CMCA membership .... is it worth it?

Bruce and Bev · Guru

RE: CMCA membership .... is it worth it?

Roving-Dutchy · Guru

I joined CMCA as I believe that they are advancing the interests of vanners and motorhomers, I consider our small van self contained as it has a portable toilet and a 20 litre drum that I can catch the grey water, screw the lid on and transport it to a disposal point, you don't need to go to great expense to be self contained.
Cheers
David

Bugsy · Veteran Member

Bruce and Bev your post and Westcoast's just demonstrates what I was saying. Not being sensitive at all just want the debate based on FACTS. For a start the club is not developing its own caravan parks, club owned camp sites are entirely different. To the best of my knowledge the club has made no public statement as to the detail of how they will work but I do have some knowledge of the proposal. You seem to have just assumed that that because your vehicle has no grey tanks you would be excluded (if you were a member) from using these sites. Many of our own members also do not have tanks, do you believe we would exclude them from this member benefit.

Perhaps it would be wise to wait until the detail of the proposal becomes know publicly before making judgements.

Feel free to make adverse comment, I often do, but lets make them on true facts, not rumors and misinformation.

Bevandy2 · Senior Member

Many folks join clubs just for the social interaction, and make many new friends.

The Australian Caravan Club (ACC) is a very friendly, outgoing group, a national club, we have about 30 branches Oz wide, and always adding more, who hold their own musters about every couple of months, this club welcomes all RVers, we do deal with local councils etc and have on many occasions advised them as to what they need to do to attract the RV business in their region, there are many member benefits, see the web site,

www.australiancaravanclub.com.au/index.php

You will find a great deal of info there, and for many, the regular branch musters are the main attraction where we all get together and have a good time for a few days in some nice location not too far from home.

The ACC has an annual muster every Oct, where they come in from the whole country, and always a great occasion to renew friendships and catch up, whilst we all enjoy good friendships on the internet, our club enables person to person contact on a regular basis for those who want it, and many friendships are formed through our branch musters.

In this world of Facebook and forums, there is nothing like giving a good friend a hug or a hand shake and saying "wotcha been up to since we saw you last"

Check out the web site,

Bevan

Graden · Veteran Member

Like a lot of others, we initially joined CMCA to enable insurance on our first "van", that was several years ago. We no longer insure through Ken Tame, But< we consider that membership is worth the price because of the work done to promote and get RV friendly places, but more importantly, the annual fee is our way of helping to pay for the numerous "free" dump points that have and are being installed in so many places. I am sure that most "nomadders" have used this facility at some time, and have been grateful that they could "dump the dump".

-- Edited by Graden on Sunday 19th of April 2015 11:04:04 PM

jetj · Guru

I'm a member of the CMCA, happy to be a member, and yes I think it is worth the $44 a year.

Tones · Veteran Member

G'day all.

We are CMCA members. We own a "caravan" which is fitted with a shower and toilet. We have two water tanks fitted. We use a 40 litre tote tank for our sullage (grey water) and have agreed to comply with the spirit of the "Leave No Trace" Scheme which is run by the CMCA. On that basis, our van is considered "self-contained" and we can go anywhere where that requirement exists. We have LNT certification which is renewed with our membership. This alone is (in our opinion) sufficient justification to be members.

Is CMCA a good proposition for van owners? Well, van owners are considered Associate members only, but we can live with that. There is no other organisation in Australia that is doing as much for the RV owner as the CMCA and for that reason we continue to support them by renewing our membership each year.

The issue of advocacy to Government (at all levels) is on-going and is something that not a lot of people appreciate.

You will always find fault with something if you keep digging but that is what life is all about. As another member of the Forum keeps saying; "get out and enjoy the playground". We are doing that but we choose to be self-contained for various reasons which suits us fine. Besides everything else, it is the right thing to do. There is no shortage of examples of places being closed to freedom camping because of the actions of the minority and this trend will continue unless people do the right thing. That is why we are trying to do our bit.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to realise that Government authorities are going to have to clamp down on the use of places in the future as the number of RV's increase and the use of freedom camps increase. One way to mitigate that is to be self-contained.

Was that our tyre marks left back there....yep! but that's all!

Safe towing.

