Caravanner of the Year on BBC this April!

Seems like forum membership has shot up, what good publicity

The entrants had been whittled down to represent the best contenders?  Where did they find these people?

A chairman that trashes his caravan !

This programme has done the Caravan Club no favours at all.

The CC should hang their head in shame. This did nothing but reinforce stereotype ignorance amongst the wider public and certainly will not bring new blood into caravaning.

No explanation of how those involved came to be "finalists" and certainly no thought into the tests  tasks set in the show. Even one of the judges took his caravan up a steep off road incline that no right minded caravanner would attempt, doing thousands of pounds of damage in the process.

They had reversing tests with caravan outfits competing against motor homes with no trailer. They had dogs and elderly contestants in blind spots behind and even under reversing vehicles. They put inexperienced drivers behind the wheel, resulting in a test that had no relevance to real life caravaning. 

The list of ill advised, ill conceived and embarrassing tests was endless. 

The only good bit of "caravaning" I saw was from the Green VW team who disconnected their traitor and pushed it around the reversing course. This is because it was so small it was invisible to the driver whilst reversing so it was the safest way and it was what they always do in real life. 

I can reverse our outfit into most places but even I would take the sensible and safe approach of uncoupling and using the mover if presented with the reverse around the tree. 

With the exception of a couple of good one line quips I thought the whole thing was flawed.

The CC should hang their head in shame. This did nothing but reinforce stereotype ignorance amongst the wider public and certainly will not bring new blood into caravaning.

No explanation of how those involved came to be "finalists" and certainly no thought into the tests  tasks set in the show. Even one of the judges took his caravan up a steep off road incline that no right minded caravanner would attempt, doing thousands of pounds of damage in the process.

They had reversing tests with caravan outfits competing against motor homes with no trailer. They had dogs and elderly contestants in blind spots behind and even under reversing vehicles. They put inexperienced drivers behind the wheel, resulting in a test that had no relevance to real life caravaning. 

The list of ill advised, ill conceived and embarrassing tests was endless. 

The only good bit of "caravaning" I saw was from the Green VW team who disconnected their traitor and pushed it around the reversing course. This is because it was so small it was invisible to the driver whilst reversing so it was the safest way and it was what they always do in real life. 

I can reverse our outfit into most places but even I would take the sensible and safe approach of uncoupling and using the mover if presented with the reverse around the tree. 

With the exception of a couple of good one line quips I thought the whole thing was flawed.

Well said

It will be interesting to see if membership increases or reduces in the near future. I would also be interested in the caravan and motorhome manufacturers opinions as future sales may be impacted.

A missed opportunity to advertise what normal vanners get up to. It is holiday accomodation, your home on wheels, no more no less to many, not a bunch of wierd saddos.

Rubbish programme but now that van washing is allowed on site does that mean the washbays will now be reopened on CC sites that have them.

First we get the Ealing Comedies and then we follow that with Grimstead Comedy of Errors, what a complete and utter cock up that has been. The only thing the judges got right was the motor homing muppet getting a brew on, as for the setting up of the challenges has the CEO forgotten about knowing the width and length of his unit, to attempt going up that hill surely he must have known that when the front goes up the back goes down, or didn't they have see-saws when he was a kid. The concours event was a joke my van is 10yrs old and I can still find saw dust from manufacturing If I want to take it apart and the only time our toilet paper gets folded is when it's used for its intended purpose. One thing I did notice was one of them appeared to be knocking the flimsy pressed pegs into a CC hard standing, that must have been filmed off site because as we all know most CC hard standings are made of reinforced concrete. At least with Top Gear they usually end up wrecking the caravan at the end, so next week fingers crossed they'll do the same on this show preferably with the CEO still inside. To have given permission for this spectacle to have taken place he must have skin thicker than a Rhino's backside, if they were the best 6 they could find then God help us, PLEASE!!!!!

I've literally just cancelled all forward bookings on CC sites for the remainder of this year and will be replacing them with C&CC bookings and commercial sites. After the portrayal shown last night, the club are not deserving of almost £1000 of my money, I'll put it elsewhere instead. If there is no apology forthcoming to the members for this debacle or should the Chairman not offer to stepdown, I won't be renewing my membership come November. Whilst I'm an advocate of CC sites (see my posts in other threads), the way the TV Programme portrayed caravanning personalities last night is beyond belief and has completely changed my perception of the club. A massive opportunity was missed to make the hobby look 'cool' and appealing to the next generation of caravanners and motorhomers. The manufacturers are doing their best to appeal to the wider audience, the Sport & Fun caravan, contemporary internal designs, even fitting bike rack mounts on caravans as standard. Yet, it's the biggest and most subscribed club that is doing it's best to keep our hobby in the dark ages. Not good enough Caravan Club, you ought to be ashamed

I've literally just cancelled all forward bookings on CC sites for the remainder of this year and will be replacing them with C&CC bookings and commercial sites. After the portrayal shown last night, the club are not deserving of almost £1000 of my money, I'll put it elsewhere instead. If their is no apology forthcoming to the members for this debacle or should the Chairman not offer to stepdown, I won't be renewing my membership come November. Whilst I'm an advocate of CC sites (see my posts in other threads), the way the TV Programme portrayed caravanning personalities last night is beyond belief and has completely changed my perception of the club. A massive opportunity was missed to make the hobby look 'cool' and appealing to the next generation of caravanners and motorhomers. The manufacturers are doing their best to appeal to the wider audience, the Sport & Fun caravan, contemporary internal designs, even fitting bike rack mounts on caravans as standard. Yet, it's the biggest and most subscribed club that is doing it's best to keep our hobby in the dark ages. Not good enough Caravan Club, you ought to be ashamed

Had you a booking at Burford for the Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend, per chance?  

I watched about ten minutes of it and that was enough for me.Typical "reality" tv.I hope they were paying Grenville good money for makeing an arse of himself on national television.

peter.