Tuesday Sept 14th- Aarups, Kortums, Jamisons and Dahlbergs are planning to caravan to the rally. We will assemble at 8:00 AM at the Monee rest area on I-57, and go south to the rally from there.
If others would like to join us, please call us to let us know you are coming, so can wait for you. The more the merrier.
Hope to see you at the rally. Mary and Ron Dahlberg. Our phone number is in the NIU directory.
The Fair Weather Gods smiled on us again and we had a great weekend. Thirteen member families enjoyed exploring the origins of this small town and the park history. The rally started with a presentation by Dale Hoppe, Directory of the Lorado Taft Campus, affiliated with Northern Illinois University, on the park site. He told us about the ”Eagles’ Nest” art colony which frequented the bluff at the turn of the 20th century and continued for the next fifty years. The Blackhawk Statue was designed by Lorado Taft, a young sculptor, as a tribute to all Native Americans. Dale told us the details of the creation and construction of this 48 foot tall statue, which overlooks the beautiful Rock River valley and its 100 year history. The statue gazes toward Oregon, as if keeping a watchful eye on the community. This artist community had a significant affect on Oregon’s development by adding statues to honor various historical entities.
Friday, many of us toured the 119 year old Ogle County Courthouse following the rededication ceremony. It has been remodeled, but retains the old wooden floors and wood counters. It now houses many county offices. It was built in 1891 and was placed on National Register of Historic Places in 1981. The new courthouse is across the street.
Friday,afternoon many of us visited the 127 year old Chana School Museum. The docent from the School Foundation, told the story of how it was moved from Chana to an Oregon Park in 1998. The school is unusual, being the only two-room wooden school in northern Illinois with this L-shaped configuration. It was cut in half, moved, reassembled and restored using a series of photos as guides and countless hours of volunteer labor. The Chana School was placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 2005. The classroom takes one back to the 1880s era (later in many rural communities) complete with old desk, free standing wood burning pot belly stove, and a globe suspended from a cable over the teacher’s desk. The Dixons’ two grandchildren, Lauren and Joe, were delighted to be allowed to pull the long rope that rings the huge bell in the bell tower. It preserves the past, providing a living history with many school artifacts for future generations.
Friday night, we visited Diane, the ‘Butterfly Lady”, for a talk about her hobby of raising Monarch butterflies. She collects eggs and feeds the caterpillars milkweed leaves from her flower garden. It takes just thirty days to complete the life cycle from egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis to the adult Monarch. She releases them, but tags the third or fourth generation. Diane belongs to a National Monarch Organization which supplies tags and keeps track of retrieved butterflies. Her offspring travel to the South, as many of us do, for the winter. They go to several locations in Mexico and just hang out until next spring. Actually, it takes four generations of Monarchs to complete the yearly cycle. No one is completely sure just how the various generations know what they need to do or what senses they use to do it.
Some of us toured on our own the “Conover Square Mall”, formerly the three story piano factory, this is a unique shopping village, where one can browse, shop, view their private museum and enjoy a large model train display.
Saturday morning, Warren Dutton and his wife, Linda, led a caravan to tour the ten statues located in the community. They have lived on five acres only one house away from the park for about 10 years, so there was no need to take the Airstream out of their garage to bring it over to the park. They spent many hours assisting President Carol with the rally and hosted the Saturday evening meal in the lower level of their home.
After the statue tour, we toured the 1908 Carnegie Oregon Public Library, where Linda is a volunteer. A second floor gallery was created at the suggestion of the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony. It is used for public art exhibitions and lectures. Eagle’s Nest Colony founder, Lorado Taft, persuaded fellow artists to donate over fifty works to the Oregon Public Library as a permanent collection. These paintings and sculpture remain in the library gallery to this day. The library needs of the community are changing and plans are in the works for the construction of a new larger library facility on property next to the Post Office. As a retired school teacher, Carol believes a library is a cornerstone in our educational system.
