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Newmar Kountry Klub
355 N. Delaware Street
PO Box 30
Nappanee, IN 46550
Toll Free: 877-639-5582
Phone: 574-773-7791
Fax: 574-773-5130
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Klub Office Hours:
8:30am to 4:00pm |
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rev. 9/29/11 |
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Welcome to the Newmar Kountry Klub “Members-at-Large” web page! The Klub Members-at-Large are elected by the membership to serve as your representatives on the Klub’s Board of Directors – in other words, to serve as Ombudsmen to assure that your voice is heard at the Klub’s highest leadership levels.
We all know the RV industry and RV clubs in general are dealing with some serious challenges. Newmar and the Kountry Klub are obviously facing those challenges as well.
The Members-at-Large section of the Klub website is an attempt to meet one of those challenges – “How do we make sure our members voices are heard, recognizing that travel costs are increasing and we will most likely be traveling less than we would like.” Ideally, we would like to meet and talk with every member. But, in the absence of personal contact, we welcome your phone calls and emails.
f your input is of a general nature, we will include it in a future Konnection article and post it here. If your questions or comments are of a specific nature, We will try to respond to them directly.
But we can't do our job unless we hear from you! We look forward to hearing your questions, comments and concerns. |
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Jim and Sue Hagedon
Members at Large
Marana (Tucson), AZ
Phone: 520-603-1190
jimandsue@hagedon.net
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| October, 2011 Konnection Article
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Where did the Summer go? Since we left Tucson in mid-April, we've traveled over 10,000 miles!. After the International Rally in Essex Junction, we joined the Newfoundland caravan, then worked our way West to lay out a Klub Caravan to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Glacier National Parks that would start from Gillette, Wyoming at the conclusion of the 2012 International Rally. Stay tuned for more info in the near future.
To say that we had a great time on our travels would be a serious understatement! The Newfoundland Caravan was just unbelievable. A link to photos from the caravan is in the August Happenings email. If you haven’t seen the pictures yet, they are worth a look.
As we’ve traveled, we’ve been able to spend a lot of time with our fellow Klub members and our belief that there isn’t a finer group of people has been re-affirmed many times over. We’ve also had many opportunities to talk with other Newmar owners and, of course, we always take the opportunity to expound upon the benefits of Klub membership.
It continues to amaze us how few of these folks even know about the Klub. As you travel, please take a few moments to strike up a conversation with a fellow Newmar owner. Don't forget to let them know that if they join now, they will get their second year of Klub membership for free!
In our role as Members-at-Large, one of the questions we get asked most often is, “How is Newmar doing?” Understandably, most Newmar owners have an interest in the company's health and we try to stay up to date on current information about the company. Other good sources of information are the Newmar website, www.newmarcorp.com and Newmar's presence on Facebook. If you are a FaceBook user, you can “like” Newmar by going to www.facebook.com/gonewmar. Information on company activities are added to their page on a regular basis.
Newmar's prosperity is also important to the Klub's future, because it's hard to imagine how the Klub would exist without the company. And, while Newmar's future certainly isn't dependent on the NKK, we can tell you from first-hand experience that our support is really appreciated. So, when you have an opportunity to speak favorably about our favorite RV's, it helps not only the company, but the Klub as well.
On a personal note, we celebrated ten years of Klub membership in July, having joined shortly after we purchased our first Newmar rig – a 2002 Dutch Star. Three Newmars and 170,000 miles later, we look back on many wonderful times and great friendships that would probably not exist if it hadn't been for joining the Klub. It was probably one of the best decisions we ever made!
We're winding down our travel for a while and will be back in Tucson by mid-October. While we'll be off the road for a while, we still value your feedback and can be contacted by email at jimandsue@hagedon.net or by phone, 520-603-1190. As always, we really would like to hear from you! |
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| August, 2011 Konnection Article |
| You may have noticed a change in the photo and header for this month’s column. At the May Klub Board meeting the International Directors moved and the Board approved a change in the job
description for Member-at-Large.
As originally written, the Member-at-Large position is an individual. Every other Klub job description is for an individual or couple, which is one of the things we have always liked about the way the Klub operates. “Two heads are better than one,” may not always be true, but, at least in our case, we have pretty different strengths and weaknesses, and we tend to make much better decisions when we think things through together.
We really enjoyed this years’ International Rally in Essex Junction. We had mostly good weather, excellent meals and entertainment, and great door prizes! Newmar Service and Newmar suppliers
at the rally did their usual fine job of helping Klub members with their service issues.
Although rally attendance was definitely down, most of the people we talked with had a great time and really seemed to enjoy the more intimate nature of the event. Having the Miller family, and Newmar executives Dick Parks, John Sammut and their wives with us was also much appreciated. Everyone who wanted to spend some time talking with our special guests had ample opportunity to do so. The first, and hopefully annual, dog show was a huge hit. Photos of the entire event are posted on
the Klub website, www.newmarkountryklub.com. Follow the link on the website home page.
We want to especially thank Jim & Wilma Weeks for all of their hard work before and during the rally. The past few years have been difficult for the Klub and this rally presented its own set of unique challenges. We believe Jim & Wilma are providing excellent leadership for the Klub and we enjoy working with them.
Following the International Rally, we headed for Maine, the Maritime Provinces and then joined the Klub’s Newfoundland Caravan. By the time we get back to the States in mid-August, we expect to have had our fill of seafood-at least for a little while. We plan to spend the rest of our travel season in the northern and western parts of the country, before heading to Tucson in early November.
As we travel, we will look forward to seeing and talking with as many Klub members as possible. If we don’t have an opportunity to meet face-to-face, we still value your feedback and can be contacted by email at jimandsue@hagedon.net or by phone, (520) 603-1190.
As always, we really would like to hear from you! |
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| May, 2011 Konnection Article |
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Vermont, here we come! Early May finds us around the “Home Office” in Nappanee, but we will be working our way toward Vermont and will be at the Exposition Center in Essex Junction by Memorial Day for meetings and rally setup. We love Vermont and New England in general and are looking forward to our time there, enjoying the rally, meeting old friends, and making new ones. Sue and I hope to see you there.
In my April Konnection column, I wrote about my hope the Klub could move forward on some communication issues I believe are pressing needs for our organization. In particular, I strongly supported sending out a monthly email to the membership. Since I wrote the April article (in late February), we had a “breakthrough” and found a way to a send out a monthly email message in a very inexpensive and easy-to-do way.
By now, assuming the Klub office has your current email address, you should have received a March and an April issue of Happenings. Quoting from the first issue, Happenings is “a monthly email note to our Klub members, highlighting upcoming events and other activities we think you will want to know about. Because we can provide info in a very timely manner, Happenings will be a forward-looking publication, with articles intended to be no more than a few paragraphs long. We think these email messages will compliment the Konnection magazine, which is more suited to in-depth stories and articles that are less time-sensitive.”
Of course, if we don’t have a working email address for you, you aren’t receiving the emails. Some statistics:
Around 20% of our members have not supplied the Klub with an email address.
Of the email addresses we do have, nearly 10% bounced back as being invalid.
Bottom line here is, if you want to receive Happenings, you need to make sure the Klub office has a current, working email address on file for you.
If you are receiving the emails, please let the Klub know what you think. What do you like? What don’t you like? What would you add, or what would you take out? We want this to be a publication that works for you. If we get this right, it will be a communication you look forward to receiving. If we don’t, it will become just another email that clutters up your inbox. And nobody wants that.
Travel safely and we hope to see you down the road! |
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