Grandvention update
Here is the first of a couple updates to the forum from the grandvention. First of all it started out in a very lovely KOA. The food has been hit or miss but with the exception of one meal at dinner was ok. One breakfast was pretty poor as well. That is all the negative news that I can report and everything else has been a huge positive. I will say that this is the first grandvention that Lyle and Greg bot seem to value the owners and the motorcade. Most of the time they seemed in the past to doubt the value. This time both of them said we the owners are the best advertisement they have.
We have spent a number of hours discussing the motorcade club and foretrvael and their will be a motorcade discussion group today. The information on the company is pretty exciting. They are announcing a new model. There was only a drawing of the coach but for all of you flat floor Newell thinkers this will make you think twice. It will be positioned above the Phenix, so I assume there will be a rush to have the latest and greatest by some and that will benefit FT. IT will also be 13 foot 2 inches tall and that is because the new EPA regs make the engines much hotter and they need a much bigger and taller radiator. It looks to be very impressive and the company seems to have done a good job in positioning it. Their idea of an entry level coach is a nice used coach and they said they have been having a time getting good coaches to sell at the factory.
The ask FT was wide ranging but the takeaway is that they want us the owners to help them sell coaches just by talking about them to friends and people we meet. They are working on selling them too and this year sold more coaches to non Foretravel owners than repeat buyers. That is o be expected in a way as the biggest competition to FT is Country Coach and they are no more.
Speaking of CC, Lyle and Greg both talked about it and what was announced on the website. They have been talking with Bob Lee about doing service for CC a the factory and having Bob Lees place in the NW do service on FTs. That will help our owners up in the Pacific NW.
Also they are talking to CCI which is the Motorcade club for CC and talking about doing soem joint things and providing them vendor and factory support for their coaches. It will give them a great installed base of Motorhome owners who will need to upgrade sometime adn hope that it will be FT when they do. It is a great idea and they will start out if they get it settled with just the Texas group first.
The people here are upbeat and the company is positive about survival and growth even in the down economy. That is great news.
I want to say one other thing. The greatest resource for CC owners is their motorcade club and our own club is a wonderful source for us. We should support the club as much as we can. It is more than trips and meetings but the local rallies are a great way to share information with fellow owners. I can not tell you how much I have learned from fellow owners at the local level. We have a great group of people and see as owner should support our owners club. The corporate contribution is way way down from previous years and it will have to be self sufficient. I know we all have not agreed with everything that has been done and in fact I have a number of issues with some actions but the only way to change it and make it better is to change it from within.
Now one other thing. The best thing for all of us on the forum is that the company is aware of us here and the power we have. I pointed out the top posts and the views and the fact that the number of new people joining prior to buying any FT is high. We have a lot of people on here that are looking for information and deciding on purchasing or not. IT is a major resource for them and they do not have to pay 6k for a one page ad for a month. That is good for all of us. I am not saying that we will change corporates mind but I have talked to them about things that have been brought up here. I would love to see some suipport from them for us but that is for another day.
Today is the discussion on the Motorcade club. The information so far is that the Maritimes Motorcade was opened to buddies and three went along and two of the three bought coaches and the last of the three is in negotiations right now. So the club does have value. There is talk of opening up the club to buddies or some of the CC guys on a space avail basis as well as the fact that they have four unused service bays too. That would be an interesting turn of events. Lyle and Greg both assured us that it would not impact on owners as we would have first priority.
That is all for now but I will write more tonight on my final observations of the Grandvention.
Topic: Grandvention update