Jake, Warren’s next door neighbor, raises and races homing pigeons. We visited Jake to see his pigeons and loft. He told us of the details of his long standing hobby. He buys champion pigeons for up to $4,000 and then breeds them. The new generation develops the skills to find their way back to their birth home. The breeding pairs are never allowed out of the loft, as they would immediately fly back to their original home. He may race as many as 50 pigeons at a time. The use of pigeons to carry messages has been used for thousands of years. It developed into a hobby in Europe and there are now 700 pigeon clubs in the US with 7,500 members. The cash prizes to the winners, for a large race, can be as high as a million dollars. The winners are determined by the highest average speed of the pigeon to its home. These are not the common pigeons you find around barns and in cities, but are a very special breed. It is still a mystery as to how they do it without the aid of a GPS.
Sunday afternoon, we toured the Ogle County Historical Museum located in the Ruby Nash prairie home which was donated to the foundation upon the death of this long time community school teacher. We enjoyed viewing memorabilia from the Northern Illinois area covering aspects of farming, business, Indian tools, Civil War history, vintage furniture, clothing and household articles.
Food for the weekend was kept fairly simple with: Sloppy Joes, pancakes with sausages, Brats, Italian sweet sausages with peppers, omelets in a bag, pulled pork sandwiches, continental breakfasts, and lots of dishes to pass, provided by the members. Ice cream was served with Dwight’s birthday cake.
This treed Lowden State Park was a perfect setting for a rally, where the members could come together to enjoy a meal, a campfire, conversation, and experience the surrounding areas in Oregon, Illinois.
Link to the July Northern Newsletter:click here
Link to the Region 5 July 2010 Newsletter click here
We also had some great times talking around the campfire. Cooked some good meals outdoors and enjoyed eating under the EZ/UP canopy.
Johnson Sauk Trails SP website click here It is really a nice park and well worth camping there. The city of Kewanee also runs a nice smaller campground at Francis park.
Link to the Region 5 July 2010 Newsletter click here
It was a good convention/rally and the CAM-PLEX facilities served us well, even if the attendance was a little low at 714 rigs. Northern Illinois members attending were:Cristy’s, Dixon’s, Koch’s, B. Nester, Stirneman’s, Stuart’s and Withey’s.
Gillette is on a high dry plain and the wind blows continuously. Afternoon temperatures were in the 80’s and 90’s but cooled down to as low as the 50’s at night. We did have one heavy rain and wind storm on June 22nd. Gillette is a surface mining coal town in the middle of a boom. If you do not work at the mines, you likely support those who do. Wyoming was smart in retaining all mineral rights and therefore, the companies have to pay the state for every pound they dig up. There is 150 feet of overburden to remove and that reveals a low sulfur coal 100 foot deep seam, which is under much of the state in this area. Because of all the money coming in from the mines, they do not have any state tax, except a five cent sales tax.
We arrived on June 22nd after touring the Badlands National Park, SD and Devils Tower National Monument, WY. We went to the Donkey Creek Jazz Festival in Gillette and swam in their new Campbell County Recreation Center, a 64 million dollar water park/pool/sports complex. Many members took the tours of the surrounding area.
President, Carol Dixon won a second place banner in the originality category for her Northern Illinois Unit bulletin board. She also portrayed an Indian in the skit promoting next year’s International Rally in Du Quoin, IL.
Bonnie Nester will serve as Parliamentarian for Region 5. Norma Stuart, Ken Stirneman and 13 year old grandson, David Krabbenhoft, played in the WBCCI Band. Linda Stirneman worked in the message center, while Roy Stuart did cargo. Anita Koch made five hats and Ruelene Aarup knitted 150 hats in the past two years, which were included in the 1,576 total count. Many members donated pull tabs, food and other donations for Community Service. Mary Lou Cristy was a second place winner in Pinochle.
At the two IBT meetings many proposals were discussed but they did not change the Bylaws significantly. Thor proposed they could rebadge a Thor motor home as a WBCCI or Airstream edition, if WBCCI would approve it for membership. It would not be made, sold or serviced by the Airstream Division. A committee was set up to study the proposal again. This could lead to the IBT, at their Jan. 2011 meeting, asking for a Constitutional change again to approve membership of motor homes not made by Airstream. At the Gillette rally, the Delegates’ meeting did not have any Constitutional changes before them. The delegates voted into office all candidates proposed by the nominating committee. There were 1,200 votes cast for an opposition candidate, Mike Garvey, for the nominating committee, but that was not enough to elect him. .
