Our National Rally has evolved significantly since 2012, with the scope and duration being increased. With Redwood organising the rally they were about 2 to 2.5 days, but for 2016 Jay added an extra day and had additional activities prior to the rally dates.

I will start a separate thread for brainstorming rally scope, but what should be the rally duration. Do we see the rally being an intense couple of days with vendors, presentations, factory tour, meet & greets, or should the rally be a more relaxed schedule with more opportunity for networking, a formal ladies program, Texas Professor course, local visits, etc.

The other option is a 2-stage rally with pre and post organised activities around the more traditional activities.

Looking forward to everyone's experiences at previous rallies and suggestions for the future, as Vaughan and his team starts planning for 2017.

Here are my thoughts to hopefully get some discussion started.

The 2016 rally was a huge step up from the previous ones, but I found it extremely busy. I thought the following were issues that could be improved:

- Scheduling multiple presentation concurrently, which resulted in a couple of times when I found both presentations of interest.

- Presentations scheduled without any time between them and also a fairly short break for lunch.

- Some presentations started rather early, not an issue for me, but not everyone is up by 06:00.

Possible solutions
- Provide an hour from 08:00 to 09:00 for meet and mingle - bring own tea/coffee, or ROG could possibly supply.
- 09:00 to 10:00 Presentation # 1, followed by 1/2 for mingling, chatting or even meeting the presenter
- 10:30 to 11:30 Presentation # 2
- Lunch
- 13:30 to 14:30 - Presentation # 3, with 1/2 for mingling
- 15:00 to 16:00 - Presentation # 4

For this relaxed schedule, I suggest pre-rally starting on Sunday (16th), or Monday and formal rally activities on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday. The Texas Professor course could run Mon/Tue/Wed.

I agree with all of Andy's thoughts on this. I also agree that the Texas Professor should be scheduled before or after the rally and not scheduled to conflict with any of the ROG program content. I would also suggest that the 'graduation' ceremony for the professor's paid service course did not belong in the ROG annual business meeting.

My thoughts agree completely with both of you. After attending 4 Rallies, the overwhelming constant is that there was just too much crammed into a short time. I totally agree with Andy's time line and in fact was about to write the same thing when he posted it. I like the morning open getogether idea a lot. There is an amazing Donut place that just begs to be taken advantage of.

I also agree about the Maintenance course not being the same week of the Rally. If offered, it should be either before or after. Since the Coopers are no longer part of Redwood, this may be a moot point.

I would like some input as to what topics the majority would like in the Seminars. One of the things I will explore is the idea of having someone from the Redwood Service Center give a talk regarding the most common issues they see and what if any preventive maintenance might help avoid them. Don't know if I can pull this one off as it would require someone willing to get up in front of a bunch of owners. I will also state that if it became a bit%$ fest, I would halt it.

All ideas are welcome, as is any offers of volunteers. I want to have a volunteer force set up and in place when the Rally occurs so that none of us have to work so much that we don't enjoy the Rally.

Last year I believe the final total was 98 Coaches. The campground will hold about 140 ..... lets see how many we can have this year and have a great time !!

Vaughan

The one thing that continues to echo in my head is from that grumpy lady at the '15 rally who said she wanted to have more "fun"!

I just can't get that out of my head and have to agree with her.

Can I be wrong or would people be happier paying for fun stuff or to sit through sales presentations?????

Regarding seminars from the Redwood service center. They would be worth the cost of admission, especially if they focus on how we can get them to service/repair/maintain our coaches. That probably won't happen, but I never want to say never.

Vaughan,

Prior to departing Shipshewana, with knowledge that Coopers were moving on from Redwood to DRV, I did ask if they were still interested in attending our rallies.

They confirmed a desire to remain in contact and I believe we can arrange another maintenance course.

I like Ken's idea of having RW Techs provide presentations on "How to tips" for regular maintenance.

I also suggest that we should offer 1 or more presentations on using the website. I constantly hear complaints that it isn't user friendly, but I suspect it is because members don't know how to set up the views.