How do we get involvement of younger members

[RVThere]

Just take a look at the entertainment at the FMCA Rally. BJ Thomas will not pull in anyone with a young family. Your other option is the Pink Flamingo Express - oh boy!

[JC2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkhender How about simply responding to new members when they join and ask for information? We are new Class-A owners, ages 42 & 39 with a set of 5-year old twins. We joined FMCA last fall immediately after buying - mainly for the magazine, but also because we had met some FMCA members, and even camped once where a local rally was taking place in Missouri (unknown to us when we originally made reservations at this CG). However, since joining we have twice (through the FMCA website) requested information on chapters in our area; in addition I have personally emailed 2 chapter presidents who I could locate email address for. So we have attempted to get chapter and local information a total of 4 times since October 2009 - and we have yet to get a single response! No emails, snail mail or anything. To someone just joining it appears that FMCA does not want younger members; so at this point we'll stay members simply because we enjoy the magazine.

We also requested info from the chapter(s) in our area with no results so we gave up. I've had other Rvers tell us that in the few FMCA rallies that they did go to as first timers, the members seemed allof to newbies. I will admit thought that FMCA has a good mag and good benefits available for members.

[golden]

The OP stated an interesting dilemna that has similar corollaries. For example, I prefer staying at "adult" parks, but there are not that many around. I completely understand how a younger couple with children would prefer to be around others within their age group as it only makes sense. As far as attending rallies, conventions, etc., that's a tough nut to crack when you work. When I did work, I would take vacation time to attend something I wanted to attend. Now, I just take off and go. Perhaps you may want to look into travelling on your vacations with others within your age range who may also have children. At least that way you may feel more comfortable. I know when I was in my 30s and 40s, I just couldn't imagine spending any time with the old geezers than I had to. Now I are one!

[Lorna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Camping Dutchman We were FMCA members, but I dropped it and stuck with Good Sam. Joined a Good Sam Chapter with all families for kids. I looked around by me for an FMCA Chapter but most were older retired persons. I know they brought grandkids, but it's not the same, nor the same age bracket. I am 37, dw is 34. We would get the magazine, it always seemed geared more towards an older set and even the board and people pictured always seemed to be older.

We also had been FMCA members for a while but dropped it. We had teens and the mag, etc seemed more geared to older folks. David & I went to a rally at the fairgrounds in Perry, GA while we were staying in the area. This was a couple years ago (2006?). We looked at the high dollar rigs being pushed and looked at the rather expensive "toys" there. We also decided we were too poor to ever be part of FMCA... especially when I read that FMCA thought that FMCA members needed to buy new RVs if their current RV was more than 3 yrs old "to show their support" for the yo-yo's selling RV's at the RV Show part of the rally.

[FlyGuys]

i think this is a self-perpetuating problem.

i did not read the entire thread so forgive me if this has been mentioned. my wife and i are 55; i retired this past november from my career pushing boeing 767's around the world. we bought our motorhome on december 31st, a dream we had been keeping alive for over 7 years. while we enjoy our tiffin and the few trips we have taken up to now, what we have found is that almost EVERYONE we meet in the campground is far older than us. while this doesn't bother us--we are on the cusp of our "golden years" after all--i can see that people in their 20s, 30s, or 40s may find the older crowd off-putting.

i have also noticed that virtually every company that advertises to rv'ers uses older folks in their ads--in some cases these people look to be in their 70s and beyond. again, nothing wrong with this and it doesn't bother us, but a couple in their 30s is not going to respond favorably to this depiction of the rv life.

another problem is what a couple of other posters wrote: unless you're retired or independently wealthy, you don't get to go to places it takes a couple of days to get to for a weekend, even if it's a 3-day weekend. this luxury is limited, for the most part, to those of us who are retired with time on our hands.

while the fmca and other rv organizations may never gather a broader cross-section to its fold, todays 30-year olds are going to be retired someday. the fmca may not grow, but the probably won't shrink, either.

[lajuene]

My better half and I just got our motorhome and we will launch fulltime in May, 2012. Travel to start mostly after September 2012 when we retire.

