2003 COUNCIL OF COUNCILS MEETING
Holiday Inn- Airport North
St. Louis, Missouri
8 February 2003

Brian Walker called the meeting to order at 10:15 AM and welcomed the reps.

A motion by Lynn Harmonson to waive reading of the minutes of the 2002 meeting was carried.

Brian welcomed the reps and introduced the Council of Councils (CofC) Board. He noted that this is the 25th anniversary of the first Council of Councils meeting in 1978. It is the 26th annual CofC meeting.

Downstate Illinois Van Council (DIVC), the host council, welcomed the reps to Illinois. Steve Ashley (DIVC) said a few words to welcome the reps and thanked (to a round of applause) the volunteers from DIVC who did all the work for this weekend.

Brian had the reps introduce themselves.

There were 29 councils in attendance at the meeting.

There was one bid to host the CofC meeting in the Year 2004.

Florida Van Council made a bid to host the 2004 meeting on February 6 - 8, 2004 at the Comfort Inn Busch Gardens, Tampa, Florida. Room rate = $84/night (up to 4 people per room). Room rate includes lunch on Saturday. Since this was the only bid, the bid was accepted by acclamation.

Don Noone gave a recap of this summer's NATS, which has the Wizard of Oz theme. He said this will be the best $35 pre-entry bargain you’ll ever get. There will be a tour of the Harley Davidson plant. They are trying to get a deal with the Kansas Speedway to be able to drive your van around the track. They are bringing in good bands. The bands will be outside, not in a metal building. Covered stages will be built for the bands.

There will be a kid's community center during the day. In response to a question from the floor, trophy sponsorships will be accepted. The deadline for trophy sponsorship is May 1. The fairgrounds have some hot and cold showers. More portable showers will be constructed. There is plenty of electric. PVC lines will be run to provide water.

The airport is 15 minutes from the fairgrounds. There is easy access to the fairgrounds from the highway. Check the website for personal Port-a-Potty availability. They have two major sponsors, Pabst Blue Ribbon and NAPA auto parts. It takes a lot of work to raise money to put on a NATS. Don asked the reps if they would object to raising prices for next years NATS to $50. The extra $15 would make a big difference to the host.

Woodstock thanked (to a round of applause) everyone who attended the last NATS.

Lynn Harmonson noted that a lot of the addresses for councils on the CofC list showed updates as old as 1994. How do we get updated addresses for those councils? Are they now defunct? Brian noted that some councils who don’t attend, do send in address updates. Cathy suggested that we could send a postcard to those possibly defunct councils and delete those councils who failed to respond.

Brian went over the current list of 37 CofC councils in an attempt to find out which councils are still active.

OLD BUSINESS:

In response to a question asking if the NATS Board has moved forward on possible NATS control, Joe Madonia noted that the board has already raised the ceiling that host clubs can charge from $35 to $50. This is only the first step the board has made regarding the results of the survey sent out last year.

Regarding attendance at the NATS, it was noted that 748 vans were in attendance last year and 250 the year before. Lynn Harmonson noted that the NATS board is updating the web page and attendance will be a part of that update. It was also noted that attendance in 1974 can’t reasonably be compared to attendance in 2002.

A question from the floor was, "How do we get the numbers up?" DIVC suggested that Ohio may get more attendees at their NATS because they are more "in your face" with advertising at events preceding the NATS. New England suggested that the numbers could be increased by allowing pickups to attend. They pointed out that a 16-year old had won the light show with his pickup at one of their events. They said to let the pickups in or vanning will die.

Geoff Koome said that, just because the NATS, which is only one event per year doesn’t allow anything but vans through the gate doesn’t account for the total decline in vanning. In response, one rep said that you aren’t going to get folks interested in vanning that way. Geoff responded that the way to get them interested was to allow them (pickup owners, etc.) in at the local van events. Maybe they’ll get interested and buy a van to come to the Nation’s Premier Van Event (the NATS).

