2006 Feb

 National Truck-in Board Meeting

Anaheim, Ca

February 2006

The meeting was called to order at 9 AM.

 

Attendance: Ma, Tom, Woodstock, Coop, Joe, Tim, Chooie, Wacko, Dave, Desperado, Judith, Howard, Charlotte, Sonya, Geoff, Cale, and Lynn

 

Min. Ma made a motion to dispense with the reading of the min. Roster corrections: none.

Treasures report:  Incoming expenses will be $400.for each of the four trademarks’ we owe, for the renewal. The board owns the following, The Van Nationals, the Nation’s Premier Van Event, National Truck-in. Donnie Noone donated $50.00.

Van Nat’s has been applied for the following, The Van Nat’s, which is not serviced marked by anyone. We need to make a presentation at the meeting to Council of Council meeting how it affects the Host. If they are going to have two of each vendors, the size of the event must be big enough that Vendors will make a profit. We discussed what we wanted to do about Kim. No- one has heard from him since the Nats. We will deal with the issue as it arises. Any variation or abbreviation of our trademarks will not tolerate. The Board must control the Mark’s, or we will lose them. We give the right to use the Mark’s to the host clubs and they must enforce them without help. The host club must follow the section of the contract concerning the Trademarks. The host club has the right to control merchandise. Merchandise must have the approval of the Nat’s board. Anyone using the Trademarks without permission will be escorted from the grounds and merchandise will be confiscated.

 

A letter from Jeanie Vargo was read: Jeanie thought that there should have been more ceremony at the PA Nat’s for the fallen vanners. Danny and Sandy will take the memorial back if we want them too. Size wise with the names off, the memorial could be cut down.  This would make it much easier to transport. We can only put in what you send us about each person. The memorial is not the responsibility of the Nat’s board; we help with it as needed. We feel that the memorial should not be part of the opening ceremony; perhaps it should be done before the trophies are presented. Announcements as to where the memorial is located and when the ceremony will take place should be in the bible.

 

 

2005 Nat’s update: The only problems were golf cart drunks and kids who did not want to follow the no bike rules and parents who did not help with the kids. Insurance. They made $2500 on the kitchen. Ice and rental of pole barns and early arrivals is where they made the money. There should be more teen games and activities and perhaps a later back to the campsite time for the older kids. Auction split the profits with vanning.com. There were 141 campers at the event. They feel that campers should be priced by Size since they take up a lot to space and power. The New Jersey Van Council donated $2,000. to help with expenses. They feel that we should allow motor homes if they are parked away from the vans.

The spent $13,780 on electric and $1,585. on water upgrades.

 

2006 Nat’s: Pam from Van and Denise from Capital City did the presentation, handed out a show n shine info to look over and a preliminary bible. We had heard that they were having motor homes. Pan said that there would be No motor homes unless host. Will do some teen activities and perhaps extend the teen time until 11 instead of 10. Set up pay pal.

115 to 120 pre-reg. not including this weekend. There will not be a carnival. The Van show will be on Saturday. They will start early.

 

Results of Motor home survey in Green Bay: The vote was 28 for and 24 against. Margin was inconclusive. We took it under consideration and decided that no Motor homes will be allowed into the Nationals. If the host club has room outside the gate, they can set up a site for the Motor home so that they are not in with the vans. The person can than take their van and put them in with their friends.  We do not care how you get there. We will re address it in 2010.  The survey in Kansas was 142 participate, 49 for, 89 against and 6 undecided.

 

Is it a Van? Scion is not a van. Paul brought pictures to show us how the kids are using them as vans. ISCA and ESPN classed them as vans. The whole point is that in the future at some time we may want to include them but not at this point. This is still on a car chassis, so it is not a van.

 

Bids for 2007

 

Dave: Made the presentation for the NY site of Washington County Fairgrounds, Greenwich NY. See folder.

 

Ray:    Made the presentation on the KY site of Poppy Mountain in Moorhead City KY. He showed a video of the site and pictures were handed out.

 

Judith: Made a small presentation on Altamonte, IL.

