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racecitypat's avatar
racecitypat
Explorer
Sep 27, 2013

Good Sam Camping

Marcus,
First of all, we are happy with everything Camping World and Good Sam has done for us. We have purchased 3 campers from Camping world, and have loved the customer respect and the personal service provided. And since joining Good Sam, it has delivered everything it has promised plus more. We are also big fans of your "Profit" show.
We are in our late fifties and truly love camping. We loved the idea of joining the Good Sam Club local chapters and camping with a group, but we discovered we were quite young when we got around most of the other chapter members, and couldn’t travel the distance and stay the duration of most of the planned camping trips due to our jobs. We are empty nesters, but are still several years away from retiring. I have talked to many couples in our same situation, some with older kids still at home and some empty nesters as we are, and they are like us, looking for a camping club that plans trips decently close, and to venues of interest to us. For instance, we are beach lovers and huge race fans, along with thousands of other race fans and beach lovers, and planned trips to one of the east coast NASCAR tracks to camp during the race weekend as a group would be a blast! Most of the speedway campgrounds have room and would love to work with a large group of campers. This is also true with the beach campgrounds that we have spoken to.

I wasn’t sure if Good Sam had ever considered involving the younger group of campers into their own club somehow, and if there was a plan to target the middle to late age campers who still work, and just how many more campers would join Good Sam? I know of several. I had even thought of forming a camp club just for the speedway camping trips. Please give the idea some thought.

Pat
racecitypat
  • This is a big problem for the younger camper in Good Sam. They are not very interested in a lot of the camping the retired people do. States need to look at starting up chapters of just the younger campers with special events catered to them at least once a year. Your average chapter members ages is over 60 years old now and this can be seen at your Samborees with the time of year mostly when children are still in school, entertainment, and activities!! Your State Directors need to get out and talk to the younger camper at RV shows, Camping World stores, and form an advisory group of younger campers.
    Lets face it a lot of your chapters are not growing or folding because members have either went to permanent RV sites or stopped RV altogether. We need the younger generation to join up and take over or the State organization will continue to shrink.
  • racecitypat wrote:
    Marcus,
    First of all, we are happy with everything Camping World and Good Sam has done for us. We have purchased 3 campers from Camping world, and have loved the customer respect and the personal service provided. And since joining Good Sam, it has delivered everything it has promised plus more. We are also big fans of your "Profit" show.
    We are in our late fifties and truly love camping. We loved the idea of joining the Good Sam Club local chapters and camping with a group, but we discovered we were quite young when we got around most of the other chapter members, and couldn’t travel the distance and stay the duration of most of the planned camping trips due to our jobs. We are empty nesters, but are still several years away from retiring. I have talked to many couples in our same situation, some with older kids still at home and some empty nesters as we are, and they are like us, looking for a camping club that plans trips decently close, and to venues of interest to us. For instance, we are beach lovers and huge race fans, along with thousands of other race fans and beach lovers, and planned trips to one of the east coast NASCAR tracks to camp during the race weekend as a group would be a blast! Most of the speedway campgrounds have room and would love to work with a large group of campers. This is also true with the beach campgrounds that we have spoken to.

    I wasn’t sure if Good Sam had ever considered involving the younger group of campers into their own club somehow, and if there was a plan to target the middle to late age campers who still work, and just how many more campers would join Good Sam? I know of several. I had even thought of forming a camp club just for the speedway camping trips. Please give the idea some thought.

    Pat
    racecitypat


    Good info and thoughts from you all. We are working on something that compliments the chapters program. If you guys would like to help in the development it would be good to have some input and feedback.

    Please drop me an e-mail at msiemens@campingworld.com directly if you are interested.

    Thanks,


    Mike Siemens
  • There are many camping forums on the Web that organize ralleys and campouts. Some that I belong to are RV Itch, Popup Explorer, Canvass Campers, Mid Atlantic Campers and Pop up Portal. Most members of these forums are Good Sam members and we organize get togethers all over the country, both Canada and the US. Some are highly organized but for the most part it is posting on the forum a message to the effect that I will be camping at such and such a place on whatever date, anybody want to join me?
    Through Pop Up Explorer we did Gathering at the Glen (Watkins Glen State Park, Watkins glen, NY) for 5 years. One year we had 80+ families. Last year we joined Canvass Campers for a weekend at Gettysburgh. Several friends got together this year for race weekend at Watkins Glen, just by posting that they were going to be there and asking if anyone wanted to meet up. This year we will be attending a our 6th rally at Ives Run (ACoE campground at Tioga, PA)with the MFCC (Magical Flying Camper Club) a sub group of RV Itch forum.
    There are many ways to accomplish what you are suggesting without formally having to make it a Good Sam organized event (not wanting to take anything away from Good Sam).
  • Mark F, i'm in the same area as racecitypat. There are several chapters already around and as they mentioned, they are on aolder crowd for the most part. While I am over a decade younger than racecitypat and not an empty nester, I have basically came to the same conclusion.

    As a recommendation, I might suggest a group instead of a chapter. You can set up a group easily under the >Community>Find a member or Group on the Good Sam Club website. I started one a couple years ago called Camping Carolina, but have not done anything with it. You can set up the group with specific interests. I need to go back into it and work on it some.
  • Pat,

    Thank you for the post and great suggestion. I know you had mention joining your local Good Sam Club chapter. Ever thought of starting a chapter? Good Sam Club Chapters embrace true RV fellowship and make lasting friendships through a shared sense of community and a love for RVing. Chapters hold campouts, plan social events and organize community volunteer opportunities. There are nearly 1,500 Good Sam Chapters across North America. If interested please check out the links provided. This should help with needed information and a application to start a chapter.

    http://www.goodsamclub.com/community/Chapters.aspx

    http://www.goodsamclub.com/community/ChapterStart.aspx


    Mark F
    Marcus' Rapid Response Team
    goodsamcs@goodsamfamily.com

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