13 or your total of 14 posts on the FMCA Forum are on this thread.
Many of us do not have a lot of posts in the FMCA forum because there is not something here specific to our interests that we aren't already discussing on a forum elsewhere.
The FMCA Verizon data offering is/was specific to this board, hence we came here to discuss it and that is where the majority of our posts are.
I would not insinuate something about a poster solely because this is the primary topic they have posted in.
Michelle
The vote Is In: We Are No Longer A Motorhome Only Group
in FMCA Feedback
Posted · Report reply
There is one out there which recently started up, search for All Inclusive Motorhome Club - started by NIRVC.