An article authored by Sue Bray in the December, 2006 issue of Highways Magazine introduced a new volunteer group appointed by the Good Sam Club to consider, evaluate, and make recommendations on issues of importance and concern to RV owners. I have agreed to chair the new Council, and Bill Estes, Jan McNeill, and Leo Everitt have agreed to serve as members. We've always been quite careful not to formally associate this website with other organizations or interests, and that policy remains unchanged. But a further word of explanation may be in order here.
Earlier this year I had a call from Sue Bray, the Executive Director of the Good Sam Club, asking if I'd be willing to offer comment on some proposed industry legislation. Sue is aware of my background in corporate law, and as a reader of this website also understands that we are, and intend to remain, independent in our online efforts. Yet these same qualities also provided some credibility to any recommendations I might make to Sue concerning a specific industry proposal. She was highly sensitive to the fact that any position that the Good Sam Club might take on an industry legislative proposal be consistent with the best interests of the members of the Good Sam Club. It was in this context that I offered to provide my analysis of that particular issue.
In the course of doing so, it occurred to me that if seeking independent "RV owner input" on a specific issue was of value, there might be even greater value if the Good Sam Club had available to it some resource to gather member input, and provide analysis and recommendations to the Good Sam Club on an ongoing basis. Said otherwise, if getting the perspective of RV owners on one issue in reaction to a one-time industry request for Good Sam support was useful, wouldn't it be far better for Good Sam to have available to it a continuing source of analysis and comment that represented the interests and concerns of its membership -- and in fact the interests and concerns of RV owners generally.
After further discussions with Sue, the Good Sam Club decided to proceed with the appointment of a new group to be called the "RV Owners' Advisory Council"; and I have agreed to chair this new effort during its first year. While the charter of the Council is still evolving, its intended purpose is to help provide a constructive new avenue of dialogue between RV owners and other industry segments, including manufacturers, dealers, park owners, and others with interests in the RV industry -- including those RVer membership organization that represent them. The Good Sam Club has represented member interests on a variety of issues, and the creation of the new Council extends this effort by pro-actively seeking out the input of its members, and in appropriate circumstances participating in a dialogue with other industry players on matters of key concern to RV owners.
In my opinion this is a very constructive new program for the Good Sam Club, and supplements a number of other efforts to represent the interests of its members. It also provides a valuable new avenue for RV owners to have their opinions and concerns both heard and represented through meaningful dialogue with key industry participants. Because of the size, and resources available through the Good Sam Club, this effort is far beyond the reach of anything we could begin to do through RVers Online; and it is for this reason I've accepted the invitation to chair the first year of this promising new program.