Nan Morrison had a fine show-up of people who were going on the caravan.
The Johnson Wax tour of the Frank Loyd Wright designed main office in Racine, WI was interesting. We had rain Friday evening and a sprinkle again on Saturday evening. Sunday the weather was good.
Check out new Summary Classified ad website on the Links page.
New International President’s Monthly Report is on Links page.
June- July Newsletter go to the Newsletter page.
Fourteen trailers, a class A motor home and a B-van attended the rally. Three other couples drove in at various times during the weekend to visit and enjoy a meal. The weather started off hot Friday. Most people played outside, enjoying the Sun. Jamisons’ and DeHahns’ provided Sloppy Joe’s and strawberries over angel food cake for dinner. We even had a campfire.
Saturday morning, the wind came in from the north with rain and cooler temperatures. We were happy to have the buildings for our breakfast of “Omelets in a Bag” provided by the Mayos’ and Whitesells’. We had a fairly long business meeting to discuss possible changes in the way the unit operates. It was decided to reduce some of the officer tasks for individual rallies, allowing greater member planning/participation by using a Rally hosting system. It was hoped that this would encourage more members to step forward to run for office or at least help running the unit.
Bob & Sandy Whitesell will be hosting the Mystery Rally July 23-26th rally at the Rustic Barn Campground near Dubuque, Iowa. Ron & Joan Goyke will be hosting the September 4-7th Labor Day rally at their farm in Goodland, Indiana. (more data about the rallies can be found on the rally schedule page.) Others thought, if we can not find people to volunteer to be officers, we should reduce the number of officers. Some retired members (with more available time) wanted the weekend rallies to be extended to allow more time for additional activities to offset the task of packing up the trailer and driving out. Rockford has decided to move their Fly-in Air Show to August, so we had to change our plans. We decided to combine the June 5th rally with the International Caravan Kick off (Details above).
We also voted to recommend that the International reduce required days to qualify for a numbered caravan from 10 to 8 (or less), so our working members could receive credit for participating in shorter caravans and possibly increasing the availability of shorter caravans.
Some of the members visited the Franklin Creek Grist Mill in the afternoon. We had a big Potluck Buffet Saturday evening. It was the first time some of our members had participated in something like that. An unusual treat was the wild turkey shot by Warren Dutton two days before the rally. There was a wide variety of casserole dishes prepared by the ladies. Sharon White supplied the salads and Dixons’ supplied the pies for desert. The weather had turned to a drizzling rain, so we had to give up on the idea of projecting the movie on the side of an Airstream. After dinner, in the main meeting hall, Norm White demonstrated of the capability of our new video projector. Norm tapped into the Internet, via his Sprint Card Cellphone, and we virtually traveled to the Great Wall of China, the South Pole and the RV park in Tucson, AZ (where some of our members winter). Then, we accessed the International President’s monthly newsletter and determined it was too late to sign up for 30 amp service at Madison. After that, we had a short movie about antique trailers and the evolution of the RV industry. The feature presentation was the 1938 comedy, “Bringing up Baby”, with Cary Grant.
Sunday was another cold, wet, and windy day. A continental breakfast was hosted by Carol Dixon with the addition of some of the left overs from the feast. Bill Evans conducted the worship service. Due to the wet grass and soft wet soil, three rigs required additional tow-out assistance from Bob Whitesell and Dwight Dixon, who have 4 wheel drive trucks.