 

A bid was submitted by Northeast Ohio Van Congress by Donnie and Moon dog. The site would be Cortland, OH home of the 7^th and 11 Nat’s. A motion was made to accept the bid when the following items were submitted.

1.          A contract from the Fairgrounds

2          Recent pictures of the site.

3          Names of those on the board.

4          A medical plan.

Once these items are submitted, we will sign the contract.

 

Comments from the reps: Some feel that if we do a Nat’s will we be expected to do it from now on.  We are doing it all wrong in the way we are promoting this.  We should be doing it more like the street rods etc. We need to promote and change the make-up of how we do this we need to make money or it will die. We need someone who can promote our event. Joe said we should be looking for the following: Grounds should be campgrounds. Good bands, entertainment.

Each person is looking out for themselves instead of for all.

Got to have something to draw the people in. Celebrity, vehicle, etc. Do things at Nat’s to entertain the Vanners. Put it on the flyer and when people see it they will pass it along and bring up attendance.

Virtual vanner, Chooie and Donnie Noone are good at promoting and we need to tap into this. (since we got interrupted at this time, after the meeting I told Chooie to have some cards made stating that he is our PR person. This will get him into more doors. We should also have Donnie make some to help with the promoting).

 

 

Jeff Johnston. Will Possible do a 60 –90 min history of vanning as a movie? Jeff Johnston sent to vanning.com how to contact a sponsor/mag.

 

Fund raising: Donnie’s CD  $10.00 per CD.  We should not have our logo on them as some of the songs are copy rite infringements and we cannot afford to be sued. We will sell what we have. Some of us paid for these at the meeting and Joe was given the balance to sell on his table.

 

Joe:  Suggested 2-stage fundraiser.  Raffle on a serious prize we would be asked to sell 25 tickets per person and that would bring in $2500.00 dollars. Take it to the council 10 tickets per person in the council. I would raise $30,000.00. The tickets would be sold over a year’s time. The prize could be something like the following, an engine, big screen TV or wheels and tires. Coop doesn’t feel like the concept that Joe presented of selling tickets at $5.00 each 10 per person and sending each council to sell 30 or so tickets would work. We should do it ourselves. We will each sell tickets for $5.00 each or a book of 6 for $20.00 we will sell the tickets beginning at the Nat’s and ending at Council of Council. Winner will get $1,000.  Dave will investigate getting the tickets.

 

We will do a combined Auction with Vannin.com we will give them 15% of what we make. Each member will look for things to auction. We will send a list and pictures if possible, for virtual to put on vannin.com. Judith will do a quilt.

 

Comments for Desperado: Some years we have had only one bid for the Van Nationals. In the future we may not get any. Thus, the board will host the National Truck-inâ to insure that there is always a National’s for our Motor sport. This year we are prepared with three sites. Our motor sport of vanning may become like the National Hot Rod Association Nationals. That being they have only four sites for their Nationals.

I believe that a four or five site location for our Nationals could be a good thing for our motor sport of vanning. I believe the board could co-host each Nationals. This would allow for an ongoing income in which to have a working capital for each host. It could open other possibilities such as sponsorship. This could be the best way to give back to vanners and vanning itself.

I also believe that the National Truck-inâ would draw a larger number of vans and vanners if the Nationals were held on Monday thru Friday night. This would allow vanners a full weekend of travel time getting to and from the eVANt. A vanner would only need one week’s vacation off work to attend the Nationals.  Several vanners have been leaving early to get home to go to work on the following Monday.

With the loss of production of some US made vans, we should look at allowing other van type of vehicles into the Nationals. Some of these being the dual wheel sprinter van and pre 1960 sedan deliveries.

These are only my views and comments. Desperado

 

We took a ½ lunch, and then had a seminar on How to Host the National Truck-inâ, followed by how to judge a van and the van judging/show in the parking lot. After another 1 hr. break, we were back in the meeting at 6 PM for pizza. We adjourned at 10:30 PM

 

Next year’s meeting will start on Thursday night. Thank you, Desperado, for your help with the Min.