There is a lot to be addressed here....
Regarding the upcoming Tower Park meet September 19-25, 2017, we have negotiated a better deal than was originally planned. No day user fee except a small fee/wristband to use the pools/spa. No day-user parking charge and day-user parking is along the adjacent levee road. Trailer parking by the Tower Park entrance as usual. We are in Campgrounds 2 and 3, close to that levee, office, store, restaurant/bar, and marina. It's shady and the roads are all paved, so little dust. Jo-Ann Lesser volunteered to be "Wagonmistress" like she has been for years for the April meet at Tower and now Petaluma. So you go through her to pick a campsite, THEN she tells YBJP office to take your reservation.
mamalesser@yahoo.com. There is a two night deposit required and the cancellation policy, while modified, is tighter than in the past. Do yourself a favor and look at the MVCC forum over on
www.G503.com for a couple threads on the Fall meet. Read all the way through them. Join the Military Vehicle Collectors of California, the event promoter, to get insider news via the nice print newsletter.
www.MVCCNews.net
Regarding Camp Petaluma April 24-29, 2018 (note the 4th week now), the vast majority of participants last April enjoyed themselves, some saying it was a much better event than the Tower Park meets. But there were some important issues, mostly affecting
non-campers. Club management is talking with the KOA owner about ways to improve. News about this will be shared this September at Tower Park. The issues are day user fee, more onsite parking, increasing the days/hours of the shuttle buses to the offsite lots, loosening the number of vehicles parking in campsites, better signage including roadside electronic signs, and obtaining more campsites in the forest where the long term and over-winter folks were. Yes,
we have MANY people asking for NEW reservations. We are alsothinking of ways to help people transport merchandise to and from the offsite lot.
This was an excellent social event. It's a beautiful place and with a nice historic town nearby, there were more reasons for the wives to attend, and many did. There are many cabin options including the small sleeping cabins in a central location. What sets this place apart from many campgrounds are the excellent MV road-driving options in West Sonoma and Marin Counties, some of the most scenic in the state. We had two, well-attended MV runs, oddly at the same time, west to the coast for lunch and they took different routes back. This hurt vendor traffic for hours on Friday. But that didn't mean those people didn't shop at other times. W
It's important to improve day-user access as much as possible because vendors want that. There is much more chance to attract new people to this venue than one in the Delta. There are MANY MVers in the North Bay and some have never travelled to Tower Park, Big Bear Park, or the old Patterson venue. So our hobby should grow because of this location. The requests for 2018 campsites is an indication of this.
People who looked at MV forum posts, the MVCC website, and/or the MVCC newsletters, were better informed about Camp Petaluma. This is a great place if you have a campsite because that's where you park! The only question for campers then is how many vehicles are allowed or can fit. Did you know we could use the permanent RV storage lot for our extra cars, trucks, and trailers? We plan to do a better job with onsite signage directing people to that. The KOA owner told his tenants they could not access their rigs during our week, thus allowing our vehicles to block them. There was a lot of unused space in that lot, which is onsite. This means more room in the campsites, like for MVs and vendor tables.
One underutilized aspect of this event was the Group Camp area. This was a $10/night option, no minimum number of nights, and it included the entry wristband and a place to park inside the campground! Likely this will continue in 2018.
How's that for value, and a way to park onsite? A commuter could do that and just use his camp space for parking. We hope to have the other dry camping field right next to the small parking lot by the office converted to a parking lot. Probably all the cars and trucks that parked at the offsite lot could fit there. BUT this is not for sure, and it might come down to weather and if that lawn is too soggy for vehicles. The other wild card is the giant grass field adjacent to KOA. In a dry year, much of this could be in play for parking and large MV displays. But we can't count on that.
Hills? Yes, part of the place is on a hill. Bring your jeep! We want to make this venue as vendor-friendly as possible. I heard some vendors up on the hill did well. Vendors now know the layout, and if they want to improve their location they can simply work with Jo-Ann to find a different site. Vendors who are thinking about not coming in 2018, if any, should closely watch the plans. Those who don't return will allow the ones that do more selling opportunities. One note about the small sleeping cabins - we saw a vendor use the excellent location for his tables but he stayed offsite. He allowed a member to use the cabin, thus sharing the cost. Pretty slick!
Change is what it is. People will adapt. This will continue to be the largest, annual MV swap meet and gathering west of the Midwest, and will stay at Petaluma KOA until someone finds a different place large enough and with enough to offer.