Joe Madonia noted that ¾ of the people in the U.S. live east of the Mississippi and we can still get 750 vans to attend a NATS in Ohio. That’s more vehicles of a like kind than any other organization can muster. It was also noted that part of the NATS charter is to have the event at different locations throughout the U.S. and not keep it in the same location every year.

One rep noted that we often get only one or two members from a club to attend the NATS. We could increase the numbers if we could just get every club member to go to the NATS. Joe noted that we can’t even get our friends of 30 years to attend the NATS. He doesn’t want the 16-year olds at the events. Other reps pointed out that there won’t be any more events to go to if we don’t get new members.

Bucko told Joe that we’re losing your vanning friends of 30 years because he got old and bought a motor home. He’s willing to tow his van to the NATS, but you make him park the motor home at a campground down the road.

One DIVC rep noted that he put his van in a car club show (which had a van classification) and got a lot of response from folks interested in getting a van as a result. Also a lot of old vanners were surprised that we’re still around, and were interested in getting active again. We need to welcome these old vanners back with open arms.

Midwest suggested that we have a single person designated to send the calendar of all the van events to all the van-related publications. It was also noted that we could get more articles if the club PR person would send pictures along with a well-written article to these publications. Joe noted that, in the Southeast, Cruisin’ Style magazine has published all of the van articles he has sent in. They will even send you a one-use camera to use to take the pictures. They’ll get them developed. Surely there must be similar magazines in other areas of the country if we just look for them. It’s a great way to get PR, but we won’t get it if we don’t get off our rear ends and take the pictures and write the articles.

Midwest said that another way to sell our sport is to have seminars on topics such as suspension, stereo installation, etc. at local events and not just at the CofC meetings. Let the folks know we’re serious about the vans as well as the party. At this point Brian thanked the DIVC for the seminars being presented at this CofC meeting. Wacko asked if future seminars at the CofC meetings could be scheduled so as not to conflict with scheduled trips, like the beer bus tour. One rep noted that we might actually be able to get some of the factory reps to host seminars.

The lunch break was taken at this point in the meeting.

DIVC noted that this has been a tough year, and asked for a moment of silence for the lost vanners, soldiers, and astronauts. DIVC gave a plaque of appreciation to all councils present.

Event insurance was the next topic. Lynn noted that, when events are held at a fairground, it is fairly cheap to get a rider added to the fairground’s insurance policy to cover the event. Some fairgrounds may not want to do that, since any claims made would increase the cost of their policy in the future. DIVC noted that they were talking about getting a basic insurance policy to cover DIVC and add riders to cover each club event. Another factor in the equation is whether or not the club/council is incorporated, with a tax ID number. Lynn thought it might be a good idea for each council to check on details of coverage, cost, etc. and share notes in a seminar at the 2004 CofC meeting. He also noted that typical insurance costs for a NATS are $800 - $1000 for the event.

In response to a question DIVC noted that they were thinking of getting an insurance agent to handle the whole deal, not that CofC get the blanket policy and other councils and clubs get the riders from the insurance agent. DIVC noted that they would set up a seminar on event insurance for the 2004 CofC meeting, or, better yet, have a meeting/seminar at the NATS in July.

After hearing from folks during the break, Peter Lee brought up the topic of bringing motor homes to events. Those folks reasoned that, if a motor home is towing a van, the motor home ought to be able to come to the event, including the NATS. We are losing a lot of vanners who get older and feel the need for more comfortable accommodations. Peter said that the NATS board should ultimately be accountable to the vanners. There should be a vote on this issue, with some final resolution. Peter said he is sick and tired of spending at least half of every CofC meeting for the last 10 years discussing this issue. There should be a vote and a final resolution.

