2021 Activities

What has CCLOA been doing? Here’s a glimpse into the office. It’s purely a glimpse since a complete list would take away from the projects for our members (there are only so many hours in a day!).

JANUARY

January is a lot about activating, reconciling, balancing, and processing every aspect of CCLOA.

The Board of Directors met on the 28th. Assembling their Board Packet takes weeks! Solidified our budget, which changed drastically in November, considered new partnerships and evaluated many aspects of CCLOA. Prepared for the 2020 income taxes. Prepared for the upcoming annual meeting and the rotation onto and off of our Board (there’s even some unexpected ones). If you’re interested in stepping into leadership, please contact Mary at info@CampColorado.com.

We are seeing amazing increases in traffic to our consumer website, compared to previous years.

FEBRUARY

Dove fully into our Camp Colorado marketing campaigns for the 2021 camping season. It gained full attention to ensure we’re inspiring people to book while most parks still have availability.

Added hashtags to every campground photo album on our Facebook page. (We also noted which albums are needing more photos, having put a few more road trips through the lens of a camera. Many of the newer pics have been used in other manners, but doing this hashtag project let me see which albums were lacking.)

Hosted more online sessions, stepping up the networking opportunities since that was a significant benefit our members found in being a part of CCLOA. That networking has been highly beneficial to those who are using these benefits.

Monitored legislative affairs.

We are preparing for the upcoming annual meeting, election, and auction.

MARCH

Meet your Board of Directors, as of the 2021 annual business meeting|
Upper left: Secretary Carrie York and Vice President Ivan Mehlhaff
Lower left: Treasurer Cathy Harbick
Upper right: Executive Director Mary Arlington
Lower right: far right President David Ozburn

Showing with David are Dee & Jim Ozburn. We’re recognizing them … AGAIN … for their unbelievable support to CCLOA. Jim and Dee Ozburn were recognized last year for decades of incredible support: financially with donations, serving on committees & projects, repeatedly finding ways to reduce CCLOA’s expenses (such as providing lodging when our ED travels to their region), and their decades of offering brainstorming input.

Well, every year we have an auction fundraiser. This year’s fundraiser was considerably challenged. Once again, they stepped up. They actually more than made up the DIFFERENCE between our average auction revenue and the online one we managed to host yesterday.

Dare I say how much “per park” their contribution tallies to? Well, I don’t have their permission to do that on this public site, so I won’t, but trust me … it was HUGE, and we THANK them!

Thank you, to Billy and Don, for serving on the Board!

Thank you to each attendee!

And thank you to each of those who are now serving on the Board of Directors!

Assisted with local zoning issues.

We’re pleased with the results we’re seeing with our marketing efforts.

Provided the CO perspective for the National ARVC Board discussions.

Reached out to some perspective members.

Began preparing for National Travel & Tourism Week is May 2 – 8. We encourage you to take a few moments on National Travel & Tourism Week to assist our industry as we all restore the U.S. economy, rebuild our workforce, and reconnect America. Show your social media audience some inspiring posts! If you’re into hashtags, consider using these that week: #nttw21, #NationalTravelandTourismWeek, and #PowerOfTravel You could get far more elaborate by using the toolkit created by the US Travel office: https://www.ustravel.org/toolkit/national-travel-and-tourism-week.

Suggested members consider ordering retail inventory from the RETAIL PARTNERS Colorado Caliber and Wilcor International. Both are found on the Roster of Industry Suppliers.

APRIL

Zoning and regulation concerns at the local level continue.

Wrapped up the final segments of our online sessions! Recordings are available through our office (contact us).

Encouraged members to use the Care Camps toolbox to create a simply yet effective fund raiser. They even have ways to help you get free labor to do some of your events FOR you! What better timing than when our campgrounds are expected to be busy this summer!! Here’s a quick video that shows you how: How to do more with less: Campground fundraising made EASY! You can email Jennifer Mercer from Care Camps with any questions from the training video: jmercer@carecamps.org.

Launched the CCLOA / Care Camps program. Check your email (4/15 afternoon) for our super simple process (or click here for the scoop).

Welcomed a new industry supplier member and announced it to our members. WELCOME, Conestoga Wagon Company®! We’re excited about starting a long relationship! Details are under the FOOTHILLS MEMBERS portion of the Roster of Industry Suppliers.

MAY

FYI: The industry publication Woodall’s Campground Management (WCM) has changed its name to Woodall’s Campground Magazine (WMC). You can read their press release by clicking here.

We love when the media, especially national media, calls attention to camping but not when they make it sound like it’s too late to book a campsite. Regarding this week’s CBS News story on camping, we added our 2 cents in a comment. Pic shows the comment. (Feel free to click the YouTube link and LIKE our comment, especially as your business if you have a business YouTube account.)

JUNE / JULY / AUGUST

Dove into wrapping up 2021’s admin and began the strategic planning of 2022 (membership benefit packages and such).