We are 55 and 54 so I also notice that almost everyone at any kind of Rally is older than us. I actually kind of like it. Makes us feel like kids!

Motorhome owning and Rally travel seems to be suited to retired people for all the common sense reasons including time and cost of rigs. FMCA has really been trying to recruit younger people and that's fine but I doubt it will ever amount to much of their membership.

The magazine is, however, well worth the cost of membership. We don't use any other benefits from the club but we may in the future.

It's ALL good........

[donandmax]

Went to the South Central FMCA rally in Hutchenson Ks. It was pretty lame. No new mohos were shown because of some kind of conflict with nearby dealers. A few vendors but I could have seen and bought that stuff locally. 1500 Miles (round trip) for our first and last Rally. Not very friendly folks. If we didnt start the conversation no one would talk to us first. Don't need their "tudes"

[djpotts50]

Several of the posters on this topic made the statement that FMCA does not have a discussion board, but that is not true. Here is the direct link to the FMCA Discussion Forums. They do monitor posts very closely and any posts that are negative against the organization will be deleted fairly quickly; I have seen posts that were just a little critical of the organization that were removed within minutes of being posted. This type of atmosphere does make it tough for members to make suggestions for change.

I went to the 2011 International Convention in Madison, WI. I find they do cater a lot of the entertainment to the 65 plus age range, but frankly, most of their members are in that "normal retirement" age group so I don't find it unusual to cater to the majority. I think they do try to accommodate the 30 to 65 year old groups as well.

A motion was made and second to open the organization to travel trailers and 5th wheels, but the senior board members quickly shot that down. They do occasionally invite the non-coach owners to attend rallies in an attempt to get them to join, if and only if they ever purchase a motor coach.

I do find the organization has one of the best rallies; they also have some of the best seminars I have ever been to. If you own a motor coach, I find the cost of membership is well worth the cost. However, it will likely be several more years (if ever at all) before the organization makes any big changes that will expand their membership pool.

[bucks2]

A great thread. So now we see that there are as many different opinions as to why the younger/older, poorer/richer, introverted/outgooing, people join or don't join. Fortunately it's not my problem to figure out why folks don't join a particular organization, because I'm not so sure I'd be sympathetic to the folks that are supposedly offended that FMCA plaques are generally on big fancy rigs. Your preconceived notion that I'm a snob, tells me that I wouldn't be interested in RV'ing with you either.

Who would be most likely to go to a rally? A young family of 4 with Little League, soccer, PTA, sorority bake sales, and a sick grandma? Or a pair of retired folks driving the country at their own pace seeing things they want to see? Who would be most likely to have the discretionary income to drive 200 miles to a weekend rally?

It seems logical to think that there is a very small segment of the under 55 crowd that has the financial ability and time schedule to fully participate. For that group to insist that the entertainment at the events be tuned to their wants appears to be somewhat self centered. For example if there are 40 rigs camped at a rally, 3 have under 55's in them, and someone thinks that those 3 should have the entertainment aimed at them to "encourage more young people to join? Is that really making sense?

How about the younger group that wants something different step up to the plate and organize a "younger peoples" rally? You see, the way it generally goes down is that the people doing the work, get to decide what happens.

I know that in time things will change. The 40 somethings now will eventually be the 60 somethings and lead the clubs in their own style. More power to them when that happens. Until then, let's keep the tail behind the dog.

Now you know why I'm not in charge.

[Shardan1]

My wife and I just bought our 3rd MH. We've been slowly steppin up for the last 6 years. We joined at the Madison Rally last September. We did it to try to meet more people with our same interest. But as we have found thru our travels you don't need the plaque to meet people as we have seen the plaque on other coaches and they didn't go out of there way to start a conversation. We meet more people when we take the "Buster" for a walk. It always seems to be a conversation starter.
Because of our age, We always got the "Looky Lou" looks when we were looking for a coach. And then we also get the looks sometimes like we borrowed our coach from our parents. It's crazy! But on the other side, we are very approachable, but when people see us in our coach they might or do presume we are unapproachable or think we are better than they are because of the expense of the coach.