Disappointment at CL of the Year Photographs

The January edition of our Club Magazine headlined on page 14 “Worcester CL takes Club title” and shows a picture of Mr Craig Brown of Avon Bank Meadow CL receiving the Award of CL of the Year.

The article refers to an “idyllic five pitch site borders a tranquil stretch of the River Avon” and suggests by the adjoining photograph that the CAMC CL is directly alongside the banks of the river as the photograph shows the river, boats and caravans on the embankment directly ALONGSIDE the river.

I have been a Club Member for 46 years and since we were staying on another nearby CL with my two brothers in their units - both of them also CAMC Members - we planned to stay at Avon Bank Meadow CL for our 2020 Spring Family meet-up based on the photograph shown in the Club Magazine.

We telephoned Mr Brown (the Owner) for permission to view the site whilst in the area, but what a shock we got upon arrival because we were all extremely disappointed by the false photograph of the CL as conveyed in our Club Magazine !

The photograph which appears in the CAMC Magazine is NOT at all of the Awarding Winning CL, albeit that caravans are shown in the picture - but these are sited in fact on part of a much larger presumably commercial site operated by Mr Brown - and the photograph thus is NOT of the Club's Award Winning CL at all which we believed to be directly alongside the river.

In fact the CAMC CL is located well away from the banks of the river beyond a car park and behind buildings which mean that the river is hardly if at all visible from the CL!!!!!

We were VERY disappointed and feel that such misrepresentation gives an unfair advantage to Mr Brown vis a vis other CL Owners in the area and is misleading to Members.

Indeed if the photograph was taken by the CAMC that makes matters even more serious !

It has to be acknowledged that the actual Award Winning CAMC CL is beautifully maintained by Mr Brown - we do not dispute that Club Members clearly felt that his Avon Bank Meadow deserved the CL Of The Year Award - what annoys us is that a photograph of the actual CL was not featured in the magazine article.

Since this Award Winning CL is CERTAINLY not located where we were lead to believe, we will NOT be staying there in the future as access is challenging along the roads that lead to the site, far too many units are using this untidy boat yard site and we had been mislead by the photograph, making us wonder just how many other photographs of CAMC CLs misrepresent the truth.

We Complained to the Club and received a response from the Administrator CLs that:

"The Certificated Location at Avon Bank Meadow is on land beside the river and from reading the article, at no point does it mention that members will have a view of the river during their stay.   With regard to the CL Of The Year awards, the CLs are voted for by our membership and our members clearly felt that Avon Bank Meadow deserved the CL Of The Year Award last year.  I appreciate that you disagree with this but we don’t feel that any clarification in our magazine is necessary."

I have responded that we would still take issue with the Club regarding this matter as it remains misrepresentation as the photograph shown in the Club Magazine is NOT that of our Club's Award Winning Certificated Location and hence a misrepresentation of fact as the "Award Winning CL - again I repeat that the Club CL is NOT located on the banks of the river at all but some considerable distance from the river and thus this affects Members' expectations when selecting a site and is misleading.

For our Club to state even that the Certified Location is on land "beside" the river is itself a false description - the meaning of "beside" being "alongside, by the side of, at the side of, next to, parallel to, abreast of etc" and the Club's Award Winning CL is some distance from the river bank, behind a building and beyond a car park. How far do you stretch a description by using the word "beside" let alone the word "borders" as described in our Club Magazine, the meaning of which according to my dictionary is "side, edge, boundary or part near it"?

Our view is that like ourselves Club Members (unfamiliar with the CL) would expect upon arrival that the CL was located directly alongside the river as shown in the photograph and NOT in any close proximity to the river.

This is a serious misrepresentation of fact - the point is that as Members we were attracted to staying at the CL based solely upon the photograph in the Club Magazine which should NOT be promoting another commercial site in this way which has nothing at all to do with the Award.

As a Member of some 46 years I am frankly disgusted with the Club's response and wonder if the Club Representative who responded to me has even taken the trouble to actually visit the site like (fortunately) we did - the experience has certainly lost our trust in any future articles and promotions that appear in the Club Magazine.

We share our experience with other Club Members...so beware lol !

Moderator Comment - Please read the instructions of what the Story Section is for before posting. I have moved this to the CL section of the Discussion area