What is the point of joining a Centre ?

Good post Boff.

I will run about 4/5 rallies next year, including one of approx. 125 vans, and will attend another 10 or 12.  I fully appreciate that some CAMC members don't ever want to rally but if enough people see no advantage in joining a Centre, because they can still attend rallies anyway, there will be less people to organise them.  I have seen a drop in rally attendance over the past 10 years with only a small number of rallies increasing in size.  Many rallies that I had to book in January each year can now be booked at the last minute.

Marshalling has got more complicated including fire and safety aspects as well as VAT accounting and we need to encourage and train more marshals.  These are skills best learned within a Centre in my opinion.

Bill. I think that's some people just think that a rally runs from Friday to Sunday and that's all there is to, it from the point of view from the organiser.

To give an example we have/are running 5 rallies this year. Including a week long Rally in the Cotswolds at the end of October. This is what we will have to do. Firstly all Rallies for the following year have to be agreed and ratified by the date of the AGM which is held in September, this means for a Rally that is being run late October 2017, it had to be agreed and proposed by Mid-September 2016 13 months in advance and a price worked out for the rally, in our centre it is the Rally officers that do that not the rally Sec.
Obviously Cheshire is not part of the Cotswolds so the Rally sec has to get permission from the appropriate Centre to run a rally on their patch (aka 4b)
From January ish we start to get bookings, so they need to sorted and recorded.
There is on going discussions on what we are actually going to do are we going to have socials etc, etc. Keeping in contact with the land owner
Our co-organisers will sort out a quiz
A couple of weeks before the date of the Rally we will send The cheques to the centre treasurer, who will send us a cheque back so that we can cover expenses hire of the field etc. Plaques need to be chosen and ordered
We will go down a day early, I will effectively take a day's unpaid leave. We will cart down extra stuff which means we will go in 2 cars. Either latter that day or early on Saturday. We will go out and put up signs to the venue.
On the morning of the Rally the field will be pegged, so that the correct spacing is observed, Water and CDP also signed.
During the day as vans start to arrive we will be siteing vans only 20ish, but we can't stand down until the last van has arrived. Most likely during the day my wife will go out to do some basic shopping for tea biscuits etc for opening get together.

Sunday opening flag
rest of the week events as organised ( We try to have some social events but also plenty of free unorganised time so that people don't think that every waking hour is accounted for).

Friday night closing flag van prizes given out more tea coffee cake and biscuits. Obviously all the signs put up need to be taken down.

Saturday make sure everyone gets off the field ok.

Sunday travel home and sleep.

After the Rally make sure that the accounts balance including the vat, Chocolate biscuits vat rated digestives are zero rated iirc bit of a nightmare send off final accounts to treasurer.
Obviously I don't do all that by myself there is 4 of us doing various jobs. But you we are going to do all that on the off chance that you might turn up then think again!
p

Yes you can rally with any centre as long as you are a Club member but you cannot have your say in how the centre runs, vote at the AGM, run a rally (though non-centre members can assist but not actually marshal in some centres) and obviously you cannot stand for committee. 

We are at present non-centre members as our membership of the local centre lapsed and as my husband was ill (and he is the driver) we stopped rallying for a while, we are slowly getting back but don't rally with one specific centre at the moment, choosing where we want to go rather than specifically choosing one centre. We still have friends in our local centre but also have many in other centres and also attend a few region events with rallies run by the different centres in our region.  Perhaps when we are free to get out more often again we will resume our membership and who knows might even run rallies again, fingers crossed we will get there.

I agree that rallying is the real 'club' side of the CMC, it was our social life for nearly 30 years and our children grew up with it (and benefited enormously)

Alison

I know you already do this Alison but others might not be aware that if you want a taste of what helping out is like I think the National Rally Booking Form gives you the opportunity to offer "something back." So anyone can have a go and join in with the background work.

Brue, please don't call the National a rally.  It only upsets the Marketing types at HQ using the "R" word. 

yes Brue, volunteers are always welcome at the National if anyone wants to offer their services  

Alison

I have posted before that many years ago we joined the Club to be able to take RP cover for our first caravan holiday abroad. We continue to be members for two main reasons which are the great savings to be made with ITX fares and to be able to attend rallies.

We have made great use of rallies over the years, mostly with children and grandchildren, and will shortly be off to a Wilts Centre rally at Pentewan for two weeks-as the crow flies only a handful of miles from home. Our involvement on rallies will vary from very little interaction with others, on say an adventure park rally, to a lot of contact and social interaction but we always attend Flagpole to show that we appreciate the efforts that others have made so that we can enjoy ourselves.

No you don't need to join a Centre but if doing so helps them with funds that allow them to put on rallies for us all to enjoy then why not?

Photos from rallies so far this year.

Why not, it's where a large number of CMC members pay money to join together on a field where ceremonies, speeches, activities and entertainment is all organised.

Its definitely a CMC Rally 

K 

Hello, SWMBO and I are new members in our second year of membership. We haven't been to a rally yet but we do intend to. We have been to a THS (with the other club) and thoroughly enjoyed it, and we wrote to officially thank the organisers.

So 'What is the point of joining a centre'?

Well I presume that if nobody joined there would be no rallies.

Thanks to all those who do join and thanks to all those who put in many hours of unseen hard work so other caravanners can have a great weekend away.

yes indeed, without centre members there would be no rallies, no Regions or Divisions, probably no National as most of the volunteers who run it come from centres as indeed do the Executive team who organise it and the Chairman who presides over it, let's not even think over how the Club itself would evolve without them.

Alison