Loosing More CLs, why?

CHRISLEGEND Many thanks for your kind words of support for the CL network.  You are absolutely correct in your assumptions.  The Club could support the CL network a great deal more effectively than it does.

As the 'Nominated Member' on Club Council I have been making efforts to enthuse, educate and badger the Club into recognising the CL network.  I am making progress, but it is infuriatingly slow.   CL's were a 'Breakout Session' at the last Club Council meeting. Whether any of the recommendations that emerged will ever see the light of day is open to debate!

CL owners have therefore got together to 'help ourselves'.  We have formed a CL Owners Group network, where we share tips and 'best practice' and try and help new CL owners.

The Club could do a lot to assist CL's - particularly new owners who have missed the directory and are not well highlighted on the website.  But getting anything done on the new website or promoted on Facebook seems an uphill task..

From the member perspective, using CL's, booking ahead, and then supporting CL's you like by writing a review is much appreciated.

You have to ask is the club interested in the Cl concept. They seem to be moving towards more static objects like Yurts. more sites with seasonal units  etc. How long will it be before the sites are full of statics and they decide we tourers are no longer welcome? Time Cl owners looked after themselves and looked at alternatives

The club should exist to support and promote the leisure pursuit of Touring, otherwise its existence is pointless and it should wind itself up. It is clear to me that this club has lost its way, it is lurching from gimmick to gimmick, it is allowing the tail of paid employees to wag the dog.  

The clue is last time I looked a Yurt or a Pod isn't pulled on wheels. At the same time it isn't effectively supporting CLs which are both small businesses and an invaluable resource for a lot of the club's members. 

The clue is in the name! CARAVAN AND MOTORHOME CLUB!!!

If I wanted to Yurt or Pod!! why would I buy a Motorhome or caravan??

Big sites have there uses but CL's are as close as we are allowed to get to wild camping - with the benefit of a loo and electricity! (actually thinking about it some of the big sites I have used are pretty wild too!)

The club should do much more for CL's

I agree with most of what Chrislegend has posted but I think that one post has flagged up another reason for decline. The expectations of the caravanner. 

"CL's are as close as we are allowed to get to wild camping - with the benefit of a loo and electricity!"

Surely to set up a CL with electricity and toilet / showers adds to the up front and ongoing costs of a CL.  It is not reasonable to expect to install facilities on a 5 van site is going to be 10% of the cost of doing the same as a on a 50 van site.  This acts as a barrier to entry for new CLs I could see the situation where an owner would make more money from a £7 non facility site than charging £14 for a site with facilities given the same level of occupancy. 

Well, now, there's a thing to have an extended debate on. Much to my disbelief and annoyed disappointment, a number of our guests have wanted to post reviews but failed miserably after repeated attempts. And when you consider the vast majority of first time bookings are made after considering a CL's reviews I think we can all agree that this is no help at all. EV

EV, Many small sites like yours have listed themselves on UKCampsite.co.uk (you can do that yourself on line) and have encouraged their visitors to post reviews there. It's free, it's efficient. and is the first port of call for many of us when looking for comments about campsites in  this country and overseas. Are you on that list? 

If the Club website is not helping you then you need to be be pro-active and organise your own marketing and reviews elsewhere. 

Agree to a certain extent with comment above. Reviews provide vital information to prospective users (those canny enough to sort the difference between good information and someone having a personal moan) The Club's website is very poor in this respect, and losing all the reviews for sites at the upgrade has been a disaster for many. However, personal advice is not to rely on on reviews on Club website, but do as EuroT suggests and put your CL on UKcampsites. Another forum with active review posting is the Caravanchat Forum, you may want to consider joining (free) and put your site details up on there, along with other CL owners who have done the same.

I think CL owners should also help themselves by adding photo's to the C&MC page for their site and also create their own website with more information etc.  It is not expensive and easy to do with free tools.  If a CL owner cannot be bothered to promote their site why should I visit?  Also when they have visitors encourage them to add a review, I see many sites with no reviews or so out of date they are worthless and its nice to see a few photo's to see exactly what the site is like.

I had done something close to 40 reviews for CLs, and I know another big user of CLs had possibly topped 100 reviews. The Club lost/Deleted User most of my reviews and a great many of the other persons when the IT upgrade took place, so I am afraid I no longer bother on this website now, but do them on another forum. I don't like having my time wasted and efforts discarded, so have found this a better option. Having to reduce photos down to thumbnails is a pain in the butt as well, so again next to useless. 

Fact that some CLs have no photos or a website hasn't hindered us finding some lovely sites. We use other methods to glean the information we need. Helpful if they have though.