Tones

Bill B · Guru

Tones wrote:

G'day all.
We are CMCA members. We own a "caravan" which is fitted with a shower and toilet. We have two water tanks fitted. We use a 40 litre tote tank for our sullage (grey water) and have agreed to comply with the spirit of the "Leave No Trace" Scheme which is run by the CMCA. On that basis, our van is considered "self-contained" and we can go anywhere where that requirement exists.

Not so as several campsites (Cooktown is one) now insist upon built in grey water tanks.

Kooroorinya Kelpie · Senior Member

NO NO NO Any more questions ?

Cruising Cruze · Guru

When we got our first caravan and we went out for the first trip
we ended up by mistake at an cmca rally
when we drove into the site we were told right away that we could not stay there
as it was for RV's only

I can't understand that people would be promoting a club that way

Cheers John

-- Edited by Cruising Cruze on Monday 20th of April 2015 10:12:35 PM

Izabarack · Guru

Bruce and Bev wrote:
The CMCA would most certainly not be the biggest club in Australia if another represented ALL RVers.

Maybe that is the problem. The CMCA is a club based around campervan and MH ownership but have been good enough to allow owners of non-qualifying vehicles to join. Over and above that, they seem to be the only club that is achieving anything for their members, and providing some pretty good flow on benefits for all. Not sure what any of the other RV clubs have done for anyone.

Iza

exa41 · Guru

Well said Bugsy ,Some people may not be members of the CMCA or don't want too but I am damn sure they use the RV friendly towns and their dump points the CMCA have helped to set up without a thought , for me I have been a member for nearly 15 years and have Ken Tame insurance . and will continue.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

Bruce and Bev wrote:
The CMCA would most certainly not be the biggest club in Australia if another represented ALL RVers.

Bevandy2 wrote:

The Australian Caravan Club (ACC) .....snip........ this club welcomes all RVers,

And there are plenty of others that you could also join too, if you wished......

Cheers,

Peter

Bruce and Bev · Guru

their low cost camp areas will not be for most caravans, so should not be called Caravan Parks. Reason - your RV most be self contained. How many 'vans have grey water tanks?

I don't knock the CMCA as they do some good work for us all - like dump points and RV friendly towns - and we should all thank them for that.........but remember they push self contained vehicle aka motor homes

My 'van, like most others, doesn't have grey water tanks, so I don't belong to the CMCA - but great for those who have motorhomes

Lorries · Veteran Member

This thread link was sent to the Chairman of the CMCA by several concerned CMCA members and reproduced below with his permission is his response to this thread

"I have been involved in many Clubs and Associations over 40 years and many of these have indulged in Customer/Member Satisfaction Surveys. It is impossible to get a 100% Satisfaction Rating as people are always prepared to knock an organization when they have an opportunity. Forums are no different to these type surveys. People can have a "free hit" as they have some protection behind a computer and they don't have to actually confront anybody face to face.

What disappoints me the most with this is that people make statements and quote figures to reinforce their comments that are actually totally incorrect. But why let the truth get in front of a good story seems to be the way to go. But in a situation like this where people are making decisions based on untruths quoted by others, it is just not reasonable. In the first Board page I wrote as Chairman for the December issue of the Wanderer, I made the comment to Members, "if you want to know something, just ask me" or in other words, please don't just make up stories.

A forum member has quoted that the Wanderer is 75% advertising, absolutely incorrect. Someone else has said that they haven't been able to find a CMCA RV Friendly Caravan Park that provides a greater discount, try Wollongong Surf Leisure Resort, a 25% discount for CMCA Members. Another forum member suggests that RV Friendly Towns are no different to other towns, incorrect. What about the dump point and long vehicle parking. Another comment on our Rallies and they don't bring any economic benefit to the respective town. Please telephone the Councils at Deniliquin or Robinvale to actually receive the factual information. I love the forum member who says that he loves to read the Wanderer but doesn't want to pay for it, he will read it at his Doctors Surgery.

So it seems that the criticism of the CMCA is all about the Wanderer and the insurance scheme (if your daughter works for an insurance company and can get a family discount). What about all the work and money the CMCA have spent over many years improving the lot of all RV travelers. What about the over 40+ Member Stopovers we now have. What about the exciting journey we are now embarking on with the CMCA RV Parks. What about the over 250 CMCA RV Friendly Towns and RV Friendly Destinations. What about the substantial amount of money we are about to spend on the Geowiki upgrade that will make it the premier travelling tool in Australia.

