Local clubs provide friendly assistance

Press, 15 August 1978, Page 19

Local clubs provide friendly assistance

If you really want to learn about caravanning, join your local caravan club. You will find the members friendly, helpful and delighted to have you along. There are three clubs in Christchurch — the A.A. (Canterbury) Caravan Club, the Christchurch Caravan Club and the Garden City Caravan Club. Between them these three clubs cater for some 750 members with the A.A. club being the largest.

All told, there are about 35 clubs in New Zealand and their one communal aim is to help families enjoy caravanning more. Thirty-one of these clubs have joined together to form the Associated Caravan Clubs of New Zealand and this represents some 2500 caravanners.

Each club helps to provide a social gathering place where people with like interests can meet and make friends. The accent is strongly on family togetherness. The clubs hold regular rallies, which take place at week-ends or public holidays. Members take their caravans to the rally venue which could be a schoolground, a camping ground, a domain, a farmer’s paddock, a river bank — there are no set places to go. The rally captain will meet you, show you where to park and tell

you where you can buy food and where the ablutions block is. If you are new to the club, he will see that you are introduced to others. During the rally there are community morning and afternoon teas to which you would be expected to take along a plate and your own chairs. There will be organised events, such as lighthearted competitions, visits to places of interest and often a dance or barbecue is arranged for Saturday night. You do not have to take part in these events but they are there if you want to. Throughout the rally, the emphasis will have been on enjoyment — of leaving the working week worries behind. You will have been welcomed as a family and, if you have children, they would have been encouraged to join in the activities. Through talking to other caravanners, you will learn more about caravanning. You will pick up lots of handy hints.

As well as organising regular rallies, your club can also help with other things such as securing rational legislation and bylaws governing the use of motor vehicles and caravans. The club can help to protect your interests against unjust or unreasonable legislation. It can

also encourage the improvement and proper construction of motor vehicles and caravan camps. Membership of a caravan club can help you in many ways then, but per-

haps most important, it enables you to make friends with people from many walks of life all of whom share a common interest.