We had perfect weather, once we arrived at Amboy. Sweet Italian Sausages smothered in sauted onions and green peppers were a hit Friday night with lots of dishes to pass. We ate outside under the porch roof. We convoyed 10 miles the Historic Lincoln Highways Association building in Franklin Grove. It was built by H.I. Lincoln, Abe’s distant relative, in 1860. Ten musicians, in different combinations, entertained us for three hours with folk, country and western, and more modern music. There were about 100 people in the audience with a wide variety of backgrounds. It reminded me of my time in the Greenwich Village Coffee houses in the Early ’60’s, but without the smoke.
Saturday morning we awoke to “Omelets in a Bag”, which was new for some of the 11 families that attended. While sitting at picnic tables on the patio, President Carol Dixon called our business meeting to order at 10:00. First we elected our unit officers for next year. Then we discussed how we could vote for the National Officers and Nominating Committee. The members voted to empower our delegate to be able to vote “in the best interest of the unit”, if a candidate became available from the floor or if other unscheduled motions needed to be voted upon. The board appointed Dwight Dixon as our representative and Bob Koch to be the alternate to the Delegate’s Meeting in Gillette.
The weather was great, and the ability to hold all of our activities outdoors, led us to the decision to exercise our option, we had negotiated with the fairground last fall, to not pay for the use of the building, saving us $200 and reducing the weekend rally fee from $64 to $44. At noon, we convoyed to the new Dixon four million dollar Riverfront Heritage Plaza Park on the Rock River, which runs through the center of town for a picnic lunch. Two members of the Dixon Tourist Board told us what new things are happening in Dixon and about the life size statue of a young Ronald Reagan on horseback, which now is the focal point of the river walk. A number of us toured the free and low cost local attractions: Lincoln’s Statue as a Blackhawk War volunteer, Reagan’s boyhood home, Welcome Center (featuring a film on The Lincoln Highway), and some also toured the many garage sales in search of a bargain. We had a variety of pork loin chops marinating in Italian dressing while we toured. Everything went on the unit grill when we returned to the fairground and Dwight managed the sizzle. Many more new and interesting dishes to past were created in the trailers and the feasting began. It got a bit windy but nothing we could not handle and it did not interfere with the evening campfire in our newly donated portable fire pit. Ice cream was brought out for those who wanted it and we all enjoyed the conversations around the fire. A few card games broke out on the lighted patio. Everyone was tired enough from their day’s activities by 10:30 to retire to their trailers.
Sunday morning arrived clear and calm with a continental breakfast with Walmart donuts. Dwight brought out his 19 in. Wok, made from an agricultural disc cultivator, and scrambled eggs and goodies. A short church service followed. Then it was time to cook up the remaining pork chops, we had not used last night. Some members had to leave early for pressing appointments and missed out on another great meal to lick the platter clean. Everyone had a good time.
Our Joint Rally with the Lincolnland Unit was a great success. Eleven units attended from Lincohnland and 14 from Northern. We had 3 Region and past Region officers stop by on the way back from the Region 8 rally. We toured the 7 communal colonies (villages) (on the 17 mile loop) and the factories and artisans keeping the Amana old German handcrafts alive. We consumed lots of good German food. There were some big rainstorms on Friday afternoon. Friday dinner was pulled pork.
Saturday, the weather was great for the big “Maifest” parade and Maypole dancing in Amana. Before our Bratwurst sauerkraut dinner, We had a great 1 1/2 hr.open discussion with the manager of the Amana INC, owned campground. He is a third generation member of the church, as well as an employee and a stockholder. This unique culture that still exists today and has a dual personality and goals of a corporation (who owns 25,000 acres of farmland) and a church. The corporation is run by a group of elders, who also rules the church. The “Inspirationalists” (also known as The Community of True Inspiration or the Amana Church Society) is an offshoot of the German Lutheran Church and emigrated to America in 1842 under the leadership of Christian Metz. It was a Utopian communal lifestyle, with no one in the church owning any personal property, was given up in 1932, and the Amana Society INC. was formed. After the “great change”, people worked for the church or outside the church, earned wages and received corporate dividends. People could buy houses and own personal property. However, many of the religious traditions still continue, although the required 11 church services per week have been reduced to only 6 meetings per week.
Brief history: click here
Google scan of early history: click here
A video from the “Heritage Museum” in Amana gave us a slightly different view of the history and distinctivel customs.