Updated our blog post about maintaining your data with CCLOA and with ARVC.

STATISTIC: Earlier this year, ARVC shared with us the results from a survey they performed. It produced 516 responses from both members and non-members. One specific detail was that the average number of sites from those was 185. In reviewing CCLOA’s database, Colorado members average a total number of sites is 83.

It’s been a busy admin year with so many sales and the welcoming of new owners. The trend continued into July!

We made our contribution to Care Camps, using funds generated by our 4/15 email offer and then padded with funds from our executive director. If you didn’t get in on this program, you can donate to them anytime by using the button on their home page: https://carecamps.org.

Launched our membership drives (outdoor hospitality, industry supplier, and associate) and began the administrative process of documenting and launching their individual benefits.

Continue meeting with CTO, Care for Colorado Coalition, the state parks, and other industry partnerships.

Continued our social media marketing efforts.

Began preparing for the September Board Meeting.

We were happy to see this article by the USA Today. Yes, we had a part to play in getting Winding River Resort on this list. Our Camp Colorado marketing often has a far reach.

(The last half of August and the first week went by with lightning speed without time to update this list. I saved some links where our members made the news, but they’ll have to wait until things settle down a bit.)

SEPTEMBER

Early September in our office is like Independence Day at the busiest campground in the state!

Final push for industry supplier memberships and associate memberships that launched on 9/1;
Launching industry supplier member benefits (intro videos, listings, session schedules, etc.);
Preparing for the Autumn Listening Tour, the autumn Board meeting, and several industry meetings;
Renewing park members for 2022;
Coordinating the upcoming events and getting things revamped on this .ORG website for our formal announcements to the parks after they’ve recovered a bit from summer and Labor Day;
Evaluating options for marketing grants that work for our Jan. – Aug. 2022 marketing plans;
and … quite simply … multi-tasking like crazy. It’s all exciting and fun, but this year I admit I’m challenged with a sinus problem that makes sitting upright a challenge. So please, I beg of you, be patient and considerate if you find that I didn’t sufficiently dots the i’s and crosses the t’s. Just kindly point out any broken links or whatever and I’ll repair it.

We monitor for news about camping and, from time to time, we feel the need to interject:

The last half of September is a blur to me as I activated more industry supplier memberships, extended the outdoor hospitality member renewal time since so many of you are overworked and understaffed, and revised (delayed) the online sessions for the same reason.

On 9/23, CCLOA applied for a matched marketing grant for 2022. We hesitated because evaluation of their guidelines revealed it would require a major shift in the workload. As you’ve maybe heard, we have been very diligent about ensuring the office workload is tolerably manageable. If the grant is awarded to us, I will commit to juggling the workload but it’s also my hope the members will commit to being responsive to emails, project deadlines, and dues reminders.

We welcomed some new 2022 members this month (they’ll be announced in January), and a 2021 and 2022 member: Riverwood Inn & RV Park in Delta. See more member news by clicking here.

OCTOBER (just a tiny glimpse!)

If you sense that the office is a bit chaotic, you’re right! If you don’t sense it, then I’m doing a fine job of hiding it. It seems I keep putting Jello in the refrigerator to gel but it just stays very liquid.

This is when the 2022 Camp Colorado Guide begins to come alive!

Meanwhile, we’re activating benefits for some new members.

Our education and networking programs were delayed and there have been shifts in the schedule, but they’re now moving forward!

On 10/13, the Board of Directors had their regularly schedule meeting. Recall our March meeting: our Treasurer’s Report included this, “We’ve tabled all travel for 2021, and Mary took a substantial pay cut to balance our budget.” Well:

UPDATE: In recent months, several members contacted President David Ozburn and offered funds for CCLOA’s travel budget.
UPDATE SINCE 10/13: Two trips are now planned: Raleigh for ARVC’s OHC, and Branson for the first annual Campground Owners Expo. If you’re attending, please understand I’m on orders to follow some medical guidelines (immunocompromised), so I won’t hug (elbow bumps are allowed).

Distributed the marketing materials from our industry suppliers to our 2022 outdoor hospitality members (via USPS and email).

Preparing for the fall line-up of industry meetings.

Learned that we weren’t selected for the matched marketing grant. They had many more applicants than funds, and some sectors of the tourism industry have been considerably harder hit than the camping industry. The Board will meet again in November (as planned) to finalize our 2022 budget.

NOVEMBER

Continued hosting online sessions.

Attended the 2021 Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference virtually. It was fabulous to see Andy Neines (fellow member; owner of Royal Gorge Cabins) on panel presentation / discussion called CARE FOR COLORADO — THE STEWARDSHIP BALANCE.

Attended ARVC’s Outdoor Hospitality Conference & Expo (OHCE). As you scroll through the pics, you should be able to see some captions I added for you. (There’s more info below after these pics):