FMCA will soon allow Towable Owners
RV Business
The Family Motor Coach Association’s (FMCA) iconic monthly magazine — Family Motor Coaching — will have a new name and page design when the May issue hits the stands. And the association itself will take a new approach by emphasizing its traditional ”FMCA” acronym instead of the full name of the Cincinnati-based membership club.
Both the magazine makeover — the new name is Family RVing — and rebranding follow FMCA’s rules change late last year in a member referendum that approved inviting towable RV owners into the organization.
”The redesign would have happened, regardless of the outcome of the vote,” Pamela Kay, FMCA director of communications, told RVBUSINESS.com.
The name change is intended to reinforce FMCA as a family-driven organization. ”We kept ‘Family’ in the title because that’s what FMCA is about — families,” Kay said.
A design firm is helping FMCA redesign the magazine, Kay said, noting that Family Motor Coaching’s design hadn’t been updated in a decade. ”That’s a long time for a magazine,” she added.
Family RVing’s content will change to incorporate towable RVs in the new format. In fact, Family Motor Coaching’s February cover, Kay noted, contained a photo of a Class A motorhome and fifth-wheel trailer. ”Family RVing will continue to be more about people than equipment,” she said.
Published initially as a quarterly magazine when FMCA was formed in 1963, Family Motor Coaching became a monthly in the 1970s.
In the membership referendum that ended in November, FMCA members opted to allow towable owners to join the organization by a vote of 6,820 to 2,981.
Although only about 13% of FMCA’s approximately 74,000 members voted, ”It’s like an election,” Kay said. ”Those who didn’t vote were saying that they didn’t feel strongly one way or the other.”
Since the November vote, FMCA has approved more than 600 towable owners for membership.
The first opportunity they will have to attend an FMCA event as members will be at its 97th International Convention and RV Expo March 15-18 at the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter in Perry, Ga. Overall preregistration for the event, Kay reported, is the best since 2011.
Originally published here.
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