In respect to the comment about representing all the RV travelers in Australia, the CMCA have recently established the company, RV Clubs of Australia Limited. This is meant to do exactly that. At this stage, it is early days but we already have 2 Caravan Clubs as Members and we would hope more will see the benefit of this. As the largest RV Club in Australia, the CMCA take this position seriously and we know that the RV public can get better conditions and representations if the RV end users get together and represent themselves as a united front. The CMCA have motivated this strategy and been the driving force to get this of the ground. Just as important, the CMCA are actually funding all of this so is putting up the money on behalf of all RV travelers.

So these forum members have a great deal of difficulty outlaying $44 per year to be a Member of the CMCA. Is this very short sighted? If the CMCA decide through lack of available funds to cease a number of these schemes, the whole traveling RV public will suffer. And what about their children when they decide to buy their caravan or motorhome? If the CMCA don't continue on these worthwhile programs, we will all be the worse off. I appreciate the CMCA cannot be the provider or Club for all RV owners. We can't provide everything for everybody. But in saying that, the CMCA Board, Management and Staff understand that we need to continually improve the organization to obtain the maximum Satisfaction Rating we can. That is what we are doing.

Kind Regards
Garry Lee

Chairman"

-- Edited by Lorries on Monday 20th of April 2015 10:11:44 PM

-- Edited by Lorries on Monday 20th of April 2015 10:23:39 PM

aussie_paul · Guru

Thanks Gary, great to get info from the horses mouth as it were. I tried to join last night and am not sure if I succeeded so will try again.

Aussie Paul. smile

chaslib · Senior Member

Let me address my thoughts on the direction this thread has taken. Firstly, thank you to CMCA for voicing a response to my original question even though it was unsolicited .... Obviously all your comments benefits are well known and appreciated but decisions are always with the person asking the question. Secondly, I was rather disappointed in the way some members apparently stooped to the school kid telling tales mentality by contacting CMCA .... the right way to have done this would have been to PM me as the person asking the question and suggest having CMCA post their response rather than the ambush that the action resulted in. Lastly, thank you to those of you that responded with both positive and negative points .... Over the years I have shyed away from posting on this forum too much ..... the reason is obvious. Also, no need to involve Cindy ..... I doubt anyone is about to go feral,over this incident ..... Cheers

Izabarack · Guru

chaslib wrote:
Secondly, I was rather disappointed in the way some members apparently stooped to the school kid telling tales mentality by contacting CMCA ....

Apparently? Just who are you having a go at? The forum can be accessed by the public, including people who are members of the CMCA. There is no evidence that anyone "stooped to the school kid" level. The posting from Gary Lee is just another example of the CMCA executives looking out for the members by correcting a whole pile of misinformation out there.

Iza

clarence · Veteran Member

CMCA membership is shrinking by reports in the wanderer, This publication used to be full off stories not ads , just dosnt have the same appeal. we have been members for 5 years and appreciate the dump points in our travels like every one else, we currently insure with ken tame, our policy ends in may and we will move over to CIL. We find ken tame is hard to claim with and likes to insure the motorhome for a higher value then what its worth, payouts are much lower. We will put the $44 towards caravan/motorhome magazines and leave the cmca .

vic

Philw · Senior Member

May I remind everyone that in the fight for free camping, against the caravan parks association who are trying to force us into caravan parks, that the CMCA is the only united organisation who are arguing and lobbying against this. We have no union against big business except the CMCA. So to leave or not join because there areno perceived 'personal' benefits is short sighted in the extreme. They are responsible to a large part for changing many council opinions throughtout Qld. As a worker in a large corporation do you join a union simply to get cheap insurance or to have the power of collective bargaining.
Stop bagging the only organisation that can collectively bargain for us. For goodness sake.

TommyG · Senior Member

John, If you are judging 60,000+ people by one person you should be ashamed to say so.

The meeting you speak of, maybe the area had been booked by the CMCA (or chapter) If so insurance stipulations would restrict entry to members only. The person who greeted you should have said so, if that was the case. Did you listen? If it wasn't explained, someone wasn't doing the right thing. This can and does happen in every walk of life. Most people get cheesed off by such a happening but don't blame the majority for the failings of one person.

brickies · Guru

i like apples you like Pears I can live with that we all should be allowed to make a choice , I don't belong to any group but if you want to that's fine by me . Some like Woolworth's and like Coles we are so lucky in this country we can have choices .