We set off for Barcaldine after breakfast. We arrived at Barcaldine at eleven o'clock. There was no queue and we were sited quite quickly. We were at the far end of the rally site quite a drive from the common areas. This will probably not be a problem as there isn't much activity in the common areas that will attract us. Happy hour will be near our site in "Outer Mongolia". It was obvious that they had sited a lot of people yesterday after the attempt on the longest ever motorhome cavalcade world record of about 700 vehicles. We understand that they missed the record by 43.
Happy hour started out quite disappointingly small but by some time after five we had twenty or thirty people in the circle. The rally being so extremely spread out, many of the chapter members were probably having happy hours of their own. The only downside to this was that Jean wasn't able to get to talk to many of the ladies of the Aussie Wandering Red Hatters. It is to be hoped that this will be resolved by Jean and some of her chapterettes going to morning tea in the pavilion dressed in their regalia to raise awareness of the Red Hat Society. The rules of the rally forbid the promotion of any organisation outside CMCA at the rally with a penalty of expulsion from the rally so there may possibly be a new gathering of motorhomers at a local camping spot if the officious CMCA officials decide to take action against the Red Hatters.
We were entertained to dinner by Philip and Helene who had cooked enough fish for the four of us.
I took Jean to the common morning tea to which she had invited all Red Hatters. I went to town to find internet access so that I could download the latest MacOSX update without using the limited download limit I have on the Telstra wireless modem plan. The shop was shut so I will have to go another time. While I was in town I did some shopping.
In the afternoon we had a Chapter happy hour with more people than yesterday.
I took Jean to the common morning tea again. She reported that only three Aussie Wandering Red Hatters turned up. They were joined by two other Red Hat Chapter queens from Redcliffe and Casino but neither of these ladies had their regalia with them.
I went to the NRAEC meeting to see if I could find out what was going on. Nothing of significance was revealed.
After lunch I took Jean to town to try and find the other shoe shop in the town She didn't find the sandals she was after but she did buy some new runners to replace the expensive ones she has been wearing for the last n years but which have now died.
We visited some friends for afternoon tea and came back to Outer Mongolia to the Chapter happy hour albeit a bit late.
We went to the common morning tea. I went to a Self-containment Inspectors meeting. The General Manager explained why the original Self-containment Scheme was being replaced by a Leave No Trace Scheme. His version of the negotiations between Ross and Robin and CMCA was pretty slanted to make us the cause of the failure to reach agreement. While it is true that we would not back away from our requirement that we continue to control the technical aspects of the scheme, they never changed their position that we should have no control over their implementation of our scheme.
I was amused that the National Coordinator refused to let me have copies of the documentation of their new scheme saying that "It is nothing to do with you". I refused to debate this with him. I asked the Chairman of the Board to arrange for me to get copies which he did.
I read the documents and found that my fears that the CMCA would not have the necessary technical expertise to control the scheme if we had signed it over to them was thoroughly justified. The new scheme is technically inadequate and contains little of the specification requirements which make the original scheme so technically strong. I remember a report from one of our Inspectors who was asked to address the technical managers of a local council. The comment at the end of his presentation was "Where did CMCA find the resources to develop such a technically excellent scheme and how much did CMCA have to pay for it?" The answer was, of course, "In the membership and at no cost".
One of the odd features of the new CMCA scheme is that it is based on self-assessment with no mandatory interaction between Inspectors and applicants for certification. There are other features of the new scheme which are hard to understand. One of the commitments in the "Declaration" to which members must commit is that they never use levelling blocks. There is also a commitment "to purchase fuel, food or supplies as a form of thanks, whenever feasible".
I spoke to my Eco-Camping Australia partner, Ross, and said that I was now very comfortable with the Eco-Camping Australia Scheme because the new CMCA scheme is not in the same ball park. I have no doubt that they will get many more "certified" vehicles which will boost their PR campaign but any authority which examines the technical content of the new CMCA scheme will be disappointed.
Jean had her major gathering of Red Hat ladies at the Big Morning Tea. Only XX turned up which was a but disappointing. Jean announced that she wouldn't be going to rallies any more. She said that if anyone wanted to take over as the Queen of the Aussie Wandering Red Hatters, she would arrange the changeover, otherwise the chapter would become a Barraba based chapter instead.
In the evening we had a combined Highway Wanderers and Big Rigs sausage sizzle. Someone had asked why we couldn't have our own chapter affair but got no real answer. We, of course, don't have to worry about issues like that any more as we will only be participating in chapter gatherings of groups we get on well with.
As we were leaving the happy hour, someone dropped and broke a beer bottle. While I was picking up the shards I cut my thumb quite badly and lost a deal of blood until I got back to the Motley and applied some butterfly closures to deal with the cut.
The most significant feeling we will take away from this rally is that many, many members are unhappy about the way that rallies and the club are run. Several people have said that they believe that rallies are run for the benefit of board members and volunteers and that ordinary members wants and needs are totally ignored.