PenNY Mixers in Madison, WI for 86th FMCA International

The week of August 8th brought members of the PenNY Mixers to Madison, Wisconsin for the 86th annual FMCA rally.  Many PenNY Mixers were parked in front of the dome at the Alliant Energy Center.

Almost perfect weather and a warm welcome from Madison made the event a great week.  The event was visited by all the local tv stations.  Northeast was highlighted on channel 15, NBC as Ed Smith (NMA Vice President Barb's husband) & Tom Roule were interviewed.  Click on the link below to see the video.

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Madison channel 15 FMCA video

NMA chapter members got together twice in open forum discussions led by President, Paul Dubois.
The first one was on Tuesday before the Governing Board meeting on Wednesday where Paul and Ed Hoag led review of the upcoming elections.  While they could not advize area directors how to vote, considerable discussion centered around experiences with national candidates.

Walt Linden - Bev Brown

Election results from Wednesday, August 10th were as follows:

• National President:  Charlie Schrenkel
• National Senior Vice President: Allen Rein
• National Secretary:  Vicky Ferrari
• National Treasurer:  Wil Young

As always, Walt Linden represented us during the Meetings.

PenNY Mixer Governing Board Members

In other business, Hutchinson, Kansas was chosen for the 2013, 50th FMCA anniversary rally.  National Directors will not reimbursed for 2012 87th International.  Consideration is being given to combining one of the winter regional rallies with the winter international.  Currently, the plan is to cancel the 2012 and 2013 winter rallies.

Our second NMA get together was a general discussion led be Paul Dubois, Barb Smith and Lorie Hoag (Ed was under the weather).  Paul was soliciting ideas for improvement within the area.  Some folks expressed interest in moving the rally to different venues.  Essex Junction more than meets our needs with great facilities and reasonable electric, but an occasional alternative would make returning to Essex Junction "new".  The challenge for the area is finding a location that is open to vendors from out of the area.  Paul asked for help finding and securing a location that meets the area's requirements.
Much discussion also centered around how to include trailers and 5th wheels to foster growth of the organization. This topic will be on future agendas.
Finally, we had a brief visit from our new board officers.
Coach count was 1810 family units.  Total coaches exceeded 2200.  The vendor building was loaded with a variety of products and it seemed busy all the way through Saturday.
Restaurants were great and reasonable.