To learn more about the Amanas: check this link.
Two couples visited the Herbert Hoover’s home and Presidential Library/Museum and National Historic Site.
Amana Colonies Website: click here
We had videos from the Airstream Co. about Wally’s early caravans and ads on two evenings.
The Spring Luncheon - March 27th was held at Springhill’s Old Country Buffet in Dundee. Twenty-one members attend. There was lots of catching up with what we all did over the winter and planning for the summer events till 3:00 PM. PS - Lots of food.
Blue Beret online click here
March Blue Beret (Google Docs version) Click here
March Flier for Northern Illinois Unit : Click here
March International President’s Messageclick here
April International President’s Newsletterr click here
March 2010 Quarterly Financial statement for WBCCI in PDF format is available. E-mail Dwight for a download.
Airstream Life on line Spring Editon click here
Sixteen members attended our tour of the FermiLab Atomic Research Facility and luncheon at Harner’s Restaurant. The tour was very interesting and quite technical, as we peppered the docent with questions for two hours. To see what you missed Click here for virtual tour
At Harner’s quite a few of us ordered their famous chicken pot pie. New members, Mark Pankow and Brian McFarland, attended. Everyone had a great time.
Link to the Jan 2010 Northern Illinois Newsletter: click here
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Northern Illinois February Flier click here
Link to February Blue Beret on WBCCI.org site click here
International President’s February Newsletter click here
Twenty of our Northern Illinois snowbirds attended the luncheon at Travelers Rest. They shared stories of their adventures of the past year. Two potential members also came.
Airstream revised its product lineup for December Nashville RV Industry show. Llink: click here
January 23 - IBT meeting Proposals Link to the P& L summary for Madison Rally ($103K loss) and the proposed amendments to the Bylaws. click here
Summary Results of 2010 Mid Winter IBT Meeting
Proposal 1 - Name change Greater New Orleans Louisiana Unit – passed
Proposal 2- Accounting transaction to cover the $103,000 loss at Madison. Jerry Larson said, “In 2007 Madison would not book less than 1,200 trailers for $120,000.” Early reservations, in January 2009, showed we could not achieve this number, but the contractual commitments were such that, cancelling the rally would result in even a higher loss than continuing. He blamed the poor attendance on the poor economy. - Passed
Proposal 3- Make the Midwinter IBT Rally an Internationally sponsored rally.- Failed – It will remain a Region or Unit sponsored event.
Proposal 4 - Change Due date for International Rally Financial report – Passed
Proposal 5 – Provide 2 year budget planning – Passed
Proposal 6 – Make Financial statement conform to GAP – Passed
Proposal 7 – Unit Delegates to be appointed by Unit Executive boards – Passed
Proposal 8– cover expense of Incoming treasurer travel to budget meeting – Passed
Proposal 9- Correct Budgeting error – Passed
Proposal 10 – Correct accounting error – Passed
Proposal 11 – Correct accounting error – Passed
Proposal 12 – International Officers’ Expense budget – 25% reduction – Passed
Proposal 13 – Region Officers’ Expense budgets – 10% reduction – Passed
Proposal 14 – Increase member dues - $10 – Passed
Proposal 15 – Outlaw Proportional Voting – Failed
Proposal 16 – Reschedule IBT meetings to be within International Rally Dates – Withdrawn - Referred to the 2020 Committee
Proposal 17 - Marketing Budget - $5K this year, $15K next year - Passed
Proposal 18 – Grievance procedure changes – Passed
Proposal 19 – Grievance Probation Appeal – Failed
Proposal 26 – Reorganization of the Club into 7 Regions and make the International a rotating Region Function lasting one week. It would also remove 3rd International VP. – Rejected by IBT as improperly formatted and too big to tackle at this rally. Needs to be reworded into distinct proposed changes to the Constitution and Bylaws.- Withdrawn and forwarded to 2020 Committee for review and redraft.
None of the proposals that passed require approval at the Delegates’ meeting in June. All Bylaws changes become immediately applicable.
The Grievance committee expelled Leo Garvey from the club.
We held our Christmas Luncheon at D’Andrea Banquets, in Crystal Lake. Forty-two people attended and were treated to an excellent luncheon of Roast Sirloin of Beef and Chicken Marsala.