Lynn said that the NATS board is responsive to the vanners. They publish the schedule of their meetings and anyone who wishes can propose any topic to them. They put out a questionnaire last year, and have begun to implement some of the items the vanners wanted changes in. The NATS board had a quick "outside the room" meeting with the following results: Some sort of questionnaire or poll will be presented to those who attend this year’s NATS and the NATS board will take the results of the poll into consideration regarding allowing non-van vehicles into the NATS. This should be the fairest solution. The NATS board doesn’t just listen to the loudest, but wants to get the feel for all the vanners on this topic.

The NATS board concluded that the suggestion of trying to get input from all vanners on the Internet would be very difficult to implement. Besides, since it is a topic that affects those who actually go to the NATS, so those that actually go to the NATS are the ones who should be polled.

It was noted that Danny Knight, President of the Van Club Association of Michigan, had put in a bid for his organization to host the 2004 NATS in Harrison, Michigan (about 109 miles from Flint). This is the first time the NATS will be held in Michigan.

Vannin.com was discussed. They noted that they had asked (on the Internet) for contributions from the councils because it costs $300/year to run vannin.com. They now have a staff and a photographer. Northeast Ohio donated $100 and challenged all the other councils to do the same.

The Australians are very excited about the possibility of hosting the 2005 CofC meeting on March 19, 2005 in Melbourne, Australia. Airline costs would run about $1100 - $1500 per rep. Total cost would probably be about $2000 per rep. Each rep would need a travel visa and passport. Reps could plan to stay a couple of weeks and attend the Australian Van Nationals March 24 - 28, 2005 for $60 per person. About 20 reps raised their hands indicating that they want to attend, should the official Australian bid be successful at the next CofC meeting in Florida.

Geoff asked how many Australian vanners are there to support this venue. Wacko said there were about 200 vans at the last Australian Nationals. That’s pretty good for a country which only has a population of 19 million people.

In response to a question as to how much sponsorship is the host organization allowed to get for the NATS, it was noted that the sky is the limit. It was also noted that control of the event must remain in the hands of the host vanners; we can’t allow the NATS to become the Pabst Blue Ribbon Nationals.

Wisconsin asked if there is, or should be, a standard for van judging trophies at the NATS. Lynn said NO! It’s always up to the host; some hosts like trophies, others like plaques.

This ended the "reps only" portion of the meeting.

OPEN DISCUSSION:

Lynn noted that we are in the process of upgrading the vanner's memorial. He’s trying to make it better and more available. Sandy and Danny Thomas are going to remove the names and clean them up. They are going to try and get a picture of each vanner on the memorial, and a picture of their van. If you have any photos of these vanners, please send them to:

Dan & Sandy Thomas

22 N. Pioneer Road

Waukegan, IL 60085

superpolemvl@aol.com

One member asked if there could be a separate classification for conversion vans at the NATS.

Steve Ashley, of DIVC, said a few words. He said we came as a vanning family, and we leave as a family. We need to learn to agree to disagree. He handed the "pass along" plaque to FVC. FVC noted that, while they have the hotel reserved for the 2004 CofC meeting, it will be about a month before the hotel has everything set up for you to actually make your reservations.

A motion was made to adjourn and the meeting was concluded.

ATTENDEES AT THE 2003 COUNCIL OF COUNCILS MEETING:

A.L.I.V.E.
All In One Alliance
Colorado Van Council
Corn Belt Van Council
Downstate Illinois Van Council
Florida Van Council
Heart Of America Van Council
Hoosier Van Congress
Maryland Van Council
Midwest Van Council
M.O.V.E.
Missouri Van Council
National Street Van Association - UK
New England Van Council

New Jersey Van Council

New York Van Council
Northeast Ohio Van Congress
Northern California Van Council

Northwest Van Council
Ontario Federation Of Vanners

Pennsylvania Van Council
Southeast Virginia Van Council
Southern California Van Council
Southern Ohio Van Council
Southern Van Council

Texas Van Federation

Van Council Of Victoria – Australia

West Lake Erie Van Council
Wisconsin Van Council