Frage Hello fron North America

I had a few problems registering here, in fact I am registered as an under 16 year old under "Natcoa". Needless to say I can't speak German. A few things:

First of all I am president of the North American Truck Camper Owners Association or NATCOA. We are a club and an organization to help promote this RV type. We hold rallies & do caravans (more or less, free) to such places as Alaska & Mexico. Several manufacturers are members as well, & we are expanding into Australia. We would like to expand into Europe as well, possibly by affiliating ourselves with existing organizations if they exist. Or if someone wants to take it on as a new venture, we will supply web space & support. We can see some advantages to this, such as maybe hospitality exchanges between North American & Europe with fellow owners of these RV's, or even RV exchange if anyone is interested. We are organizign our first RV show this summer in Nebraska (june 16-18th). If anyone is planning on being in North America they are certainly welcome. It is being held at Ogallala State Park.

We have a website at [url:2yc1zoq2]www.natcoa.com[/url] & a free forum at [url:2yc1zoq2]www.natcoa-forum.com[/url].

I have been compiling a list of all worldwide manufacturers of this RV type. If you are aware of any more, I would appreciate hearing about them. My email is Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein! . The list is at [url:2yc1zoq2]www.vancouver.hm/campers.html[/url]

Hi Paul,
glad to see you managed to register. I'm sure you can change the board language to English if you prefer

I'm in the UK and belong to the Adventure Owners Club which is open to any make of demountable. I guess you're familar with Adventures? The company that started importing them into the UK has recently changed to import Northstars, I believe.

I'll spend some time looking around your sites....

Dirk

Hi Paul,

welcome to the forum!
I'm looking foward to spend some on the sites you mentioned above.

Hi Paul, welcome to this site !
Lets tell you that last year I imported a truck camper (Chevy Silverado + Adventurer 810WS) directly to Germany
Still I am interested in all activities rsp. RV movements.
@DIrk: do you really mean the canadian factory "Adventurer" ???

Best regards to Canada
Felix

I have an Adventurer 90FWS & the company is a member of our Organization. They are actually pretty good units for the price. I actually only live 60 Km from the factory. Now I have figured out how to make the board English, I will add my signature picture. Dirk mentioned Northstars. They do export to Europe & Australia. Rex Willett, the Vice President is a good friend of mine. He has actually just shipped some units to China.

By the way if any of you guys would like a NATCOA bumper sticker for your unit 8 cm x 15 cm you can get them at [url:8dj62uqi]www.natcoa.com/stickers.html[/url]. We charge a small amount for them via paypal to cover the postage as we are non-profit.

Dirk, You mentioned a club for demountables in Britain. We are looking to affiliate with other TC/demountable Clubs. There are 2 ways to do this. Just a friendly affiliation or a merger into one umbrella club under the banner INTCOA (International TC owners Association). A marriage of equals, not a takeover, each one would do their own thing, but with the same principles in mind. They would maintain their own board of directors, etc. In this case they would charge about $24 US or equiv a year member fees. We would maintain a common member database, which we would all share, share our forum, webspace (we have intcoa.com), provide member cards, etc. We would need about 1/2 the member fees to cover costs like web hosting & forum hosting, providing things like bumper stickers, etc. and the other club keeps half to help finance rallies, etc. They would run their own affairs the same way they do now. The important thing is the common member database. We have one built in MS Access now that is completely flexible for Europe, North America & Australia. I envision being able to do things like hospitality exchanges between Europe & North America or even RV switches for those that feel comfy with that. I can see hospitality exchanges being popular. The way that works, is you each take a vacation in the others country, put each other up & show them around. The biggest expense in any trip is accomodation. This way you get to stay with someone who has a common interest. We can even do that with a loose affiliation. We are starting to expand into Australia via Northstars dealership. Like I said, our goal is not to take anyone over, it would be impossible to administer, but I can see the advantages of an umbrella organization.

We have a thing going called the North American Truck Camper caravan. We did a free 6 week trip last summer through Oregon, Washington & British Columbia, we tentatively have one planned to Alaska in summer 2007. This is a big draw since companies charge hundreds of dollars for this & we do it pretty much for free. We have this stupid baton which we hope will become the Holy Grail of truck campering. We would love to send it to Europe for awhile at some point.

We involve manufacturers, we have been trying to get them involved in our forum. Some have. I think we will have more luck after the show in Nebraska this June. I have actually been talking to one in Britain, can't recall which brand, (Easy Campers?) he was going to try to make the show in Nebraska. I'm originally British, by the way. Not too far from you. A place called Churchdown between Gloucester & Cheltenham.

Paul

flaxi schrieb: do you really mean the canadian factory "Adventurer" ???

Felix,
No idea if they are Canadian or not... here a few pictures from the last meet we went to. Maybe you can make it out from the pictures...

[url:1bqe31kc]www.markeichmann.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=991[/url]

Dirk

I dont' think it is the same manufacturer. I would like to find out who they are so I can add them to the manufacturers list I maintain.

Paul,

wow, there's a lot of stuff in your post. It'll take me a little while to digest...

Sounds like you guys are miles ahead with your association. I guess you probably have a lot more members than we have over here and you therefore need to be a lot more organised. I will take my time and look around your sites and foward information to our 'board of directors'. They laugh their heads off when I call them that - no disrespect - but it just isn't formal in any shape or form!

I like the idea of the baton. Do you track it somehow on the Web. Sounds a bit like a Travel Bug if you're into Geocaching. I'm sure we could send it through a few European Countries. I think we have quite a number of different countries represented in this forum.

There are two companies here trading with EasyCampers. The original one is easycampers.co.uk, I know the guy pretty well and he possibly reads this topic at some point. Then someone else also started importing them from Sweden. I guess that's the guy you are in touch with. They are Swedish built demountables and pretty good allround (I'm biased as I own one, but bought in Germany).

Hey, original British? At least I know I won't be able to offend you with sarcasm and a twisted sense of humour - that's what you get being German married to a Brit (hoping her indoors won't read this ). Are you into Horse Racing? We just had the Cheltenham Festival and I managed to win a few quid, makes a nice change.

Catch you later
Dirk

Yes the baton is actually a tacky wooden stair rail, but it is tracked. It is currenlty in Southern california. Here is the link [url:2umm5lxa]www.natcoa-forum.com/index.php?showforum=112[/url]

The guy I was talking to was Nolan Rumsby.

We actually only started 8 months ago although the caravan & baton idea has been goinglonger. A couple of manufacturers ran with the idea & now we are putting on this show. Its grown almost too fast.

I do have a warped sense of humor that tends to go over the heads of our American friends at times.

Hello All! My name is Larry and I live in Corpus Christi, Texas and own a one ton Dodge pickup and haul a 9'6" Snowriver camper with a slide out. I am active in NATCOA, as is Paul Beddows. Mark posted on the NATCOA forum about this site and thought it would be interesting to exchange ideas and learn how the truck camper RV experience is done in other parts of the world. Looking forward to visiting here once in awhile to visit, read and look at the photos. Thanks for the neat site!

PS, I hope that someone can convert the board to english for me or tell me how it is done, thanks

Hi Larry, welcome to this forum. Thats funny..... last year I shipped a camper truck to Germany as I told above. A couple of weeks ago I bought a Dodge Ram 2500 at Ebay in.......... Dallas-Texas......... thats funny.....
Best regards
Felix