Before the luncheon, President Carol Dixon held a short business meeting to elect and install Jim Matkovich as our new Second Vice President.
After lunch, we were entertained by a 14 member choral group called “Voices in Harmony”. Everyone enjoyed their performance of Christmas music. We also had Carol’s twelve year old grandson, Robert Buccelli, play the piano for us before and after the luncheon. (This summer. he came to the Madison Rally.)
There were lots of table talk about the coming camping and touring season. Jim Kraner found out, from an Escapee’s notification, that the US Forest Service is proposing to reduce the Golden Age Passport discount from 50% to 10% at the majority of their parks. We are hoping the BLM and the Corp of Engineers do not follow their lead.
Henschen Axles, which were used in Airstream trailers since 1960, have decided to close their plant in Jackson Center and will no longer be making rubber rod torsion axles. Since 2004, Airstream has been buying their axles, brakes and frames from Dexter in Elkhart, IN. Airstream will be working with Dexter to see if Dexter can make replacement axles for the older units.
New members attending were: the Ewings, Bob McKee
Tom Collier’s (International President) - October Newsletter click here.
Tom Collier’s - Nov. Newsletter click here
Tom Collier’s - Dec. Newsletter click here
Vintage Airstream Club has a new website with new features -click here This link can also found on our links page.
We had rain for two days preceding the rally. This discouraged some people, but 11 hardy adventuring couples braved the rainy weather to bring their units to Amboy. The grounds were soggy, with up to 2 inches of standing water in some of our usual parking spots. People picked their sites carefully and many units parked close to the buildings on the gravel, without the benefit of water, rather than have the possibilities of getting stuck in the grass. Carol’s Friday dinner featured pork loin roasted in the Amboy oven and dessert cakes by Terry Chesnut.
The Executive board approved Carol Dixon’s trimmed down and balanced budget at their Friday evening meeting. The board also approved Wayne Kortum to be the Chairman of the Nominating Committee for 2010. Another item of discussion was the new membership flier.
For breakfast, Dwight and Lee Moyers prepared french toast to be served with sausage links. Seventeen more people decided to drive in Saturday to be with their friends. At the Saturday morning general meeting, we held the election for Carol, Terry, Anita, and Sue as the first item on the agenda. During an intermission, Bob Moyers, Region 5 President, officiated at the installation ceremony of the new officers. Carol Dixon, as our new president, resumed the meeting and presented a Unit Constitutional amendment to reduce the number of directors from 6 to 4. It passed. Carol showed the newly proposed Unit Membership Flier that will be designed and distributed to prospective members by Bob Koch, our long time Membership Chairman, and by members who wish to bring new people into our family.
After the meeting, we introduced our newest members, Deke and Tiffani Waters who paid their dues that morning. More about them later in the newsletter. We also served an Installation cake with a picture of an Airstream on it.
Dwight Dixon officiated at our shortened white elephant auction and raised almost $200 to help maintain our balanced budget. Kitchen preparation started immediately (led by Carol) for our Thanksgiving Banquet. Three turkeys were roasted this year in the Nesco’s. We had a total of 38 guests at the banquet. The food was great and abundant. Some of the homemade, “dishes to pass side” were amazing. Dwight brought in his newest acquisition, a commercial Soft Serve machine and people used it to make their pie a la mode. Six year old Christina Chesnut wanted hers in a large waffle cone. Some other members also opted for dishes or cones.
The evening entertainment included WBCCI DVD’s of the early Wally Byam Caravans using our new projector. Deke Waters saved the day when one of the DVD’s failed to load in the DVD player so Deke played it through his Apple Laptop to feed the signal to the projector. We watched one section of the, Vincent Price narrated, World Tour Caravan and the entire African Capetown to Cairo Caravan. It was very interesting and gave us a fresh perspective on their travels. Our little mud spots of the Lee County fairgrounds, this weekend, paled by comparison to the difficulties they encountered. They were a much hardier group than any of us.
Nancy Morrison conducted a short worship service Sunday morning followed by another luncheon buffet to finish up the left overs from yesterday’s feast. The weather had cleared by that time and the field had dried out. No one needed assistance to leave the grounds around 1:00.
Though out the weekend the hall was warm and filled with the sound of 42 people smiling, laughing, and holding conversations. A great time was had by all.